The proprietress, Tofek Schools, Abule Egba, Lagos, Mrs. Temitope Odutola, has warned parents against supporting their children in examination malpractice.
Odutola, who spoke to our correspondent on Wednesday, noted that those supporting the vice were destroying the future of their children.
She also urged parents to stop registering their children for external examinations at “miracle and special centres.”
She noted, “The best way to kill the “miracle and special centres” where the focus is to engage in sharp practices, is for parents who register their children in such places to retrace their steps, and those centres will die a natural death. It is a pity that some parents want their children to run before they can walk.
“There are two categories of parents. There are those that want to build the future of their children and there are those that want to destroy it. It is a wrong notion to conclude that examination malpractice is only common among private schools. It is not true. In my school, I do not entertain or encourage examination malpractice.”
Odutola, who appealed to examination bodies in charge of secondary school education to review some of their guidelines, especially the number of candidates each secondary school should register for the West African Examinations Council, added that poor implementation was frustrating the 6-3-3-4 system of education.
She said, “The government, in recent times, introduced some good policies in education, but the implementation has been the problem.
“The government conception of the 6-3-3-4 system of education is good. At the end of the junior secondary school, the pupils who want to take to practical vocation can branch out and those who want to pursue academics can continue. This system of education was scuttled due to lack of facilities.”
Odutola, who also lauded the government for introducing trade and entrepreneurial studies in the new secondary school curriculum, frowned on its implementation.
She added, “As good as Trade and Entrepreneurial studies is, because it has other components such as catering, barbing, auto mechanic, tie and dye, bricklaying, among others, there are no schemes of work and text books for effective teaching. How then does the teacher teach?”
On the recent UNESCO’s statistics revealing that 10.5 million children in Nigeria have no access to basic education, she blamed it on the government’s non-chalant attitude.
She added, “I would say this is a failure on the government’s part because education has not been given the priority it deserves. So many students are qualified to enter the university, but there is no space to accommodate them.
