JAMB — Tech Or Theft?

I grew up at time one may comfortably describe as the requiem of public secondary education in Lagos State. At this time, there was a generalized scare for public Secondary schools largely because it had become a place for the lumpen poor, a mass production of some sorts with zero attention to learning environment and a lethargic quality assurance mechanism. This is in spite of the obvious fact that we had qualified but poorly motivated teachers.

The private schools were giving the comfort necessary for learning and other incentives at a fair cost, what was lacking was quality staffers as these new capitalist owners of private schools paid peanuts and expectedly they can only employ “monkeys”. The difference then was that they began a system of sophisticated malpractice that provided bogus end results for poorly bred minds. This marked the emergence of “special centres” for WAEC examination. So, we started hearing remarks like, “students no dey make their WAEC for public school”.

So, in spite of Tinubu’s free WAEC fees at the time, many parents caught the bug of this narrative and began to enroll their children into these private schools where they can “make” their WAEC exams. Here you find a class of over 50 students promoted to SS3 in a public school with only about 10 students enrolling for WAEC exams in same school. Others move to private schools where they pay 5 times the actual exam fee, and the “Making” process begins with private school Administrators compromising WAEC examiners who permit all sorts of malpractices including writing the answers for students on the board.

Many of these schools raised billboards announcing to prospective “customers” that their students “make” WAEC results in one sitting. Trust Lagosians and hype and rest assured that by the following year the school would repeat same feat with even greater dexterity. The same bug may have caught up with JAMB at a more sophisticated level.

I am not saying anything new, but I think JAMB should overhaul their tech team and put private schools that register their Students enmass for JAMB exams on the watchlist. You might just be shocked at the outcome.

Nigeria go better… nke putara o na ewu!

— Mazi Ejimofor Opara