The jail term for exam malpractice

This was announced by the former Minister of Education, Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, after the Federal Executive Council Meeting.While it is a welcome development to check examination malpractice, many believe that it is merely a reflection of the larger Nigerian society where elections are rigged, and corruption has permeated everywhere.Therefore, some queried the jail term as […]

This was announced by the former Minister of Education, Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, after the Federal Executive Council Meeting.
While it is a welcome development to check examination malpractice, many believe that it is merely a reflection of the larger Nigerian society where elections are rigged, and corruption has permeated everywhere.
Therefore, some queried the jail term as selective, while corrupt government officials loot the treasury with impunity without being brought to book.
All the same, definitely the issue of examination malpractice is a problem that has gradually become entrenched in our education system, and therefore become ‘acceptable’ to some extent as the only way for students to pass.
In those days people used to hear with horror how some students were caught cheating in exams on the news, because they couldn’t fathom how it could be possible.
However, that has become history and examination malpractice has since changed from where an individual would enter the exam hall with a paper concealed in his underwear and so on.
Now examination malpractice has become big business, where we have examination centres called ‘miracle centres’ where you pay a lot of money and you are sure to pass with nine credits even if you can hardly write a correct sentence.
Such students may get admission, but they cannot defend their results and the lecturers find it disappointing.
And this sort of malpractice goes beyond the student as the culprit. It involves parents, teachers, supervisors, and so on for the malpractice to succeed.
While parents know that their children may not pass, they pay for them to pass by all means, instead of them to allow them to do the exams and later re-sit the subjects they failed.
And what about the state governments that issue threats to principals that students must pass so as not to be among the states that fail, if not among the best?
In this case, it is an organised malpractice supported by the government, encouraging the children to go out and cheat later in life.
Other schools also engage in examination malpractice by pleading with the supervisors to allow them to write some answers for the students.
In fact it is so bad that one such supervisor has vowed not to take the job again.  He said it pricked his conscience that he is part of cheating.
For such parents that take part in examination malpractice, I wonder if their children one day come with stolen items, can they look them in the eye and tell them not to take what does not belong to them?
From the look of things the law may send a lot of people to jail; from students, teachers, principals, supervisors, invigilators and some officials of examination bodies.
One of the tragedies of examination malpractice is that those that have studied hard may not get as much credits as those that pay for their results, making them look like the poor students.
This may discourage some from studying hard, after all poor students can pay and get better results.
Well, everyone is now on the watch out for how the law may check the malpractice, with the hope that all those involved should be prosecuted.