EXAMINATION MALPRACTICES; A MENANCE OR MALACHIEVEMENT? THE WAY OUT.

WOULD YOU RATHER YOU FAILED WITH HONOUR AN EXAM,THAN TO PASS WITH DISHONOUR ?

Education in the general sense covers the whole life of an individual from birth till death or from cradle to grade that shows that education is as old as man on earth. The formal school system is greatly influenced in its result on the lives of all who pass through it.

This system of education is characterized by times of test and evaluation to assess the learning ability of time learners.

One of the principal aim of examination is to assess how much learning has taken place and to what extent the educational objectives and goals have been achieved. One serious problem plaguing formal education system of education today is large examination malpractice coupled with intellectual dishonesty.

Our pupils and students devise as a daily routine, new tricks to beat genuine supervisors and examiners.

Although examinations are not the only instrument for assessing and evaluating knowledge, it has emerged as the major established yardstick and the most practical way of assessment.

It has been observed over the years that the much reliance on exams as a sole assessment in many instances and the over-dependence on certificate as the key to employment has, however, led to a crazy rush by most people to try and acquire certificates either legitimately or illegitimately giving room to the negative practises emerging in tie conduct of exams, now known as examination malpractices

Examination malpractice is a kind of conduct that violates the acceptable laid down rules and regulations of Nigeria's education system. On the other hand, examination malpractice is any wrong doing before, during or after any examination. ... It is a problem which has been afflicting the educational system for many years

In recent times in this generation, the occurrences of examination malpractice have assumed an alarming trend and this is invariably due to many factors;

Such as, candidates' fear of failure,

lack of confidence,

laziness to follow through with due diligence in studying and

inadequate preparation and most often their inability to apply themselves to their studies.

Examination malpractice can be any deliberate act of wrong doing, contrary to the rules of examinations which is designed to give a candidate an undue advantage. It is an act or irregular manner of testing candidates which contravenes the rules and conventions guiding the conduct of examinations.

Sociatal value changes which has led to a reduced craving ans demand for hardwork but giving preference to acquisition of certificate has led to a displacement of priorities.

However, examinations play vital roles not only in our educational system but also in the society as a whole. The society demands from its members a diversity of specialized functions.

Types of Examinations,

These are the entrance examinations,
the terminal and promotion examinations,
the senior school certificate examination and the degree or diploma examinations.

Students are required to pass any forms of examinations they partake in. But these days students now find various means of achieving success in these examinations and one of such ways is by cheating in examinations through leakage in examination papers,

impersonation,

external assistance,

copying,

smuggling of foreign materials,

substitution of script and improper assignment

Four major Factors on the causes of examination malpractice could be seen as

Personal Factors. I.e Laziness by students. ...
Social Factors. - Peer pressure.
Psychological Factors. ...
Environmental Factors. ...
Individual-cheating Methods. ...
Technology-assisted Cheating Methods. ...
Collaborative-cheating Methods.

1. Poor moral upbringing of students in the society caused them to engage in examination malpractice it is believed.

2.Also that, students' involvement in malpractice can be caused by poor conditions under which examinations are conducted such as inappropriate sitting arrangement and poor supervision

There are many researches which have explored that there are various factors that contribute to examination malpractices other than those earlier listed.i.e., corruption;

poor implementation of examinations rules; students and parental threats;

no fear of punishment;

inadequate preparation for examination;

poor invigilation;

collusion;

disloyalty of examination invigilators and many more.

Another major factors;

Many students dislike exams and children of all ages seem to have a diet of more and more exams that they have to take. Coursework is being discredited as a way of demonstrating knowledge as it is becoming easier to plagiarise or even buy coursework over the internet. This leaves exams as the only obvious choice, but do they accurately & fairly test students’ knowledge?

Examination malpractice will include any of the following;

1. impersonation,
Leakage,;
swapping of scripts and
Dubbing (direct copying of answers to questions;

There are a lot of different types of examination malpractice as listed earlier, but the most general and most common at the higher levels may include;

Plagiarism: reproduction of someone's work without any sort of attribution or references to the original author.Other unwholesome developments inside and outside the examination halls bother on stealing of people's work, converting or misappropriating the scripts of other candidates, substitution of scripts at the end of the examination, tearing answer scripts for the examination papers only to complain later that their scripts are missing.
Fabrication: falsification of data, information or reference sources.
Lying: giving wrong info to the educational staff.
Cheating: an attempt to take in helpful material for the exam but in a way that the instructor or the examiner does not know about it, including the use of cheat sheets.
Bribery: getting the right answers or marks for money.
Sabotage: an attempt to prevent others from passing the exams. This includes, among other things, tearing pages from their books, deliberate damage to someone else's work etc
Professor-teaching misconduct: deliberately giving incorrect grade to the student's work or encouraging academic fraud.

