President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned in strong terms the possession of fake certificates and the rate at which public servants and individuals of questionable wealth were being celebrated.
Buhari made this known on Tuesday through the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), in Abuja during the 65th Annual Council Meeting of the West African Examinations Council with the theme, “65 years of commitment to excellence in educational assessment.”
He said, “Today the attainment of wealth, power or educational influence is the mark of success which is not necessarily a bad thing except we are no longer concerned with the process of attaining success.
“Often, cheating is with the collusion of parents and teachers. Cheating in examination and attainment of fake certificates among Nigerians has become a normal thing because of the collapse of values in the society.
“Public servants and many in the private sectors who have unexplainable wealth are celebrated in one form or the other, alumni recognitions, honorary degrees, chieftaincy titles and even higher religious titles.
“The end it appears today justifies the means which explains why cheating in examinations and fake certificates simply do not generate the sort of outrage that such conduct would have generated years ago.
“This only reflects the failure of values in our larger society.
“Educational policy within that milieu of collapsed value failure is a totally different type of task when values in society have collapsed.
“Such collapse in value has made it difficult for policy makers to effect change in the society.
“When values in the society have been upturned, the role of the policy maker is completely different from when values are maintained by and large.
“Nigerians are no longer concerned about the process of attaining success because the end justifies the means for them.
“It is much more important today to emphasize also how we should teach which will obviously impact how we should examine, what questions we should be asking and what we should be looking for in our students.
“But regarding what we should teach, it is my respective view, more important now than ever before to redefine success,” Buhari noted even as he called for a change in education curricula to reflect modern teaching methods.
This is coming after Senator representing Kogi West, Dino Melaye, was dragged into a ‘fake certificate’ mess.
An online news portal, SaharaReporters, had in a report alleged that Melaye did not complete his first degree in Geography at Amadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria, Kaduna State.
But in his response, urged the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu to arrest and prosecute him if he discovered that he did not graduate from ABU.
[Delta Breed]
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