Parents are behind exam malpractice, not students — Oloyede

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JAMB Registrar Prof Ishaq Oloyede

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Former Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has blamed parents for driving examination malpractice in Nigeria, saying they play a greater role in encouraging the practice than the candidates themselves.

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Speaking during an interview on ThisDay Live on Sunday, Oloyede described parents’ involvement in examination fraud as the most painful aspect of his decade-long tenure as JAMB registrar.

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According to him, many parents deliberately expose their children to dishonest practices in a bid to secure admission into tertiary institutions.

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“The most painful period of my experience in JAMB had to do with the level of involvement of parents in organisation of examination malpractice.”

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He added, “They are introducing their wards, their children to the world of criminality.”

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Oloyede maintained that candidates are often not the architects of examination malpractice, insisting that parents bear greater responsibility for the growing trend.

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“I have no difficulty. And I think most of the candidates are not problematic. They are not the problem. The problem are the parents.”

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The former JAMB boss said he was often moved by the extent to which parents went to facilitate cheating during examinations.

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“Every time I was confronted with the reality of what parents were doing. It’s most of the time I became very emotional about it because I just felt that how on heart will people hate themselves, hate their future to this level.”

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He argued that parents should strive to give their children a better foundation rather than passing on negative values.

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“Because it’s like, even if you have deficiency, you wouldn’t want to pass the deficiency to the next generation. But that’s what many people do with their parents.”

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