EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE A SOCIAL MALADY

EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE A SOCIAL MALADY  

 BY  EGURIASE S. M. OKAKA           

  Examination malpractice is fast becoming a social malady which has eaten deeply into our education system to a very great extent that students no longer trust in their ability to pass exams without the aid of external forces as machineries. These external forces are mostly teachers of the centres where the examinations are conducted, or those who specialize in writing examinations for weak students who have no believe in their ability to pass the simplest examination. Students, teachers, and parents laugh at this and make mockery of such because they know they will go there at least to write their exams.

This is a shame! And threat to our reveled Nation because we are breeding half-baked leaders of tomorrow.  If this should be allowed to continue the unborn generation will suffer adversely from the aftermath of this action because we must have ended up breeding mediocre in the system. Like what we can see in our society today where highly placed persons cannot define their offices. This is a direct result of examination malpractices.

            Like the cankerworm that eats the kolanut, so did examination malpractice to our education system and Nation unknowingly. There are centres tagged ‘Miracle centre’ students who enrolled in such centres need not read but only paid certain amount for the exams as the case may be.  After the exams they come home with nine credits passes or A’s. Where did they get such result from still remain an unanswered question. I wonder, if they could defend the nine credits or A’s. If this should continue it will threaten the future of this country as we shall have too many mediocre among us. Metaphorically speaking, examination malpractice is bad.

 My teacher once told me that when one cheats in an exam to pass his or her papers, you will rewrite that examination again and again in very near future, remember that, it is just like he who fights and run away only postpone the fight to a later day. You have seen some highly placed persons in government’s offices that still go to their junior colleagues to help them write out one report or the other because they cannot write such. It only justifies the fact that these persons are rewriting their exams again because of what they ran away from is now stirring them in the offices they now occupy.

            Recently, in Edo state some teachers were caught writing the 2017 Primary six examinations for primary pupils. These are young children who supposed to have been writing their first school leaving certificate examinations which is the first public examinations ever; if a child cannot pass that I wonder what would be the fate of that child when he gets to secondary school through foul means? I am still wondering what the teachers must have taught these children! They have succeeded in building a negative orientation in those pupils making them never to believe in their ability to pass any exams and teaching them to start cheating in examination hall at a very tender age.

 This mentality will grow up with them still they get to secondary school and beyond and become troubles to their teachers, parents and the society. If they can’t pass exams their next option is to join ‘Secrets Cult’. We can testify of the problems brought by cultism, it points out that most problems we faced in the society were caused by us either directly or indirectly.

            Buying of books is one way a teacher can encourage reading culture. The closer the book is to the students the closer the willingness to read and understanding it. When a book is too far from a student the willingness to read that book may not be there. It is only idea for books to be sold in schools to encourage the willingness to read. Parents who do not want to buy books for their wards are the ones shouting: ‘teachers are selling books in schools’. That is rhetoric! If books are not sold in the school then what should be sold? Is it melon? Is it clothes? Is it fish? It is only wise for academic materials to be sold in an academic place.

 Let’s encourage education with our policies we sworn to an oath to promote same. If you find out the reason why parents are saying such you will find out that it may be as a result of the poor state of the economy that may be the reason for their cries and nothing more. When the reading culture of a student falls he or she take to negative verses as an alternative to what they are used to doing. I have encounter some teachers who told me that they will never ask any student to buy books, without reading what are they going to write in the exam hall?

CAUSES OF EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE

1.     There should be a proper orientation to students that they can pass exams without cheating if only they prepare properly for the exam. With preparation anybody can pass any examination and without preparation anybody can fail any examination even the simplest ones.

2.     The stakeholders in the education sector should create policies that will promote reading culture in their domains.  Parents should buy books for wards and encourage them to read and study it.

3.     Expose students to education with whatever you buy for them. We find out that most parents buy things which are outside education for their children and later complaint that they are not doing well educationally. If I buy books for my children I am telling them to read by that action. When I buy a home movie for them I am telling them to watch the television by that action too. So we must be very careful to note what we buy for our wards.