WHO TO BLAME?

Cheating behaviour exhibited by the school, population is a big problem to our people. School administrators were recently called upon to desist from helping their students to perpetrate in examination malpractice.

Individual however put the blame on lack of proper social value system;

the high premium attached to paper qualifications as prerequisite for admission and gainful employment.

Parents instealing of wrong values into their children is in no way helping matters also as the children never see any wrong in it, as long as their parents are involved in the act.

ENORMOUSITY OF THE PROBLEM.

Organisers, small-sized compact discs, mobile phones, though not allowed in examination halls are sneaked in because messages could be text to them in the hall. It is almost as if, there is a syndicate running the whole affair and that it had become an enterprise in it's own.

EFFECT;

In the UK for instance; The Independent Commission on Examination Malpractice( In Uk), established last year by the Joint Council on Qualifications, which represents exam bodies, expressed concern over exam results against a backdrop of potential conflicts of interest and increased scope for cheating posed by technology.

“The variety of types of malpractice is increasing and it is difficult for the system to keep ahead of developments,” it said, citing a survey showing that 17 per cent of examination officers believed malpractice was widespread and 62 per cent had experience of dealing with it among students.( as reported in the- Financially Times (sept9.2019)

“

NEGATIVE OUTCONES OF EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE

The dangers that examination malpractice pose include perpetual condemnation of the conscience of the persons who engaged in such, whereby the carrier of the fake certificate is constantly under the persecution of carrying something that is false. It also leads to professional inefficiency. The carrier knows that he is not entitled to what he is carrying.

This further leads to a problem of unfulfilled dreams because God distastes injustice and, therefore, does not condone something that is wrong.

Other Effects of Examination Malpractice

Examination malpractice has many effects on students, teachers, educational institutions and the educational system as a whole. For example, students who engage in examination malpractice are more likely to be dishonest in other aspect of their life. Majority of such end up stealing or even cheating at work. Students are adversely affected even after graduation.

Employability,

Due to the high rate of exam malpractice, employers cannot rely on the certificate to tell them who deserves the job and who doesn't. That's why a lot of them are afraid to pay new graduates the salary they deserve because they don't believe in their skills. Consequently, academic dishonesty adversely affects everyone, even decent students.

TEachers;

Examination malpractice creates problems for teachers. It affects the way the faculty and even the school is viewed. One study says that 77% of teachers say dealing with cheating students is the most stressful part of their job.according to a source.

REPUTATION PROBLEM

Examination malpractice in any country, can also have a negative impact on the reputation of the institution. Institutions affected by scandals associated with deception may become less attractive to potential sponsors, prospective students and potential employers

SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS;

Exams can't judge a person intelligence , his knowledge. Its just tests your memory power on how fast can you memorize things and how much of your time you are willing to put into it .. It is basically a contest that who can cram more and in less time.

Because students are under pressure to get good grades, they strive to do their best. They work hard, making sure they are well-prepared. Without exams, students would be able to put off their revision and find it hard to keep up in class. Also, exams are a good way to test students' knowledge

The Finacial Times Report assisted weaker suggested that; there is need for examiners to step up scrutiny of the non-public “dark web” and social media to look for the covert sale of exam papers, and consider applying anti-plagiarism software already widely used in universities . Ofcourse we see this already hapenig in our society today with many of our children now patronising SM for quick fixes in getting linked with

While stressing they had found very few cases of detected malpractice in the UK, commission members expressed concern over the growth in the number of school students granted extra time to take exams without any scrutiny of the effect on their grades.

The report suggests;

The commission called for all watches to be banned in exams alongside other internet-connected devices, and recommended that invigilators sweep toilets for concealed devices in order to reduce the risk of cheating.

It said scribes, who take dictation for those unable to write, should have no personal connection to students.

Moral upbringing of children of Christian parents should be enhanced so that all the children are brought up properly in accordance with God's standards.

Numerous publications consider various measures of counteracting cheating in exams.

-Disqualifying them from taken the exam
-Low marks
-Monetary fines (for example, in Oxford, a fine of £100 is imposed on fraudulent students).- Samuel Tinubu ( https://www.legit.ng/amp/author/samuel-tinibu.html)

Christian groups should campaign against this behaviour on and off campus 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.

As another finals exams are around the corner these are some of the important issues that need to be addressed and looked into by authorities and and all stakeholders in the educational sector.

We should let our candidates know that there is dignity in labour ans their labour in the now as students is scholaship ans that we value them more being deligent and honest.

Teaching them that it is more honourable to fail with honour than to pass via dishonest means.