Recently, hardly any newsreader or newscaster ends the news on Examination administration, results or malpractices. The same with the media, the word Examination is a threat to candidates’ respective heirs.
The phenomenon has given concern to parents, teachers, and policymakers. The governments, employers of labour and the international community.
Therefore, this research attempts to discuss the agents contributing to examination malpractice and the best ways to tackle the form of examination malpractice in schools.
Agents of Examination Malpractices
Examination Bodies
It is sad to note that in the 1994 May/June Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE)alone, a total of 72,516 candidates were involved in various examination malpractices; Noting with regret the ways and manners our examinations are being conducted today. Ebenezer Williams in his article title “Fraudin our schools”(Daily Times, July 20 1995) writes:
‘Standard six examination papers in 1936 were printed in London and sealed at Cambridge, and only invigilators, all of them upright men. Opened the heavily waxed envelopes and gingerly delivered every such question to the aspiring students”
In public examinations as well as institutional examinations, examination bodies create room for the cheats through their lapses.
This could be in the form of lateness to start the examination, inadequate supply of materials, unsuitable examination venue and insufficient furniture.
Teachers/Invigilators
Teachers/Invigilators create room for cheating through their nonchalant attitude towards their assignments, and at the extreme, aid the candidates to cheat.
During the examinations, invigilators may be involved in group discussion, thereby allowing students to misbehave or try to cover up their deficiency in teaching by either dictating answers to the question or by jerking up the marks of their students.
The reason is to ensure that brows are not raised as to why many students have failed their particular course or subject.
Parents
Parents as members of a larger society are today more anxious about the educational future of their children. There are reports of Communities contributing money to buy examination papers.
A situation where parents adopt the cost-benefit approach and thereby take educating their wards as an investment which must pay off immediately could not be counter-productive.
Students
Several strategies have been variously adopted by students in carrying out the nefarious activities of examination malpractices. These include according to Denga(1991) the following:
- ECOMOG, ECOWAS OR OAU system. This is an arrangement whereby two or more students work together to cheat:
- Computer- They store information in an unsuspecting way, and the information is relayed to them in an unsuspecting manner.
- The Contractor System: This system involves a brilliant student working for a week on a contract basis.
- Giraffe-spying or occasional glances with neck elongation.
- The impersonation candidate is physically present for another person writing on his behalf.
- Micro-chips-Information thought relevant is smuggled in through socks. Shoes, braziers, maths sets, hair, examination forms, thighs, etc.
First Model
The first model is usually used by the powers that be. With this model, people with political, economic or administrative power use it to effect change.e The change can take the form of an increase in school activities or the inclusion of other social educational programmes that were not previously included.
Second Model
The second model makes use of persuasion. The initiator seeks the Cooperation of colleagues and others who will be invariably affected by the change.
The empirical or rational model attempts to establish evidence for the need for such innovation. Sometimes problem-solving approach to the enquiring method is used.
Focus 1
The Curriculum developer who possesses the innovation should be able to carry the consumers along in a cooperative manner and with sufficient reason for doing so.
The adoption of any of these models will be determined by the socio-educational and political circumstances individuals find themselves.
However, any meaningful curriculum innovation fashioned to challenge the problems posed by examination should critically analyse and evaluate the curriculum determiners: i.e. the learner, the society and the subject matter.
Focus 2
Such analysis and evaluation should subject the process of curriculum development to the needs and aspirations of the society and the learners, using the subjects as a matter, the nature of these determiners is dynamic, not static. The process should be continuous, allowing for innovation and other desirable changes.
Best Ways to Tack Examination Malpractices
In more specific terms, the challenges of Examination malpractice could be tackled through curriculum innovation in the following ways:
Point 1
Government at various levels, through Curriculum Development in Agencies, should organise seminars, workshops conferences where issues relating to curriculum planning and implementation are discussed.
The participants, which could include teachers of the various subjects, administrators, and members of the general public, could review the problems and identify areas that require change, modification, renewal and innovation.
Point 2
The Examination bodies should provide post-examination analysis, particularly on areas of strengths and weaknesses of candidates in particular examinations and specific subjects. The schools should be fed back on this, and such information should get down to the subject teachers and students.
Point 3
As much it is possible, test item analysis should be done by the examiners while setting the questions to cater for the three domains of cognitive, affective and psychomotor educational objectives. This requires thorough training and expertise.
Point 4
Principals, Headteachers and Heads of Academic departments should work together with the teachers/Lecturers in modifying the process of selection. Organising and integrating learning experiences and content.
For instance, the headteachers could hold conferences with the teachers handling the various arms of classes in primary school. Thus, every teacher would have been sure of what, why and how to implement curriculum packages in his class.
Point 5
In-service training should be organised to discuss such topics relating to test-writing, administration and preparation of results. They should be made comfortable.
Point 6
There should be an effective continuous assessment that would make the students steady in their studies. It should be a systematic, formative evaluation. It should also be comprehensive and reliable.
Point 7
Guidance and counselling services should be provided. The National Council on Education’s provision that makes it compulsory for secondary schools to have a guidance counsellor before they register candidates for the SSCE should be enforced.
The counsellor should be able to guide, advise and screen the boys and girls correctly before they are entered for the various subjects. This will ensure not only satisfaction to the student in the examination but also full benefit to society.
Point 8
Lastly, innovation should take care of the workload of the students in the respective subjects. The examiners should always consider the workload in their subjects about others and the time available for instruction. Thus, the interests of the learner/candidate would have been put into consideration. Consideration.
Conclusion
Indeed, a more serious situation was recorded by Lwowi (1984)when he noted that there had been cases in the past when teachers prepared students for public examinations without being aware of the existence of a new syllabus upon which examination questions would be based.
Focus 1
Many teachers depend solely and entirely on textbooks, a nd they do not make any efforts to be conversant with current syllabuses. He further asserted that as high as 39% of secondary school teachers studied by Oluwole(1983)claimed that they knew of the change through the mass media.
Focus 2
Curriculum innovation in Nigeria faces a myriad of problems, particularly with examinations. In an article titled “For effective management of our Education “, Professor Jubril Aminu identified a new brand of illiteracy called “relapsing illiteracy”, ” no general reading culture. Reading is only directed to the examination goal.
Conclusion
This paper has tried to argue for possible reasons for this scenario. Tackling the challenge of Examination Malpractice through Curriculum innovation will cease to be theoretical if all concerned play well their parts, i.e. teachers, students, governments, parents and society at large. Read more similar posts on our research page of the site.
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