Every year, at a time like this, there is one mortal fear that grips all in the education circles; the fear of irregularities in examinations.
The media is normally awash with both rumours and proven cases of the said irregularities. Not to be overtaken, several human pests hawking supposed genuine exam papers are all over.
But it is a unique fear. There are hordes who fear not that it will happen, but that when it happens, something might go terribly wrong, and somebody might catch them red-handed.
Routinely, KNEC has come up with a raft of new rules for supervisors and invigilators of the national examinations.
For this year, the procedures include shifting supervisors and/or invigilators, and using mainly high school teachers to keep vigil in high schools.
Apparently, the changes are advised by the need to limit examination irregularities, and it reveals one thing: that someone has discovered there are some procedures that have been used in the past which have contributed terribly to this infamous phenomenon.
Last year, there were two things of note that happened after the release of the results.
The first was the doubts raised over the wonderful performance of some schools. There were schools that improved by abnormal margins.
I have great respect for schools that posted credible results. Such schools, and their teachers and administrators, should get medals for their honest display.
Yet to understand cheating in exams, according to motivation theorists, people do what they do depending on the advantages gained. If the motivation to steal exams exceeds that of honesty, chances are that a person will go ahead and cheat.
The parliamentary committee that investigated cheating in 2022 KCSE was told head teachers who steal and are never caught end up being promoted because of good results. Promotion, and the perks that go with it, are the most important motivating factors for many a crooked head teacher.
With the stakes high, teachers will find a way around integrity.
One other key motivator is capitation. It is sad that a well-meaning programme can be turned into a poisoned chalice. When schools perform well, enrollment shoots up exponentially, and consequently government capitation as it is based on population.
Nonetheless, when we allow exam cheating, we kill the future of the nation. As long as we give children the impression that it is possible to make it in life through waywardness, they will never depart from that trajectory.
We will have created a chaotic and dishonest society, and we will never fight corruption, for the corrupt will be everywhere.
The first point to start is our value system. Do we teach our children to be honest? Do we teach them, for example, to work hard and earn their keep?
In some countries, exams are never supervised. One purpose of an exam is to test honesty and the level of civilization. To the student, it is self-evaluation. The students are testing themselves on what they know.
In many countries also, national exams have been abolished. The teacher is the final authority. If they give a student a distinction in Physics for instance, yet that student cannot manage his engineering course, that teacher will be called out.
So, it is our joint need to exorcise this demon from our education system. Let nobody: parent, teacher, learner, or any member of our society, condone exam cheating. It will be espousing self-destruction.
By Charles O. Okoth
Get more stories from our website: Education News
To write to us or offer feedback, you can reach us at: editor@educationnews.co.ke
You can also follow our social media pages on Twitter: Education News KE and Facebook: Education News Newspaper for timely updates.
>>> Click here to read more informed opinions on the country’s education landscape
