COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES IN CURBING EXAMINATION MALPRACTICES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN CROSS RIVER STA

Examination malpractice has been identified as a major bane of the Nigeria society. While primary education provides the necessary foundation for future development of students, the secondary education consolidates that knowledge and prepares candidates for specialization in the tertiary institution.

The goal of education is to develop the capacity of citizens and prepare them for life, work and citizenship (Valerie Strauss).

The ability to understand and effectively live in this complex natural and engineered world demands three critical purposes of education; critical thinking, creativity and interpersonal skills and a sense of social responsibility (Valerie Strauss)

Below is an extract of the problem statement:

Substandard Products and services

Nigeria lose a lot of lives and money due to substandard products and services that are rendered in the country. In architecture alone, even though there are no clear recent statistics: “401 reported lives were lost from 1974 – 2010 as a result of over 60 building collapse in Nigeria. Several more lives were lost but haven’t yet been accounted for nor reported” ( Olagunju).

“In healthcare, an estimated 289,000 maternal deaths, 2.6 million stillbirths and 2.4 million newborn deaths occur globally each year due to inadequate capacity” (Uneke et al 1).

More worrisome is that, according to Uneke et al, ‘The medical and surgical interventions to manage these complications are known, and most maternal deaths are in principle preventable’ (1).

All these are as a result of factors which include lack of capacity traceable to poor educational background and its attendant exam malpractice.

According to Internet Scientific Publication “Among the many challenges facing the health system in Nigeria, is acute shortage of competent health care providers” (Uneke et al 2).

A good percentage of the causes of this incompetence is traceable to exam malpractice. Onuka and Amoo support this by quoting Odesola who wrote that

This implies that 65% of our professionals cheated, in one way or the other, into the profession. It is not possible to have such amount of cheating in a profession and expect quality since there is compromise from the beginning. Exam Malpractices produce half-baked professionals in all fields. This causes fatality in the hospitals due to poor prescriptions and treatments, more collapse buildings and structures due to architectural error, unemployable youths, lawyers with little or no prerequisite skills, bad economy due to poor economists, production and indiscriminate sales of fake drugs due to poorly trained pharmacist.

Large scale fraud in the banking sector due to poorly trained bankers etc. If this continuous unchecked, there is likely be total system collapse because there are no professionals to hand over.

Poor Global Academic Reputation

Exam malpractice causes embarrassing loss of credibility. If a country is identified with such practice, such a country is not taken seriously academically among the committee of nations. This means that certificates obtained from that country’s education system is treated with disrespect. It also suggests that that country’s graduates cannot be employed in other countries without some measure of re-certification.

Imagine that only one Nigerian university is ranked among the top 800 universities in the world, according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2015/2016 released recently. PREMIUM TIMES’ analysis of the report showed that the University of Ibadan, Nigeria’s oldest university, is ranked 601st of the world’s top 800 universities featured in the survey, 200 steps lower than Makerere University, Uganda, which is ranked 401st (Uneke 2).

The Nigeria educational image abroad is poor. Hardly any country will accept our graduates without some form of recertification. This is traceable to our educational reputation ruined by massive exam malpractice over the years. This is one of the reasons why parents prefer to train their children outside the country, no matter the place (NOI­Polls).

Although there are no comprehensive data on the number of Nigerian students abroad, recent data have shown that there are about 71,000 Nigerian students in Ghana paying about US$1 billion annually as tuition fees and upkeep, as against the annual budget of US$751 million for all federal universities.

“In other words, the money spent by Nigerian students studying in Ghana with a better organized system is more than the annual budget of all federal universities in the country,” Sanusi said. “Nigeria is today placed third on the list of countries with the highest number of students studying overseas” (University World News).

This is as a result of lack of credibility and bad reputation of Nigeria schools. Nigerians are willing to try other alternatives rather than study in Nigeria with questionable academic reputation and incessant strikes ultimately caused by corruption and exam misconduct; a cyclic evil chain that feed each other to perpetuation in Nigeria.

Unemployable Youths

It is in the public domain that Nigeria graduates are unemployable. Among other factors that could be attributed to this menace, exam malpractices is one of them.

In July 2012, a statement was credited to the former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi-Okonjo-Iweala, at the Biannual Prof Barth Nnaji Lecture in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in which she said, “Nigerian youths are unemployable”.

After making this statement, criticisms followed with many Nigerians scolding her. But then, let’s ask ourselves, how true is this statement? (Punch undercover reporter).

However, another strategic speaker, FolaOgunsola, said the youths must face reality. She said over 80% of them were unemployable due to inadequate workplace skills. “Check the market place, out of 50 maybe two only might be able to write letters etc. “The change you are waiting for is in your hands, If society won’t add to your education, you must be determined to be part of transformative change,” and urged them “to go out and add value, imbibe skill with good positive attitude” (Daily Independence).

The former member of the committee of the House on Youth and Social Development, Mr. Depo Oyedokun has declared that twenty-three million Nigerian youth are poorly prepared and unemployable. The lawmaker made the claim Wednesday on a bill to key into every government policy youth development issues. Of the over 40 million unemployed youths in the country, 23 million are unemployable and therefore susceptible to crime, hence the need to articulate what could be done to salvage the situation (Vanguard News Paper).

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Examination malpractice has been in the increase especially among senior secondary school students in Cross River State, Nigeria, due to lack of confidence on the part of students to the extent that it devalues academic qualifications, nationally and internationally, and undermines the education system, saturating the universities with less prepared students who in turn pass out as unemployable graduates that produce substandard products and services causing collateral economic and social damages to the State and to the Nation.

This is fueled by greedy Proprietors and Principals who take advantage of the degraded value system and poor policy implementation to enrich themselves at the expense of vulnerable parents who want to influence their wards results at all cost. This proprietors influence examination board personnel, invigilators, supervisors and security officials with so much money made available by exploited parents/students whom they offer opportunities for exam malpractice. Women use their body to seduce male invigilators and supervisors and that gives them advantage over men in exam malpractice.

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