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Head Teachers, Students And Examiners Conspire to Cheat
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 17 July 2007 00:41
Investigations by the Nation reveal that there are underhand dealings between secondary school headteachers and invigilators to help students pass their examinations.
The Kenya National Examinations Council (Knec) also stands accused of leaking confidential information on examinations to businessmen who sell this information to school heads.
Mr John Ochako, the Principal of Bishop Mugendi Secondary, one of the schools whose students were accused of cheating, said some businessmen had offered to sell him chemicals and laboratory apparatus, which would be used in the 2004 KCSE exams months before other schools were notified what chemicals to buy.
Knec also has a case to answer on the selection of examination supervisors, invigilators and even the examiners.
It is suspected that Knec examiners, who are mostly from the country's prestigious and well performing schools, leak some of the questions to their students during mock examinations.
Consequently, the schools without examiners buy mock examination papers from those they suspect to have prior knowledge of what topics may feature in national exams.
Mr Ochako said he bought 20 mock examination papers from Starehe Boys and Precious Blood Riruta in Nairobi.
Head teachers pay the "team leaders" among the examiners to give lectures on the exams before the exams are done.
In preparation for science practical examinations, Knec is supposed to give head teachers guidelines on chemical reagents and laboratory apparatus to be used during the practicals.
The information is passed on to school principals at least three weeks before the start of KCSE by way of a confidential report.
This report is not supposed to be divulged to teachers. However, Mr Ochako said he shared this information with his teachers.
"I keep the report under lock and key and only show the subject teacher as we plan when and how to buy the apparatus," he said.
Some teachers questioned the rationale behind Knec's provision of pilot papers to some schools.
The teachers said some headteachers also invited senior Knec examiners to give lectures on specific subjects few weeks to the examination. The examiners guide the students and teachers on possible areas where exams are likely to come from.
A former secondary school head teacher who admitted he was once involved in exam cheating, said cheating is done with the knowledge of headteachers.
"If the head of an institution stands firm against exam cheating, then this vice would not occur," he said.
He said head teachers bribed examination supervisors and invigilators to allow the cheating.
While cheating is going on in a school, the watchman is instructed to close the gate and completely vacate the area. However, he is instructed to keep watch from a distance just in case anybody appears.
In most schools, visitors coming to see either teachers or students are forced to wait for them outside.
This is meant to ensure that information on cheating does not leak out of the school. It also helps in ensuring that they are not caught off-guard. By the time the gates are opened for visitors, the school administration will have put its house in order.
Owing to clanism and the fact that most headteachers are from the same community with the students, the headmasters feel obliged to help them pass their examination.
Most of the supervisors come from neighbouring schools while invigilators are from neighbouring primary schools.
The former headteacher said that when these headmasters were transferred, the schools they moved to often excelled in national examinations.
However, when they leave a certain school, the results drastically fall while those of his new school improve instantly.
"Cheating in national examinations is a school sponsored game," he said.
According to teachers, highest incidences of cheating occur in Mathematics and science subjects. However, it is in the same subjects where detection is very easy.
In Mathematics, teachers are provided extra question papers by the supervisor immediately the examination is unsealed. The Knec exam rules do not allow the supervisor to part with any exam papers before the exam is complete.
The teacher hurriedly solves the problems, writing down the answers and calculation methods on the question paper which he passes on to students with the assistance of the supervisor, the former head master said.
Because the teacher has to spend time writing down the answers, students are left with very little time to copy the answers. So to beat the exam deadline students copy everything their teacher has written down, sometimes with all the mistakes and cancellations indicated.
When it comes to marking, the examiners note similar mistakes, similar answers and similar methods of solving the problems, thereby raising queries.
But the scenario is different in science subjects where cheating is more rampant in the practicals.
With the Kenya National Examination Council sending confidential report on laboratory apparatus and chemicals to be bought three weeks before the start of exams, the stage is set for cheating.
Headteachers are supposed to buy the materials on their own without involving anyone else to avoid leakage.
However, they often involve the subject teachers who are advised to drill the students on possible questions that are likely to appear in the examination.
And for an alert teacher, it is easy to predict the questions which are likely to be asked after reviewing past KCSE exam papers.
It is little wonder therefore that most of the schools accused of collusion left incriminating evidence in science subjects and Mathematics.
In Kisii High school where all 197 candidates were disqualified, the students were accused of collusion in Mathematics Chemistry and Biology.
In Gamba Mixed Secondary School, the results for 84 students were cancelled after they were accused of colluding in the Biology practicals.
At Bishop Megendi Secondary School Nyakegogi, results of 99 students were cancelled for allegedly colluding in Chemistry practicals. The students and subject teacher admitted to having done a Chemistry practical which later appeared in the exam.
At Gusii Highlights High School, two students were caught with the Biology Confidential paper. They were caught after their girlfriends from a neighbouring district were caught with similar papers. The girls disclosed that they had been supplied with these papers by their boyfriends.
In turn the boys confessed to having acquired the paper from a photocopying bureau in Kisii Town where someone sold it to them at Sh100.
The school's headteacher Mr Madhu Mohan said the students were allowed to sit for the exams by the examinations council although their results were later cancelled. However, he said a thorough investigation was carried out to ensure that the contents had not leaked to other students.
Headteachers have also been accused of hand-picking sympathetic supervisors.
The former head teacher said that in 2002, a secondary school head in Kisii hired his own supervisor and invigilators.
When the district education officer questioned the move, he was transferred through the influence of local politicians.
The examinations council never detected anything in the school's 2002 examinations and the students got their results.
However, during last year's exam, the school had some of its candidates' results cancelled due to collusion.
The Gucha, district education officer, Mrs Alice Barno, said impersonation is also a common way of cheating in the area.
At Nyamonaria Secondary School in the district, three students were caught while impersonating a candidate while at Riagumo Mixed, two students were caught.
In Nyamonaria, Ms Barno said the three candidates had done their exams in 2003 and passed well. However they went ahead to register for the 2004 exams under different names. They registered in March and then left the school only to return when the exams were being held several months later.
She said it was suspected that they were doing the exams for other people. In the second school, it was a classic case of two students impersonating each other.
The students were a boy and a girl. Ms Barno said the boy wrote the girl's name in his paper while the girl wrote down the boy's name in her examinations paper.
The two were repeat students. The boy, she said, had scored a B+ in his 2003 exam while the girls had scored grade D.
