The Innovative Strategies For Public Senior Secondary Students Academic Performanc
[A CASE STUDY OF ILORIN WEST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KWARA STATE NIGERIA.]

    Okechukwu (2002) in the research work entitled ‘Strategies for Student academic performance in Senior School Certificate Examination in Anambra State, observed that, adequate arrangements were not usually made to ensure both the security of the question paper and their arrival in good time at various designated examination centres. The data collecting instrument was a 40 item questionnaire developed by the researcher. The questionnaires were administered to a total of 768 respondents, made up of 35 national and international staff of the West African Examinations Council and 733 tutorial staff of sampled senior secondary school students in Ilorin West LGA, Kwara State. While frequencies and means were used to provide answers to the research questions, z-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses.
The researcher went further to state that, there is a strong indication that those appointed as invigilators and supervisors lack proven integrity, thus, examination malpractice becomes the order of the day. Again, it was noted by the researcher that examinations in some places are conducted in over-crowded halls. To guide the researcher in carrying out the work, five research questions and five null hypotheses were formulated. The researcher recommended that WAEC should make effort to secure its examination materials, provide adequate logistics, ban the registration of external candidates in school examinations and then train and employ credible supervisors. The researcher stated further that centres should be created on merit, examination laws should be functional and then good morals should be inculcated in students. Despite the work of Okechukwu, the need to carry-out the current work on the innovative strategies for curbing examination was inevitable, considering the fact that examination malpractices are getting more sophisticated by the day.
    While Ikechukwu’s study was centered on the strategies for student academic performance in Anambra State alone, this study is about the Innovative Strategies for student academic performance in Nigeria using Kwara State as a case study. Innovative strategies are those new methods employed to identify and combat the new and remote tides of examination malpractices. As the menace of examination malpractice becomes more scientific, there is need to also change the approach of combating which is the basis for this study and which Ikechukwu’s work could not address.
Summary of Literature Reviewed
    In the related literatures reviewed by the researcher, it was discovered that the various studies on examination malpractices were narrow and not broad therebycoming up with outdated strategies for student academic performance from undiversified sampled populations. The reviewed literatures have brought the various hi-tech methods of perpetrating examination malpractices to lime light. It alsoaided in the knowledge of several ways of addressing the hi-tech malpractices through modern electronics means. Some theories reviewed revealed that, to a large extend, if morality is inculcated in the minds of the people of Nigeria and if all stakeholders are willing to address the issue of examination malpractice with all sincerity, then the problem of examination malpractice can be curtailed. The interest of this researcher therefore is to identify those new methods used in the perpetration of examination malpractices and then proffer useful innovative strategies for curbing both the new and remote methods of examination malpractices. All stakeholders must show commitment, determination and sincerity of purpose, for the innovative strategies for student academic performance to actually make any significant impact in preventing examination malpractices in Nigeria.