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According to Transparency International, 66 per cent of the money Nigerian governments allocate to education is stolen by corrupt officials. Resource misallocation, corrupt procurement, exchange of sex for grades, examination malpractices, fake qualifications, teacher absenteeism, and corrupt recruitment practices are just some examples of the challenges the education systems is facing. This affects the quality of education, inclusion and learning outcomes with devastating consequences for national economic growth.

A recent report by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has unearthed the rot in many of Nigeria’s higher institutions, highlighting an intricate collusion among staff, students and other stakeholders. In the report titled, ‘Stealing the future: How federal universities in Nigeria have been stripped apart by corruption’, SERAP claimed that many allegations of corruption in federal universities – such as unfair allocation of grades; contract inflation; truncation of staff’s salary on the payroll; employment of unqualified staff; examination malpractice; sexual harassment; and issuance of results for expelled student to graduate have not been thoroughly investigated.

Exam malpractice has increased by 5% in Nigeria, according to a survey by the Exam Ethics Marshals International. The report stated that 18 out of every 100 people who participated in examinations in Nigeria in 2012 were indicted for malpractices.

A report on examination malpractice rating of states and the six geo-political zones, conducted by Exam Ethics Project, has revealed an increase of 40 percent in the practice between 2003 and 2004, against a corresponding increase of 276 percent between 1999 and 2004.

The Exam Ethics Project (EEP), an NGO fighting against examination malpractices, has in the last few years released figures either as profit made from examination malpractice business or those (students, invigilators etc) sacked for engaging in examination malpractice.

Apparently worried about the products of the different levels of education in the country and the attendant effects of examination malpractice and cultism on Nigerian youth and national development, the Federal Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Exam Ethics Project (EEP), an educational non- governmental organisation last week held a two-day Education Stakeholders. governmental organisation last week held a two-day Education Stakeholders.