War against corruption gets to schools

Corrupt practices will no longer be tolerated in tertiary institutions. In the new dispensation, lecturers can be prosecuted for failing to complete their syllabus, reports KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE.

What corruption has permeated the fabric of the Nigerian society is no longer news. Like other sectors, the education sector is not beyond its reach and effect.

Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Dr Ekpo Nta said in an interview that the extent of corrupt practices in institutions has given the agency a cause for concern, particularly given the important socialization role formal educational institutions are meant to play.

Explaining the agency has been besieged by petitions of corrupt practices in tertiary institutions, the ICPC boss said investigating and prosecuting corrupt practices is not enough. He said the war will be more effectively won if fraud is prevented in the first place.

To this end he said the agency has produced two vital documents which are expected will greatly help curb corruption. The documents are: the University System Study and Review (USSR), a template that prescribes steps to prevent corruption in universities; and the National Values Curriculum (NVC), which has been infused into the school curricula at the basic and senior secondary education levels, as well as that of the Colleges of Education. The chairman added that the NVC will also be infused into the curricula of universities and polytechnics.

Nta said the potential of ICPC’s prevention mandate to save cost and reduce losses of national and institutional resources to corruption is part of what inspired the agency to design templates to nip corruption in educational institutions.

Wit the USSR template, which was developed with the help of Prof Olu Aina, a commissioner with ICPC following empirical investigations into administrative processes in three universities (University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye and Salem University, Lokoja), Nta said corrupt practices should be expected to reduce in schools.

The template has eight sections that deal with Admission, Enrolment and Registration of Courses (section 1); Examination Administration, Award of Degrees and Graduation of Students (Section 2); Teaching and Learning Services and Facilities (Section 3); Appointments, Promotion and Discipline of Staff (Section 4); Departmental Administration and Faculty Governance (Section 5); Contract Award (Section 6); Financial Management (Section 7); and Research and Research Administration (Section 8).

Each section lists the corrupt practices associated with the subjects they discuss, and roles the tertiary institutions, National Universities Commission (NUC), the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the ICPC should play to prevent corruption from occurring, which Nta believes will be more profitable for all parties involved.

Nta said in the forward of the template: “‘Prevention is better than cure,’ so goes the old adage. In our efforts to combat this unwholesome phenomenon in our tertiary institutions, we also subscribe to this adage. It is far cheaper to prevent an act of corruption than to clean up the consequences of the mess created. It is in this context that this template has been prepared to accompany the main report of the pilot phase and the Template for Conducting System Study and Review in Universities.”

For instance, to prevent examination malpractice covered in Section 2 of the document, universities are expected to install CCTV cameras in examination halls; print question papers on the day of the examination to reduce leakages; use of CBT; carefully select people of integrity to handle examinations among others. The NUC is expected to dutifully carry out its oversight functions; while ICPC could help by re-orienting students about the merits and demerits of examination malpractices.

Section three, which covers the teaching and learning facilities, lists delay in take-off of lectures and non-completion of syllabus by lecturers as a corrupt practice. Others are: Non-adherence to students/lecturer ratio results in over-crowding of classes; and lack of commitment to work by the lecturers, leading to absenteeism and non-preparation for lectures.

Nta said once the template is in use in schools, the ICPC would prosecute academic and non-academic workers that perpetrate the infractions.

The ICPC chair also noted that the agency is interested in follow up visits to the ones done by the NUC to cross-check claims made by universities to gain accreditation for their programmes.

“We have started a procedure of beginning to collect visitation reports of the NUC used for accreditation. We will go round the institutions without prior notice and when we come around, we will like to see the equipment the NUC accreditation marked as seen. If the otherwise is discovered, we will treat it as a very serious infraction meant to deceive. We cannot leave the responsibility of making universities attractive to universities alone. We must address the issues ourselves,” he said.

Throwing light on the NVC, Nta said the curricula deals with 12 value themes that have been infused into the select subjects taught in primary and secondary schools.

The values are: honesty, discipline, justice, right attitude to work, citizens’ rights and duties, national consciousness, contentment, courage, regard and concern for the interest of others, role of the family, religious and spiritual values, and Nigerian traditional values.

The values will be taught in subjects such as English, Business Studies, Christian Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Social Studies, and Civic Education at the Basic Education level (Primary 1-JSS3), while at the senior secondary level, they will be taught the national values in Book Keeping, CRS, IS, History and Food and Nutrition.

Nta said the NVC has been hailed internationally as Nigeria is one of the first countries to come up with a document to prevent corruption.

“Nigeria has been invited to make a presentation at the UN office in Vienna on the National Value Curriculum. It has been described as a good model of prevention,” he said.