At the second edition of stakeholders forum organised by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) in Ondo to facilitate qualitative education in Nigeria, participants reviewed the level of the learners, who have diverse experiences, characteristics, skills and conditions vis-a-vis the level of the education system. Stakeholders in education  identified reasons the standard has been falling in Nigeria. They also considered its managerial and administrative system, implementation of good policies, human and managerial resources and the means to measure learning outcome. The theme of the conference was: “Education Quality Assurance: A panacea for equity, access and accountability in education”. Participants comprising the Directors of Education Quality Assurance (DEQA) in federal and state ministries of Education, parastatals and agencies, noted that Nigerians have the perception of a poorly coordinated supervision, underfunded with inadequate data for planning, as well as poor learning environment. They also  observed that teacher training programme in Nigeria, has not really been taken into consideration the changes that are needed to implement innovative curriculum in schools. “Many states in Nigeria are yet to implement the quality assurance programme prescribed by the Federal Ministry of Education and therefore, internal quality assurance procedures are not being applied in schools in such states. They noted that quality assurance departments and agencies (QADA), where they have been established, are sometimes staffed with officers who are not trained in that field. Besides, they are poorly funded and lack requisite operational facilities. Stakeholders said despite the establishment of many institutions at the tertiary level, and government policies that support access and equity in education, many young people are still out of school in Nigeria. According to them, examination malpractice, which has assumed frightening dimension in many states, has become a threat, not just to the validity and reliability of the examination itself, but also the overall quality of the entire education system and the society at large. They noted that perpetrators of examination fraud are not just students and teachers, but also parents, school administrators, government officials, other school personnel, officials of examination bodies and school host communities. Besides, they identified common causes of examination malpractice to include: undue emphasis on certificates, poor quality of teaching and learning, high level of materialism, parental consent and involvement as well as the pressure mounted on students to pass examinations at all cost in some cases. Read more here