By Wachira Kigotho
In the last year's Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, about 3,000 students had their results cancelled or withheld for cheating.
However, Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has been under intense pressure from students and politicians to release the results.
Nonetheless, there are concerns that examination dishonesty is not just perpetrated by students but the integrity of public examinations has been compromised by many actors, including education officials. While releasing KCSE results, Education Minister Sam Ongeri said education officials might be involved in the unending incidents of examination fraud.
Unless the academic fraud is severely punished, it is going to graduate from merely a nagging educational issue to national crisis like in Nigeria where universities have petitioned the Government to be allowed to set their own admission tests instead of relying on the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, which is characterised by massive malpractices.
The crux of the matter is that success in academic life has great value and examinations are the means of selecting candidates for higher education and employment. Success in KCSE optimally opens doors for admission to the best degree programmes in public universities.
Academic fraud
Academic fraud appears to be on the increase worldwide according to United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
"Education has opened new avenues of advancement to growing number of citizens but many complex forms of misconduct have developed, amounting to a wide range of academic fraud," says Muriel Poisson, a programme specialist at Unesco.
But whereas academic fraud can take many forms examination dishonesty can occur at any stage of the examinations. Basically, students or their agents arrive at the venue prepared to use various methods. The most common is known as ¡®giraffing¡¯ where a student sticks out one the neck to see another student¡¯s answer sheet and it is often coordinated by examiners and teachers. It is related to ¡®lateral connection¡¯ implemented through a sitting arrangement, whereby the bright candidate is flanked on both sides by weaker candidates. The bights ones are then asked by teachers to let others peep on his work.
Alice Arinlade Jekayinfa, a professor of Social Education Studies at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria, says a common cheating method in Sub-Saharan Africa is known as ¡®nothing-nothing.¡¯ "This involves the use of empty biro pen to trace information on a blank white piece of paper. Seeing this on the table, one would think there is nothing on the paper, but closer observation reveals well loaded with facts about the examination," says Jekayinfa.
In Kenya, it is called mwakenya and apart from being used during KCPE and KCSE, it is commonly used by university students.
Other forms of mwakenya are dubbing and tattoos.
For tattoos, a candidate ¨C mainly female ¨C writes information on thighs where she can easily adjust to read and copy. The offending material can be deleted quickly when the invigilator becomes suspicious.
There is also a ¡®missile catch¡¯ that represents answers written on a piece of paper, squeezed and thrown to a colleague during the examination.
Body aids
Some cheating methods involve body aids. While announcing last year¡¯s KCPE, Ongeri produced a slipper that was used to write answers. Other body aids that are used to smuggle materials into examination venues include under-pants and handkerchiefs.
Often, students use coded sign language to communicate during examinations particularly in multiple-choice examinations. Another trick allowed by teachers is the ¡®table top guide¡¯ where anticipated answers are written on desks before an examination starts. Mostly, formulas, diagrams and maps are written in short form with complicity of teachers and compromised invigilators.
Ingenuity of examination fraud has also spread to use of tokens. These are short notes on the mathematical set, razor blades, rulers, handkerchiefs and other items for referencing during examinations.
A new form of cheating called ¡®coms¡¯ involves use of calculators that facilitate multiple entries. Quite often, such special calculators are put in casings of ordinary calculators and might look ordinary and escape invigilators.
Direct access is an act whereby an examiner helps candidates during examinations. There is also the ¡®mercenary service,¡¯ which involves another person writing the examination.
In last year¡¯s KCSE, some university students were arrested sitting examinations for private candidates.
The ¡®mercenary service¡¯ is related to ¡®rank zeroxing¡¯ which happens when a candidate collects and copies a colleague¡¯s answers word for word.
In universities where examination procedures are not very strict, academic corruption known as ¡®contract¡¯ is used.
This occurs when a student¡¯s grade is influenced with the assistance of a friendly lecturer. It can occur when a lecturer is paid money or sex for marks to enhance grades.
There is also the ¡®time out¡¯ method in which a student pretends to be suffering from diarrhoea and visits the toilet several times to read prepared answers.
Besides dishonesty during the examination time, academic corruption is often extended after the papers are collected by examiners and this is one of the most difficult examinations cheating to detect.
Tracing marking
With complicity of examiners and education officials, some parents are able to trace the results of their children to the last point of call, be it, the computer rooms where marks are stored for final processing and grading.
Unesco says this form of cheating is directly related to leakage of examination from administrative offices to local examination sites.
"Stakes are very high for cheating when examinations are for entry to higher education," says Unesco, in a report, Combating Academic Fraud: Towards a Culture of Integrity.
Academic dishonesty is rarely punished and is purely driven by greed and quest for profit.
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