Examination Malpractice Must End In Ghana!

Examination malpractice, a societal ill which is gradually and greatly eating deep into the bone marrow of Ghana's educational system, must surely be brought to an end; there is nothing impossible under this sun. Yes, we can eliminate it.

Ghana, and for that matter, the West African Examination Council (WAEC), should not and must not look at this ignoble act called examination malpractice continue to be a bane to the nation's educational sector (to eventually rip off its hard earned international integrity).

In a recent publication issued by the Public Affairs department of the WAEC, it contained that the council, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and other stakeholders had worked very intensively to reduce malpractice rate from 1,127 in 2011 to 823 in 2012; it is a very good step, but there is still more room to stopping this canker out-rightly in just a matter of two years.

That is if all stakeholders will have a churning stomach and agree that examination malpractice is a national emergency situation, and so, will have to put all hands on deck to tackle it with all aggressiveness and seriousness.

All over the world, education has been adopted as an instrument for national development. Due to this, respective governments, communities, private organizations and individuals establish educational institutions with a view of training citizens for the equipping and development of the nation's physical and human resources. Thus a key objective of education is to prepare young ones to face future challenges in life and to develop them to meet the nation's manpower requirements.

Therefore, countries which are desirous to keep pace with developments at global level and as such placing education at the top in priority of its agenda recognize examination as forming the nucleus of education without which the enterprise will be incomplete.

Examination measures how much knowledge an individual in an institution of learning has acquired over a period under tutelage and more so evaluates teachers' work in order to ascertain how much knowledge, and probably skill, they have been able to impart into their students. Thus, if the student's performance in examination is encouraging, then it indicates that the teacher's methods of teaching are appropriate and efficient.

Unfortunately, groups of actors seem to have arisen to make this genuine system of producing and selecting authentic products for nation building a mere formal process; these actors are workers of the WAEC called supervisors and invigilators, teachers/school heads, students and their parents.

However, stakeholders- the government, the media, the judiciary, the police and the WAEC inclusive, who are supposed to and should make sure the fashions of these actors are made futile have also paid little or no attention to those acts -they don't seem to be bothered about it-and now examination malpractice is gaining grounds and gradually leading to the fall of the educational standard in the country.

Invigilators, supervisors and teachers appointed to conduct examinations compromise their integrity by corruptly enriching themselves while aiding and abetting fraud in the examination hall. Some candidates and teachers do connive to bribe supervisors to look the other way as they unleash unprecedented fraud in the hall. As a result candidates freely use textbooks and other foreign materials to supply answers to questions asked. This is an unfortunate state of affair!

Gone are the days when students embarked on TDBs (Till Day Breaks) reading for their exams. Today, when it is done, it is either for partying or watching the ever increasing telenovelas, chatting on the internet, 'whatsuping' and watching English Premiership or European Champions league and the nudist Ghana/Nigeria movies. This is because the examination questions and even the answers, solved and photocopied for easy handling, are always being seen before the examinations. Examination halls, now like market places with candidates 'giraffing' into the works of others, is as less a crime as breathing air. Today, if you don't cheat in an exam, you are seen as 'not a smart person.'

It has forcefully become part of life that if you do not cheat, dupe, lie or defraud, you are branded as 'not being smart.'

Candidates especially in the private schools know beforehand that they will be helped or assisted during the examination by their teachers. This justifies their nonchalant attitude towards taking their studies seriously. Just get near a student who completes JHS or SHS and you would hear secrets; they mostly reveal that they were compelled by their school authority to pay certain amounts so that answers to questions will be made available to them.

Even when culprits are caught, and their parents knowing their children are guilty, most of them still use their positions as powerful people in the society to influence the outcome of investigations into examination malpractice in order not to bring shame and embarrassment to their families and relations.

Also, many parents would not want their children to repeat any class no matter their level of performance. Thus, they pressure school authorities to give their children automatic promotion even when they fail their examinations. They progress to the higher levels with their 'dander headiness' and compellingly have to depend on malpractice in the long run.

Operators of private study centres also known as extramural classes centres are veritable fronts for examination malpractice in this country. Undoubtedly, students are, more often than not, willing to pay because in the end it pays off very well.

