By Austin Ogwuda
ASABA—NEW Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education in Delta State, Dr. Tony Nwaka, was, yesterday, stunned as he stumbled into an examination hall in Asaba and found students writing the National Business and Technical Education Board, NABTEB, papers, copying directly from textbooks as well as GSM telephone sets.

Nwaka, who stormed the Institute of Continuing Education, ICE, Asaba centre to monitor the examination had to physically seize some of the textbooks. Most worrisome was that when he inquired about both the invigilator and supervisor expected to man the centre, they were nowhere to be found.

He subsequently ordered the Examination and Ethics Committee of his ministry to carry out a thorough investigation.

The story was not different at other centers visited. The level of examination malpractices reduced to barest minimum during the tenure of a one-time Commissioner for Primary and Secondary Education, Mrs. Veronica Ogbuagu, as students in the state nick-named her “Iron Lady”.

Former Commissioner Ogbuagu at a thank-you party for journalists in the state during her exit in 2007, noted that  the media assisted her in discharging  the task of curbing examination malpractices, adding that she inherited a bad situation where exams malpractices were rampant.

“I also inherited a disoriented work force, particularly in the school system where the teachers were in low spirit.

Most of them were not only late to work but were shabbily dressed and hardly taught the pupils and students put in their care. With such ugly scenarios, the task looked insurmountable but with God on our side, I was able to change the negative orientation of the staff,” she had said.

Before we could make meaningful progress, I had course to meet with stakeholders in the education industry on the way forward and I also embarked on unscheduled visits to schools across the state,” she said.