Problems Registering Toefl from Lagos

Problem registering TOEFL exam in Lagos

There is a problem with the registration of our students from this part of the world for the TOEFL exams and I'll like to discus it with you. It mostly has to do with the Chinua Achebean one-finger-bring-oil-stain-others scenario. It makes one very sad that the reason why we get sidelined by the rest of the world is that there are some among us who actually do certain unscrupulous things.

For the benefit of those who may not understand why I'm this unhappy, perhaps should take a look at some of the contributions I've made on this forum concerning the educational station in Nigeria. What is going on is that there are people who are so fed up with the way it is that they would rather go to school elsewhere. By that elsewhere I mean that they have to go abroad and by that kind of abroad I mean to countries like the US, UK, Canada, Egypt, Ghana and sometimes to Mauritania. For you to go to school 'abroad' you have to have enough money and pass certain standardized tests like the TOEFL, SAT, GRE, GMAT, depending on what level of academic pursuit you are interested in. But all of this is not a problem: for decades and as far as I can remember our students have taken these exams, done very well and have gone to school abroad.

But suddenly, we fear that our students no longer can register for these exams, particularly the TOEFL computer based exam from Lagos, Nigeria. Go to the TOEFL webpage and Nigeria is blacklisted as one country where you cannot register this exam. If you have to register for the Computer based test the ETS will only accept International money orders, authorization vouchers from ETS, UNESCO coupons and international money order. Now if that doesn't embarrass you, I don't know what else to say. If you have not found out why Nigerians have been barred from registering online with credit cards for this exam, please know that some Nigerians mostly in Lagos shot us all in the leg when they began to use fake credit cards to register online.