Of course WAEC is not ignorant of the sitting capacity of single hall facility and sitting arrangement between one seat and the other during examinations. Yet you go to examination centres to see desks very close to each other which make it very easy for candidates to engage in malpractices.

Government is aware that schools and the WAEC increase examinations and school fees every academic year thereby scaring students and parents off to do everything at all cost to let the student pass the exams that year in order not to be a victim of fees increase the next year.

Enough is enough! Examination malpractice must not continue any longer. To strongly fight this ill in the country in the next two years, the following suggestive measures could be considered:

Solutions are only possible where there are more examination halls, large and more classrooms with adequate seats. The government's very big role in curbing this menace is by providing enough classrooms and desks to schools.

if the staff, that is, all who have to do with examinationsexaminers, typists, custodians, staff of examination bodies, printers, transporters, and security agentsput their house in order, students would not have access to examination materials before examinations.

This is the time my colleague journalists put away the attitude of only chasing 'solicitous' stories and talk or hammer more on examination malpractice and making it look distasteful and more dangerous to engage in it. It is time journalists are given accreditation to monitor and cover every examination organized by the WAEC right from the beginning to the end of the exam. Why are journalists given accreditation to cover elections and not examinations? Will somebody try to engage in malpractice if they see journalists with integrity hovering around?

I really do not think it is the duty of the invigilator or the exam supervisor to search students for possession of foreign materials before they enter the exam hall, this should be the full duty of the police. If this is not done then it will forever be a mystery how students are able to export foreign materials into examination halls. The police personnel must after making sure no one entered with foreign materials sit at the entrance of the hall. This means more police personnel must be circulated just as it is done during election season. Examination is as serious as general election.

Examination Ethics Committee, is there any at all? And if there is, let us hear them; let us see them being more proactive in the issue of examination malpractice.

The Ministry of Education could also introduce the study of ethics in the school curricula with a view to forestalling examination malpractice in the country.

I am yet to hear the day when the national budget will ever include a project on exam malpractice eradication. How many times have the members of parliament lamented and tried to propose ways of dealing with this canker?

As facilitators in the teaching and learning process, School counselors should endeavour to use their initiative and assist students to see educational certificates as a means to an end and not an end itself. This can be accomplished through schedules of group counseling aimed at attitudinal reorientation of the students. They are in a better position to assist students develop effective study habits, therefore they should not hesitate to proffer to their students study patterns or techniques that are appropriate.

Again, school counselors should reach out to school teachers and appropriate authorities and remind them of the importance of covering the syllabuses for the students within the regulated course work period.

Christian leaders and groups should campaign against this behaviour and motivate others to replicate the same so that the message would be spread round that examination malpractice is evil and attracts God's sanctions.

Teachers particularly need to pay more than the usual attention to the need for them to cover their syllabuses so that students will no longer recourse to cheating in examinations as a method of making up for uncovered syllabuses.

Government need to as a matter of urgency furnish schools with needed modern to aid teaching and learning. Unless this is done, students will continue to learn in abstraction. They will continue to cheat defensively in examinations on the pretext that they have never had the needed infrastructure to aid them to study.

Under no circumstance should teachers be made invigilators in the schools in which they teach, so that they will not be tempted to offer aid or allow their students to engage in malpractice.

Examination malpractice can be stopped and it must be stopped; but if it must be done, it must be done well with concerted efforts from everybody.

It therefore behooves the various actors in this fraud to re-examine themselves, since unexamined life is no life, and turn over a new leaf. Teachers, invigilators, supervisors, parents, students among others who collaborate to orchestrate examination malpractice should be adequately punished to serve as inhibition to would-be or prospective examination fraudsters.

Judiciary, this is your court. If you deal very well with culprits with favour, and the media also 'disgrace' these culprits on air, I believe in a matter of two years Ghana will not record even a single malpractice.

This article is not trying to put blames on somebody or any group; it is only trying to remind all stakeholders to spur up their commitment into making Ghana a better place. All hands must be on deck. Ghana must move forward always in the right direction.