The West African Examination Council (WAEC) (2003) defined examination malpractice as any irregular behaviour or act exhibited by candidates or anybody charged with the responsibility of conducting examination in or outside the examination hall, before, during or after such examination with the aim of taking undue advantage.
Examination malpractice refers to cheating, dishonesty, and fraud of any kind during an examination. People who are engaged in such dishonesty adopt measures such as: impersonation, bribery, smuggling of extraneous materials into the examination hall, external assistance among others.
Undoubtedly, examination malpractice has been a social problem for decades, but the rate and manner it is perpetrated nowadays calls for serious concern.
The rate of this crime has become so widespread that there is virtually no examination anywhere at all levels and outside the formal school system that there is no one form of illegal practice or another, As a matter of fact, every examination season witnesses the emergence of new and ingenious ways of cheating.
Examination malpractice has since graduated from the normal peeping at others’ work, or bringing foreign items, materials or notes as well as text books into examination halls, to a more organized system of buying question papers from the examination bodies and/or other personnel entrusted with the safe-keeping of examination question papers.
The situation is so disturbing that young Nigerians, today, hardly go for examinations, confident of what they can produce on their own without depending on one type of examination malpractice or the other.
The Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (SSCE) are the worst hit by this menace. During the national examination, teachers help the students by copying on the board, dictating or preparing worked answers for the students to copy. Sometimes, students are even hired to write exams for others. Students take textbooks into and swap papers in the examination halls under the supervision of their teachers and the external supervisor.
The worse part of it is that ‘miracle centres’ are now blooming. Students who cannot read and write can get nine A’s. It is, indeed, a miracle, isn’t it? The examination authorities and its related agencies are aware of such centres but nothing has been done yet to curb the menace.
Everyone continues to decry this cankerworm in the Nigerian education system and all measures put in place to stop it remains almost ineffective, if not totally ineffective.
Reason being that examination malpractice(s) at all levels of the Nigerian educational system is nothing but a reflection of the decay in the value system of the Nigerian society.
Majority of us (Nigerians) subscribe to the Machiavellian maxim: the end justifies the means. The implication of this is that the society does not want to know how an individual achieves success. The important thing is the success. In Nigeria, how you got parallel A’s does not matter, what matters is that you have/get a good result. The popular pidgin slang, “any way na way”, explains this better.
Given our warped value system, examination malpractice has eaten deep into the education system of Nigeria to the extent that it can no longer be totally defeated because a considerable number of students, parents, school owners and principals, teachers and even external examination supervisors in the country see nothing wrong with it.
This is to say that examination malpractice is a variant of the wrongs and corruption in the society. Just as our politicians employ rigging at elections and enjoy enviable political office, students cheat from primary to tertiary institutions to move from one level of education to another.
From the foregoing, examination malpractice which has remained a cancer in the education sector requires a multidimensional approach for total annihilation. It begins with value reorientation.
The occurrence of examination malpractice in Nigerian educational institutions, especially in the secondary level poses a severe challenge and cast a shadow on the integrity of the system and its products.
Development of any nation relies solely on its human resources, and human resources are refined to be productive through education, hence eradicating examination malpractice which destroys human resources development should be taken as a full scale war.
Since education is the bedrock of every society, sincere and concerted efforts should be made to eliminate this deadly vice from the society, by all stakeholders and well meaning Nigerians. A successful war against examination malpractice will serve to inject a new lease of life and restore confidence in Nigerian educational system.
Ezinwanne Onwuka writes from Cross River State and may be reached at ezinwanne.dominion@gmail.com.
