By Public Education Unit ACC, Kenema Office
As the West Africa public examinations draw near, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Regional Office East on 10th May 2021, held an interactive meeting with Teachers of the Wesley Secondary School in Segbwema on how to partner and effectively monitor all forthcoming public exams to prevent examination malpractices. The engagement took place at the Wesley Senior Secondary School in Segbwema Town.
Speaking on the rational for collaboration, ACCs Senior Public Education Officer, Sulaiman B. Sowa, said that the problems of corruption needed a collaborative effort to fight and defeat. He furthered that, the spate of examination malpractices was on a unprecedented and that curbing same needs the holistic efforts of teachers and the ACC.
Mr. Sowa said, the Commission was changing the trajectory in fighting corruption and has therefore thought it prudent to collaborate with teachers to effectively monitor all public exams noting that they play a key role in the free quality education and know their students better. He informed teachers at the engagement that the collaboration was a win-win situation for both teachers and the Commission with the country standing as the beneficiary.
He made bold to say that despite the venture to collaborate with teachers, the Commission was apprehensive about those few teachers who abuse the trust reposed in them to educate pupils by facilitating examination malpractices. He concluded by recognizing the sacrifices made by teachers who work diligently despite the several challenges in the educational sector.
Deliberating on the offence of Examination Malpractice as enshrined in the 2008 Ant-Corruption Act as amended in 2019, ACCs Senior Investigation Officer Mohamed Jah said, the offence criminalizes all forms of examination malpractices and punishes same by a hefty fine of not less than 50 million Leones or a jail term of not less than 5 years or to both fine and jail term. He Informed teachers that the purpose of amending the Ant-Corruption Act of 2008 is to make corruption a high risk and low return venture.
Principal of Wesley Secondary School Segbwema, MichealKomehLahai, said, the engagement was timely and very educative as their school was set to host over 500 pupils to sit the National Primary School Exams scheduled for the 28th of May 2021. He lamented on the spate of examination malpractices in the country and urged all to take it seriously with a view to containing it.
