Posted by By Dr. J.C. Ihejirika on
One of the signs of the collapse of the country's education system is the rampant incidence of examination malpractice. In simple parlance, examination malpractice denotes any form of fraud committed by a candidate or someone else in order to enable a candidate pass an examination, which under normal circumstances such a candidate would not have passed.
One of the signs of the collapse of the country's education system is the rampant incidence of examination malpractice. In simple parlance, examination malpractice denotes any form of fraud committed by a candidate or someone else in order to enable a candidate pass an examination, which under normal circumstances such a candidate would not have passed.
According to the report of Junior School Certificate Examination leakages in Rivers State (1988), examination malpractice takes many forms such as leakage in the process of setting, printing, packing, storage of question papers or during distribution; entry into examination venue with prepared answers and other written materials, external assistance to candidates through teachers, invigilators and supervisors who have either friends, relations or clients as candidates; spying in the examination hall by individual candidates; collusion between candidates, and substitution of worked scripts after the examination. In due course, an attempt will be made to explain how these forms of examination malpractice are accomplished.
It is very much acknowledged that during the era of missionary and colonial administration of education in Nigeria, the story of examination malpractice never reared its ugly head, for both the teacher and the taught were well-trained and disciplined with the result that the business of education was handled with utmost seriousness. Most Nigerian nationalists who embraced the western type of education were well grounded to defend the certificates they were awarded. Even at the university level, products of those missionary schools were exemplary in both character, training and responsibility - qualities which enabled them to win independence from
Britain in 1960.
The administrators of education in Nigeria during the missionary and later, colonial era had a lot of hidden agenda which informed some of their successes. For example, primary schools operated in churches for closer supervision while post-primary schools, which were mostly boarding were deliberately distant from towns "to stop the children mixing with the wrong type of persons and getting into bad habits". Musaazi (1982), further revealed that as pupils came from far away, their parents and family members were physically remote and unable to visit or associate themselves in any way with the life of the school. In fact, this was for fear of the students being contaminated or spoiled by the influence of the community or society.
Since the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970, it seemed as if the dog has been let loose and wild action has become rife. There is multiplicity of community schools and institutions perhaps to take care of yet another problem - population explosion. The result is that boundary lines between institutions and societies have disappeared and there is unrestricted cross-fertilization of ideas, views, information, behaviour etc. To say the least, the behaviour of adults in our society has greatly permeated every social institution, even universities. Ours is a pluralistic and permissive society where delinquent behaviours such as culticism, cheating, stealing, fraud; a twin brother of examination malpractice, drunkenness, prostitution, smoking, dishonesty, lying, insubordination etc. are openly practiced and thus perpetrated. In fact, Ohanula (1980) was very apt when he commented that "the contact of Nigerian adults with the youths has affected the latter and unless the adults in the society are disciplined and consistent in behaviour , discipline in the schools will not be effective" .
Take it to any angle, the Nigerian society is to blame for the rampant incidence of examination malpractice at every level of the country's education system. In Daily Sunray of June 7, 1995, it was reported that Professor Olaitan, the Director of the Division of General Studies announced the cancellation of national science examination at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka due to widespread allegations of examination malpractice. What a shame! Look at the current 6-3-3-4 system of education, which its designers thought would address the "missteps" in the country's educational planning. Among other things, it was planned so that students at the end of the second three years of SS III would acquire some marketable skills to enable them become employable or become self-employed. Rather than achieving this objective, the system still places a lot of emphasis on academic-oriented education, which down-plays technical, vocational, agricultural and other skills oriented aspects of education. Technical workshops have virtually disappeared from the country's Junior and Secondary schools.
Again, the economy within which the society operates is so bartered and unpredictable that there is much reliance on certificates or "paper qualifications" before survival of anyone can be assured. It is this monopoly of prestige which "paper qualifications' enjoy that lures every Nigerian into committing various sorts of examination malpractice since companies, governments, organizations, private employers of labour and institutions, all insist on certificates as pre-conditions for employment and admission. To most Nigerians, cheating at examinations is no longer regarded as something the society forbids since almost everybody in the society -student, parent, guardian, politician, school head, teacher, supervisor, government worker including examination official, name them, none is exempted from the act.
One serious question to ask is: can't some other criteria such as maturity or experience, character, transparency, track record, skill, etc. be considered along "paper qualification" in offering employment or admission? It is the contention of this paper that if emphasis can be shifted to affective and psychomotor domains of learning, the undue emphasis currently placed on academic credentials, which is adjudged as the remote cause of examination malpractice among Nigerians, will be drastically reduced.
In sum, there is no doubting the fact that examination malpractice starts from the society and hatches in the schools. This could be attested by suspicious movement of people around examination centres and how groups talk exclusively among themselves on the days for JAMB, WAEC or NECO examinations. The fact remains that without participation of outsiders or people of the society - examination officials, supervisors, examination aiders, mercenaries, educated friends and relations, security agents, distributors of question papers; students or candidates alone cannot successfully plan and carry out examination malpractice to the magnitude it is currently sustained in this country.
In fact, it is becoming an organized affair by the society to make money in schools and institutions, which must, of necessity, be disorganized by all means. After all, the school is a planned social institution established by the society to act as its agent for transmission of cultural values through teaching the younger generation. What is happening in the schools, examination, malpractice inclusive, is a reflection of lawlessness and fraud prevalent in the Nigerian society.
As a matter of fact, only a multi-dimensional approach including severe sanctions can eliminate or reduce examination malpractice in this country where struggle for "certificate" has become struggle for economic and political survival, security, prestige, fame, name, or call it "struggle for life".