Rauf Olayemi, Bauchi
Top officers and some school administrators in Bauchi state are to be punished by the State government, over 15,000 cases of exam malpractice during the 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
Commissioner for Education, Dr. Aliyu Tilde made this known on Wednesday in his office while briefing newsmen.
The Commissioner said, "52,000 students sat for this year's BECE with 45,000 of them from public schools.
He said there were 15,000 cases of examination malpractice in the essay part. "I have video evidence of the exam malpractice in my possession.
"We are not going to punish the students but certainly we will punish the top officers. And we will not allow them to conduct subsequent exams. That is the least we can do and, we will do that."
Tilde regretted that his Treasury Single Account of the ministry was truncated two days after the Governor dissolved the cabinet in July.
"That tells me what will happen when I leave the office. We must change the leadership of the ministry if we must make a change. Within two days when I left the office when the cabinet was dissolved, I heard some people went and withdrew money in a sack and were sharing cash", Tilde said.
"Don't be surprised when you hear of some changes in the ministry. We must change things."
He said, a placement test for willing students has become necessary because "only about one-third of students admitted through Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) report to schools.
According to him "they prefer day and private schools. Having learnt the hard way for two years, we have no option but to go the way we used 21 years ago to admit students into the Special Schools during the Mu’azu era. That method of admission has been yielding the desired results for two decades now," Tilde said.
He added that the exam has started since Monday 8th November and would end Sunday 15th November 2021 for only the indigenes of the State.
In his words, "the exam is ongoing in 23 centres from 9am to 4pm, the test would make them eligible for admission into JSS1, JSS2 , SS1 and SS2 of our boarding schools".
"No child will be admitted into boarding secondary school unless he is willing and found to be worthy of the extra investment of government in building the future of the State. No admission into SS1 Merit Schools through BECE. All BECE admissions this year will be into Day Schools, while those that are admitted into Merit Schools can be turn down.
"We are also admitting students into SS2 to fill in the vacancies that we have. In order to get quality students that will graduate in SS3, the State Executive Council in 2020 permitted the Ministry to reintroduce Junior Secondary School classes in the Merit Schools as well. This will allow for the proper grooming of the child as we have been doing in the Special Schools," he said.
