5-year jail term for exam cheats unfair - ICPC

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission has faulted the five-year jail term proposed for examination fraudsters. It said the law was unfair to students, who were not provided with basic learning tools.

It blamed the spate of examination frauds in the country on infrastructural deficiency in the education sector.

The Chairman, ICPC, Ekpo Nta, in an interview, said more examination cheats were found in schools where there was shortage of human and material resources.

"It is very rare. Laboratories, libraries, computers, dormitories,
dining halls and highly qualified teachers are in such schools. How
will a child who has gone through such schools be involved in exam
malpractices?

"By the time you begin to check those arrested for exam malpractices,
they are from community schools, where
there is a math teacher for the whole school; no science teacher. And
then, you turn around to arrest a child who is
a victim (of the inadequacies).

"If you prosecute such a child and jail them for five years, when you never gave them an opportunity, you will only make them toughened criminals when they are out. You didn't give them a chance in the first instance, then, you jailed them in addition," the ICPC boss observed.

President Goodluck Jonathan, through the immediate past Education Minister, Prof. Ruqquayat Rufa'i, had introduced a fine of N200,000 or five-year jail term or both for examination cheats.