4.     I have seen parents who believe that their wards cannot pass exams without the aid of external forces or machinery. They encouraged their wards by giving them money to pay these so-called machinery to write exams for them. Most parents know this very well and they go out of their way to encourage exam malpractice with all their strength.

5.     The raze to pass an examination at all caused without preparing for it gave rise to the madness of exam malpractice.

6.     Why should a student who left a remote village to come to the city to get good education, so to say, only at the point of enrollment go back that same remote village to enroll leaving the said good education in the city? Please you must ask why because it bothers some of us? When I asked some students they said you make your papers easily in village schools rather than city schools. Others said, examination inspectors hardly come to village schools to inspect exams because of the bad state of their roads and other infrastructures. Another said that ‘expo’ easily flow in such centres especially where roads are bad.. Another said exam markers are lenient when marking scripts or papers of villagers. We can see evident of mediocre students everywhere they cannot perform like well-read students at all. Stop exam malpractice so that we can have less mediocre in the society.

7.      Let us inculcate reading culture in our students and campaign extensively that if they read they can pass their exams without any external help from anybody. Our parents who went to school before us know little or nothing about my subject yet they pass their examinations. What students know how to do best is to pass their exams through foul means..

There is this school of thought, who believes that the standard of education has fallen well I don’t subscribe to that. The standard of education did not at any time fall rather it is the student who fell and drifted from reading and believing in their ability to perform with their education. Education is now higher than when we went to school.

In our days, schools were not connected to the ‘NET’ but today they are. Again, you can enroll and seat for exams online without going to a specified location for the exams. That is a big landmark development in our education. It is the students who refused to learn. Education did not fall but the student fell for exams malpractice. Examination malpractice shows the weakness of a student, when students involves in it shows their weakness and inabilities.

In those days, we have teachers with lesser qualifications teaching but today the case is different as you now have teachers with higher degrees teaching in our classes.

What went wrong with students is that they lack the ability to believe in themselves to pass exams without external forces aiding them. This wrong ideology must be corrected as soon as possible to save our education system from further collapse by these students who believe such nonsense as examination malpractice will be forced to learn the right behavour.

 Most students will taught be in the class and they will go an extra-mile to preparing for the examination e.g going to lectures after school and yet still will not believe in their ability to pass exams. You may ask why? These are students who have already believed in examination malpractice no matter what you say or do.

Examination malpractice is a social malady we must disabused our minds from it. A teacher once said that, ‘reading makes a man and trains the mind both physically and spiritually too.’ There is a parable which says, ‘life is a teacher the more we live the more we learn.’ Another parable declares: when a man stops learning he starts dying. Though these parables seem paradoxical yet it contains truth.  

My heart bleeds for those students who depend on external forces or machinery to write their exams for them. It is weakness and laziness on the part of those students that will lead to frustration and frustration will make them a societal wreck. The student on his or her part will have no choice rather than becoming a cultist on getting to the university, that is, if they get there all. Alternatively, they become a problem to the society.

Just say no to examination malpractice! If you read and study hard you can pass any exams whatsoever, whether within or without. Let the appropriate authorities correct this mess before it gets out of hand. Remember, ‘He who fight and run away need to fight again another day.’ The fact remains that, if anybody writes an exam for you nature has a way of making you rewrite the same again in the near future so says my good teacher. DO NOT CHEAT SO AS NOT TO WRITE YOUR EXAMINATION AGAIN AND AGAIN. The truth always seems paradoxical.

NOW THE CURE TO EXAMINTATION MALPRACTICE IS  SUMMARIZED THUS:

Let parents buy books for their wards and monitor their reading culture. How can you be a good farmer without a cutlass?

Let exam be exam not a festival of mediocrity.

Students on their part should believe in their ability to pass any examinations without looking for help from an external source.

If this is done we are on our way to finding solutions to this social malady.

By:

Eguriase S. M. Okaka

             (Author)