written By Onosolase Francis

Whether you call it “expo” or “chukuli” or “cooperation”, examination malpractice as it is well known has caused more harm than good to the educational sector in Nigeria. It is no news that the level of education in Nigeria today has so much deteriorated to the extent that result is now much more of great value than knowledge acquired.

Students in colleges today are scared of internal examination than they are scared of external examinations, not because the former is more difficult than the latter, but rather, because they come to the examination hall to copy answers and not to solve answers in external examination. When a child gets to S. S. 3, he/she becomes reluctant to study, and when cautioned, they tell you they have paid their malpractice fee, a.k.a. “cooperation fee”.

This situation has in a large extent reduced student’s self courage in writing examinations, which they once had when they wrote internal exams. Little wonder why most parents give their children pocket money during JAMB exams to settle examiners if need be, and this act has generated the name “JAMB SPECIAL CENTERS”. One would wonder how an examination meant to be written by all would have special centers, when those writing there are not special students. The question now is, can this practice which has in every way hampered the level of education in Nigeria be stopped?

Well, in my own opinion, considering those who benefit from this shameful act, I think it is almost impossible for malpractice to come to an end in Nigeria.
Parents today are even the most active agent of malpractice. Most parents, instead of encouraging their children to learn, turn out to be the ones who help to search for special centers and pay extravagantly for examinations which normally should have cost next to nothing. Little wonder why some children have never written exams on their own and when they attain tertiary level of their education, the went on blocking lecturers for grades cause the money is readily available.

The examination bodies are not left out as well. Most examination bodies are aware of this act, but still they do nothing about it, simply because they too benefit from the dubious act. Examiners advice students to cooperate else they would fail.
More so, examination malpractice has in recent years become means of livelihood and source of employment for unemployed graduates. With the popular trend of unemployment in the country, graduates now engage themselves in writing exams for students whose parents pay extravagantly. Graduates today make up to hundreds of thousands writing exams for students and therefore, keep encouraging the act.

Finally, most private schools see exam malpractice as a way to win more students to their schools. The trend today is that schools where students do not make their external exams do not attract new students the following year. So they do anything possible including malpractice to make sure that their students make their papers… Now, the question is, who makes the exam? The school or the students? In essence, examination malpractice which is eating up our educational system so rapidly needs everyone’s effort to stop it.
source www.lawrenzi.com