Nigerian govt establishes central examination malpractice unit

The federal government has established a Central Examination Malpractice Unit to tackle widespread cheating in Nigeria’s education system.

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The Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, disclosed this on Tuesday at the 2025 policy meeting organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

Mr Alausa outlined several measures aimed at restoring integrity to examinations and admissions across all levels of education.

According to the minister, the newly created unit, housed within the Federal Ministry of Education and chaired by the ministry’s permanent secretary, will serve as a national clearinghouse for the documentation and reporting of examination malpractices across all levels of the educational system.

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He said this central database will be available to all institutions and the analytical bodies in the country.

“It is our hope that this will effectively reduce the tendency to engage in examination malpractice on the side of the candidates, as the team will ensure that examination malpractices are appropriately tried under the Examination Malpractices Act, which provides strict sanctions even for underage children,” he said.

Backed by committee recommendations

The minister said that the decision followed the submission of a report by a special committee he constituted.

He said the committee chaired by JAMB Registrar Is-haq Oloyede, was tasked with developing solutions to Nigeria’s examination integrity crisis.

“This unit is part of the implementation of the approved recommendations submitted by the committee, and I am confident that they will help sanitise our examination ecosystem,” he said.

Mr Alausa warned that exam malpractice has become a ‘cancer’ in the education system, undermining merit, eroding confidence and compromising the quality of graduates.

He, therefore, urged all tertiary institutions to adopt a zero-tolerance stance and confirmed that the ministry is supporting examination bodies such as WAEC and NECO in transitioning to a computer-based testing mode for their examination to curb examination malpractice.

“Some of the discoveries made in recent months involving even senior officials in the educational sector are nothing short of disgraceful. The time for retrogression is over. We must now act decisively,” he said.

Background: A persistent crisis in Nigeria’s examination system

Examination malpractice has been a long-standing crisis plaguing the Nigerian education system, with statistics from recent years showing the scale and persistence.

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In 2024, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) withheld 215,267 WASSCE results, representing 11.92 per cent of the 1.8 million candidates, due to suspected examination malpractice. This followed a similar pattern in previous years, including over 215,000 results withheld in 2020 for similar reasons.

Also, JAMB has faced repeated infractions. In the 2025 UTME alone, the board announced it had withheld 39,834 results, citing confirmed cases of impersonation, biometric fraud, and the use of so-called “WhatsApp runs” groups.

Among these were 96 confirmed cases of malpractice, 3,656 candidates flagged for multiple/extraneous fingerprints and 244 connected to organised answer-sharing rings.

Historically, JAMB withheld 79,123 results in 2017, 111,981 in 2018, and 34,120 in 2019, revealing the systemic nature of the problem.