Yes, it was bad when university admissions were based on bed spaces, according to Henry Lesege in his Saturday Nation’s article from February 18, 2023, but it will certainly be worse if the spurious grades are going to be the ones to be used instead.
During the times of Fred Matiangi and George magoha as cs’s of MOE we were really trying to move away from the spurious A’s and B+’s.but now, look. Enter Ezekiel machogu and the order has apparently been reversed.
The former two gentlemen did very good work. During exams times they would be seen all over the place (running around like headless chickens, as Magoha himself would often say) going to check on the reliability/suitability of the personnel involved in the whole exercise and the safety/security of the exam materials. Machogu has now ignored such like undertaking.
Nobody with sane mind will have a quarrel with many As and B+s. But anybody should have real concern about spurious As and B+s. In other words, we should all be condemning the cheating during examinations.
Imagine someone who cheats his way through at the KCSE level and goes to do the same thing at the university where he graduates as a medical doctor, a surgeon. How would you entrust your life to such a fellow? Nor would you be comfortable with an architect who goes through the same fake process to design and build your skyscraper.
Come on, let’s be serious at least for one time. Why do we always seem to love faking our ways through everything? You remember the time a university degree became a requirement in order to be elected for some political positions. The number of those who faked their degrees simply shot up which was hardly surprising, given that our politicians are number one when it comes to cheating.
But is this the way we should be going? Not at all, at all. We should all be moving towards eradicating cheating in examinations. Matiang’i and Magoha had started us off very well. So when Machogu tries to take us back, we should all stop him.
We should not be glorifying the number of the graduates (among them the fake ones) that we have, as Lesege suggests. We should be happy with the genuine ones, however few they are. In any case, it should be easier for the government to plan for a few cases of genuine unemployed graduates than for a whole mass of exam cheats of graduates. And in most cases it is these exam cheats who interfere with the chances of the genuine job seekers. For the former are always with money to bribe their way through.
C.S Machogu, we are calling you out. Either you step up your efforts or move out and let someone else capable take over.
By Enock Shirandula
Email: emshirandula@yahoo.com
The writer is a retired educationist, A kabarasi language reviewer of Kabarasi BTL Project and author of So Different, She Was.
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