The National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Rivers is set to raise the integrity standard in the conduct of examination in Nigeria, the state Director of the agency, Mr Oliver Wolugbom, said.
Wolugbom said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Port Harcourt that it was the agency's responsibility to ensure the right attitude to and orientation in the conduct of examinations at all levels of education in the country.
"We are looking at raising the integrity standard in conduct of examination. We found out that in the past, most of our children, most of our wards, are not doing well in all levels of examination and National Orientation Agency thought it wise that it is proper to get stakeholders to find why we are having this problem, why this difficulty?
"We have found out that from the little work we have done, that it is not just one, from one particular stratum, it cuts across parents, teachers, students, government and even peer groups.
"So we want people to come and make contributions because it is part of our responsibility to get what we call feedback mechanism. Part of it is to hear from the people what are the problems, what are those things militating against us.
Having poor records when national examinations are conducted, you are aware, in the past few years, we have been doing badly in our national exams, NECO, WAEC and all that.
"Even those who have certificates in the tertiary institutions cannot defend them; some of them carry long certificates but there is nothing to write home about, they can't speak good English.
"They can't even spell their names well, some of them cannot even communicate effectively and so, we are looking at the problems."
Wolugbom said it was based on the foregoing that the Agency invited stakeholders to assist identify the problems.
He noted that with the collaboration of stakeholders, there would be solutions to the falling standard in the nation's education system.
