Producers of fake academic certificates protest exam cheating

Following increasing cases of exam cheating, manufacturers of fake academic certificates from all over the country held a press conference in Nairobi before staging a protest against students who cheat in exams, accusing them of being a threat to their business.

The producers of counterfeit certificates argued that the more students cheat and get away with it, the more likely they are to score good grades, thus running them out of business.

“Cheating in exams is unethical and it denies people like us trying to earn a honest living our daily bread,” moaned one of the counterfeit manufacturers. He added that their industry is built on mass failure in national exams, and they are not going to allow exam cheats to shortchange them.

They also criticised the prayers that were held and continue to be held across the country in various educational institutions to pray for candidates sitting or about to sit national examinations.

“Anything that might result in better grades is against our interests and we will not sit and watch as jobs are being taken away from us,” one of the forgers said. “In fact, whichever politician wants our votes should be advised that the best way to win over our voting bloc is to ban success cards!”

At the press conference the forgers also threatened to go to court to stop any overhauling of Kenya’s educational system with the intention of making it less exam-oriented now or in future.

Threat to our business

“School is not a place to receive a holistic education; it’s a place to either pass exams or embarrass your parents. Anyone saying anything to the contrary probably has intelligence levels that are dangerous for a society like ours and should be watched very carefully!” said the chairman of Forgers Association of Kenya (FAK).

The FAK chair also added that they were providing a useful service to society because they were enabling lots of people to join their dream careers including becoming MCAs and governors. He also pointed out that these new positions were not available when they were growing up, and if they were, their circumstances in life would have turned out much different.

The forgers seem so determined to protect their turf that at the time of the press conference reports emerged that they were taking the law into their own hands. Some printers spoke to the media alleging fear for their lives after having received death threats from people they believed to belong to the fake educational certificates production sector.

But in their defence, the FAK chair said the printers were “mere leakers” who had decided to tarnish the good name of the forgers by leaking a false story to the press.

Young people

And in a related development, recent studies done by sociologists at a leading institution of higher learning have indicated that the increase in exam cheating on one hand, and the proliferation of academic certificate forgers on the other, are putting students in a big dilemma.

One of the subjects of the study said that young people should never have to undergo what they are experiencing.

“It’s hard to decide which is easier and which involves as little effort as possible for someone as lazy as I am; cheat in exams so that I get the grades I want or buy academic certificates with the grades I want... I guess I will just go back to sleep and let my parents decide for me,” the high school teenager is quoted as saying.