HOW PRIVATE SCHOOLS NURTURE EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE
Examination malpractice has been attributed to the activities of extra study, coaching, special tutorial and examination “miracle” centers that are involved in after school hour preparation of students for national secondary schools’ and tetiary entrance examinations. These centers which by extention also avail themselves as examination centers have become well identified as fertile soil for the illicit business of hosting examination in malpractice manners where any body is able to earn good grades. While it is so fast to push the blame of examination malpractices on the special centers, a tour of conventional schools during the national examination gives a vivid picture of the dismal contribution of private schools to the present decaying education system.
The private owned schools seem very attractive in the outward system of organisation, students’ appearance and physical structures but the internal method of the conducts of examination is a torn in the flesh of the already watered down education system. Having acquired the accolade of citadel of academic excellence which has led to so much attention shift and negligence of public schools, the private owned schools in the bid to compete among themselve for survival in business use examination malpractices as their instrument of success in churning out results which are considered as good grades and performances for attracting customers to their schools.
From giraffing to use of cheat notes, use of technical devices such as calculators and mobile telephones, general discussion and issuing of answers through bribing of invigilators up to impersonation and buying of results, examination malpractice has grown over the years into a vital instrument of passing examination and into a norm that schools, students and parents have become comfortable with and are ready to achieve by moving into any available method.
Street comments on the issue strongly recommend that it is necessary to put up a thorough check on the activities of private schools. It is also opined that the over dependence on paper qualification at the expense of real and practicable acquisition of knowledge is a critical issue to contend with in the handling of examination malpractice.
An educationist and a traditional ruler, the Etsu of Kwali His Royal Highness Dr Shaban Audu Nizazo111, attributed school operated examination malpractice to the general level of corruption in the country. He said that “the present prevalent celebration of mediocrity where anybody seeks to achieve anything by whatever means available to do it and gets societal acceptance for it is what is responsible for any type of involvement in examination malpractice, nowadays people dwell on average and celebrate mediocre behaviour, performance and achievement instead of striving to raise the standard into what it is supposed to be.”. He said that when able bodied and intelligent young people are not given societal concern about how to tap their potentials into usable tools, they resolve to inculcating whatever means of achievement they see around them. “Whatever is done around children is happening around them and it will be unreasonable not to expect them to take hold of wrong values. Even when they are guided by juvenile deliquency, if they dwell in a sanitized system they will also get rid of any negative behaviour inherent in them or inculcated from peer groups”.
He also said that “in civilised and organised capitalist societies, the coexistence of private owned and government owned organisations are meant to complement the survival, growth and development of the society but where the reverse is the case, it becomes a system of operation where private organisations are given goverment approval to be destructive to the survival of government owned organisations”.
Both educationists and students hold a combined opinion that present day students are learning under difficult terrain, outdated and overloaded curriculum, unhealthy competition and reign of awkward survival of the fittest. It is also observed that the same people to handle the situation are fomidable perpetrators of the problem. While attempting to address the problem, the affected authorities seem to be speaking from both sides of the mouth as the invigilators, issuers of sold results and other connivers are neither from the sky nor under the earth but bonafide officials of West Africa Examination Council(WAEC), Joint Admission and Matriculation Board(JAMB) and the other examinations and schools’ regulatory organisations.
A past president of Reading Association of Nigeria who is also the Dean, college of humanities, Veritas University, Abuja, Prof Gabriel Egbe, is of the view that whether examination malpractice is an offshoot of a decayed society, juvenile deliquency, unseriousness of students or profit maximization aim of private organisations, the education system of a country should not be a sector to be compromized for anything if not the supposed growing members of the country would be put in a gradual situation of a weak and unproductive future generation because examination malpractices entrench unseriousness in the subconciousness of growing children thereby informing and establishing poor attitude to learning.
He stated that the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other schools’ regulatory authorities should establish academic programme in reading so that students should be able to learn under a system of reading towards critical thinking that leads to innovation instead of the current prevailing methods of reading to pass examinations.
Speaking also, The first recipent of University of Abuja’s academic leadership award, Prof Godwin Egwu said that there is the need to learn from the after effects of private primary and secondary schools in the establishment and handling of higher institutions.
He called on government to curtail the establishment of private universities stressing that it is detrimental to the survival and effectiveness of government universities. He said that “although it is good to be considerate of the number of students seeking admission to higher institutions, the increasing accreditation of private universities is leading to poor maintainance of public universities culminating into massive infrastrutural decay of classrooms, lecture theatres, studios, laboratories, poor remuneration of lecturers, poor research funding and equipment”. He said that there is the need to subject the private universities to evaluation and maintainance of standard of teaching, learning and research to be able to save the university system from degenerating into the level of dignified secondary schools.
