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End the culture of cheating in exams
- Details
- Published on Monday, 04 June 2007 02:17
The statistics are shocking. A total of 1,739 students cheated. Out of these, 1,617 colluded with one another, while 134 candidates were caught by supervisors or invigilators with unauthorised information.
The district breakdown shows that Kisii North (Nyamira) had 11 schools with 229 cheating cases. Kisii South (Gucha) had 141, Makueni 134, Embu 115, Bureti 104, Machakos 91, Uasin Gishu 88, Homa Bay 73,Garisa 47, Suba 42, Nairobi 40, Kirinyaga 39, Taita Taveta 28, Mwingi 27, Bungoma 33.
Kisii High School had all the results of the 197 candidates cancelled. Cardinal Otunga Mosocho had one case out of 201 cases in the district.
Kiine Girls High School in Kirinyaga had 36 out of 50 cases of cheating. Manyatta in Machakos had 39 out of 87 cases, while Tseikuru in Mwingi with 27 out of 55 were among the worst cases of cheating recorded this year. Though Education minister George Saitoti warned against the vice, little effort has been made by the government to deter teachers from encouraging cheating. For far too long, the lives of thousands of students have been destroyed every year.
Granted, the responsibility of guarding examination materials rests with the KNEC but once an examination is confirmed stolen and fraudulent, the ministry should punish the culprits.
The case of Kisii High School where all the 197 students were affected is tragic. 197 parents have nothing to show for paying fees for four years. The students will be traumatised for long for a crime they were willingly or innocently co-opted to commit.
Even if it was only one case of cheating, like the one at Maandani Secondary School in Kilifi, the entire school is stigmatised.
The least the public would expect is for the principal to be interdicted, pending thorough investigations.
However, principals, teachers and examination supervisors have exploited loopholes in the law to continue perpetrating examination cheating.
Any school that cheats in examinations should be investigated and appropriate steps taken to protect innocent students.
Proper investigation and eventual prosecution of those involved, whether teachers, supervisors, invigilators or anybody else, should be instituted.
It is unbelievable that 197 candidates can cheat without the connivance of others. The government cannot continue to make public pronouncements against cheating without providing strategies to curb the vice. Students should be interrogated to provide clues on other people who may have coached them to cheat.
Subject teachers, head teachers, invigilators and supervisors should not just be prosecuted but also sacked if ever a whiff of implication is identified. There are few cases if any of people being charged in court of law for helping students to cheat.
The ministry should embark on an awareness campaign to ensure that students understand how to detect examination cheating or what to do when tempted. Students and parents, too, have the responsibility to protect themselves from peddlers of examination leakage. KNEC, too, cannot escape censure. It is unforgivable that examinations leak to students regularly yet officials who have sworn to protect them are not even haunted by their conscience.
Perhaps there is need to set up a separate team to invigilate, supervise and control examinations.
