students writing exams in Nigeria

The Executive Secretary, Benue State Examination Board, Mr Alexander Asen, has exposed some clever techniques devised by some supervisors in  aiding cheating by some students during certificate examinations in the state.

Asen told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Makurdi that some of the techniques included the use of non verbal communication skills and loud speakers where answers to questions are read out.

He said the use of body gestures was the most commonly used by supervisors to provide answers to questions.

“I noticed this when I paid a surprise visit to one remote school in one part of the state, where I saw an invigilator using his fingers to communicate answers to students.

“He was raising his fingers intermittently, sometimes he would raise one, yet at other times, three or four while he occasionally jumped.

“I asked the principal if the man was okay, but he simply laughed it off.

“In my curiosity to find out what was happening, I asked a student, who didn’t know me what was the problem with the fellow in the examination hall and he told me with excitement that “today’s exam was good”.

“Each time the man raised his finger up, the answer to the question was A, two fingers meant B, while three, four and five fingers up represented C, D and E respectively”.

He said the board had reported such schools with high incidences of cheating to the appropriate authorities and was expecting sanctions against them.

The Executive Secretary said the board had achieved modest successes in ensuring the sanctity of examinations regardless of the cheating techniques.

He said the examiners had adopted strict measures in ensuring that beneficiaries of cheating never survived the marking process, explaining that scripts from a particular centre that carried the same answers, scores were kept aside for scrutiny.

“We also pay particular attention to schools that score very high marks in the examinations; most of these schools are from the remote areas, where these things are prevalent”.

He said the board was still evolving ingenious ways of checking malpractices during examinations and called on parents to assist the board in tackling the social ill. (NAN)