• It was a dramatic scene at one of Nigeria's leading higher institutions in Nigeria, the Polytechnic Ibadan has ordered mobile phones worth millions confiscated from students during examinations be burnt.

    The school management decided to take such actions in order to ensure its commitment to fighting examination malpractices to the barest minimum.

    Over 1000 phones were destroyed.

    The Deputy Rector, Bayo Oyeleke, addressing told reporters the move was also aimed at ensuring that examination in the school is seen as sacred.

    “We are here to take further action on our resolve to ensure that the crop of students and product being produced by the school are students with exemplary character and are those who really work and worth the certificate of the institution.

    “There are rules guiding the principles of our examinations and one of it is that no student under whatever guise should come into the examination hall with cell phones but you know that some students are very recalcitrant

    “We have resolved to confiscate them because it has been expressly stated on their examination paper that any phone found on any students during examination shall be confiscated and in order not to allow any of the phones to filter out, the school has resolved that such phones shall be burnt,” he said.

    Examination malpractices has assumed a frightening dimension in tertiary institutions across the country, a development which has further rendered the education sector as a joke. Today's youths are internet savvy and the information they so much require in the exam hall is always at Google's reach. However, the mode of punishment for offenders have continued to elicit different reactions. While others see this as a welcomed development, and far better than expulsion, others believe a preventive measure could have been adopted.

    Such preventive measures include CCTV installations and vetting. While it is true that burning of valuable assets like mobile phones can be devastating due to files and important documents, however, to be fore warned is to be fore harmed, others say. Hopefully, the fear of losing an iPhone X should make you think twice before flouting the law.

    Header Image Credit: thenation