When A Woman Says No...

Full Story

Examination Malpractices In University Campuses

Examination Malpractices has consistently remained the bane of education in our society. This practice has rendered our education system useless.

It is a deliberate act of wrong doing. It is a violation of the set rules and regulation of the examination bodies. It is an illegal behaviour or attitude by a student before, during or after an examination so that he or she can attain success without stress or hard work. Hence the essence of examination is abused.

According to Collier’s Dictionary, malpractice is an improper or unethical conduct in any professional or official position.

Some prominent forms of examination malpractice are-: Leakage, impersonation, external assistance, smuggling in foreign materials, copying, substitution of scripts, intimidation, miracle centre.

These phenomenal cases are unacceptable to any responsible government or society because the consequence will result to half baked personnel like stray journalists, quack doctors, ill-equipped accountant and poor administrators.

This practice promotes corruption and moral decadence and above all the essence of going to school is defeated. Research shows that some of the causes of examination malpractice are corrupt teachers, invigilator and supervisors alike. This is worrisome and sometimes understandable, because most of our teachers are corrupt and students know that they can bribe their teachers. With huge or little amount of money or valuable materials so that they are allowed to cheat in the examination hall.

Another reason which leads to malpractice and inadequate preparation for examination is that, numbers of schools and tertiary institutions, the lecturers and teachers are few and the courses are many, therefore the specific time to cover the courses is limited. These teachers or lecturers rush students through the courses without thorough explanation of the topics, thus giving students room for malpractice, because they are not well prepared for the exams.

Parents also contribute to the menace, they device various tactics of corruption to ensure that their children pass examinations. Making students believe that passing exam is a do or die affair, they would want to pass by all means.

There is a general trend in our society towards examination which is negative and which is encouraged by some members of the population.

The effect of this examination malpractice has corrupt the social, religious, economic and political life of Nigerians.
However, there are some possible means to challenge examination malpractice, one is that of the continuous assessment which is being conducted in schools and institution to assist the student with good grades in exams.

This will reduce examination malpractice since 40 percent mark are accumulated from various assessment techniques such as project work and assignments before actual exams.

Secondly, students should be thoroughly searched before entering examination halls. This can at least reduce the rate at which students go into the halls with unwanted materials.

The number of invigilators and supervisors should be increased in examination halls. Apart from normal invigilators and supervisors, examination officers, heads of department, lecturers, should make official visit to the examination halls in order to observe the behaviours and attitudes of students when writing exams.

Other possible solutions to examination malpractice could be that, government should provide competent and strong teachers or invigilators who are capable of handling issues with students. Government should establish examination code and ethics committee in all states of the federations in both secondary and tertiary institutions.