BECE has improved quality of education in Lagos- Perm Sec

By Esther Taiwo

As 10,873 pupils in Lagos State sat for the Paper and Pencil Test placement examination into Junior Secondary School 1 across 43 centres, ESTHER TAIWO joined officials of the State Ministry of Education and Examination Board to monitor conduct of the examination in some of the centres.

At Keke High school Ifako Ijaye, Director Administration and Human Resources Ministry of Education, Mrs. Folashade Lediju, said the placement test exercise went on very smoothly and hitch-free; everything was in order, the answer sheets referred to as the Optical Mark Reader, OMR, had picture of the student on it with the examination numbers, and the name on it.

To avoid mix up, the questions were randomized so there won’t be room for examination malpractice.

“We also ensured that we all started the examination at the same time 9am, we have enough classrooms, we don’t have any overcrowded classes, pupils sat comfortably for them to write the exam and we are very hopeful that they will perform very well”, she said.

She said parents were also sensitised to give the children breakfast 30 minutes to the examination so as to avoid casualty.

“We want to prevent any unforeseen preventable security risk so we have asked parents to leave them to write their exam after which they go home and have their lunch and I think that has helped us a lot, the parents are also cooperating and they understand why we are trying to protect the children”.

The director confessed that there will always be room for improvement every year during the conduct of the examination as the monitoring teams go around.

“From their report we always have one or two things that we think we should be able to do better so for this year for instance the OMR sheet usually the passport picture is usually small and tiny but now we have enlarged the picture so you can see your child picture clearly on the OMR no room for mix up , we have eliminated that error the names are boldly written”, she said.

She also explained that when the pupils come into the examination halls, they fill attendance sheet also with their pictures so as to confirm that they attended the exam and that they wrote the exam

“That has also helped our head count so we know the number of students who are supposed to be in a particular center we know how many have come. For instance in Keke high school we have 220 but about 13 of them are not here because they went for the federal entrance examination “, she said.

At Agidinbi Junior Grammar School Ikeja, the Tutor General Permanent Secretary (TGPS) District 6, Mrs. Okelola Oludara Oyebisi, said there are five centres under the District 6, saying the examination has not witnessed any challenge in all the centers and that everything has been in order.

At Government Senior College, Agege, Director and registrar of Lagos State Examination Board, Dr. Oluwafemi Hassan, said out of the 10,873 only about 200 candidates were absent and did not participate because the federal exam was going on and the pupils were participating.

“The conduct of the examination has been tremendous and very okay, it has elicited positive responses from these candidates so even by the time they are posted into JSS 1 you will see a greater improvement in the students, winning awards because we have served the best from the beginning, BECE has improved the quality of education in Lagos”, he said.

He said this is because government has put in place facilities such as enough furniture.

He implored parents to take part in the examination so that their children can enjoy more of what the state government is giving to the public because there are facilities on ground.

“This year for security reasons we came out with a new Optical Mark Reader which is a total departure from the OMR people used to know. You know the randomization is still there so people can’t cheat then even if we do not put invigilators in the hall they can’t cheat”, he said.