• It is a monster created by society, and journalists can also not escape blame
Exam cheating. It's one of those problems that right-thinking members of society frown upon, but it has proved impossible to eradicate. Professionals in the education sector say examination malpractices are motivated by certain factors among learners, parents, guardians and teachers.
Considering the huge social and financial rewards that come with good grades, it should not be surprising that people fall into the temptation to cheat in examinations. Getting top grades in national examinations bestows the candidate with enhanced social status. Top-performing candidates may get scholarships that would spare their families from paying school fees in future.
For teachers, helping learners get top marks in national examinations results in public acclamation, positive appraisals and even promotions. With a promotion comes a salary increase.
School administrators gain from examination practices through publicity for the school and increased enrolment. Naturally, parents and guardians want their children to attend schools which deliver good results in examinations. Such schools can justify demanding higher fees, which parents and guardians will gladly pay. Subsequently, the school's income goes up.
In a conversation with this writer, teachers expressed concern that national examinations are increasingly resembling the mock examinations done by some public and private schools across the country. Mock examinations are practice tests designed to give learners a feel for the actual national examination. It seems that learners in some schools get very high scores in national examinations because they have prior knowledge of what is to be asked.
REPETITIVE QUESTIONS
A researcher has reinforced the allegations about mock exams. Dr Purity Ngina of Zizi Afrique Foundation told Citizen TV in October that 60 per cent of questions in the main national examinations are copied from past papers. The problem affects both the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examinations.
"Actually, most of the questions are even repeated word for word," Ngina said. This means that schools which invest in preparing their learners with past KCSE or KCPE papers will get good results because candidates will be familiar with at least 60 per cent of the questions coming in the national examination.
The Kenya National Examinations Council rejected Ngina's claims. In an interview with the Star, Knec chief executive David Njeng'ere said the researcher did not present convincing evidence to back up her assertions.
"Those claims are not true unless there is clear evidence. If there is a study or research that has been done, let us see it," the Knec boss said.
Some schools may not be engaging in exam malpractices but are helping learners get good scores through intensive practice with previous examination papers. However, the perception that those high performers are cheating evokes a sense of unfairness elsewhere. Students in schools that have not learnt the secret to passing examinations feel the education system is unfair. That sense of unfairness can motivate candidates to engage in examination malpractices in the belief they are creating a more level playing field.
Incidentally, as this year's national examinations were beginning in October, the Education Committee of the National Assembly was releasing its final report on the 2022 examinations. The Committee concluded that certain exam malpractices occurred in the 2022 examinations, but the overall performance did not deviate significantly from previous years.
"Some centres had cases of candidates attempting to sneak mobile phones into examination rooms during examination sessions," reads part of the report.
In some places, candidates were found in possession of unauthorised materials during routine frisking that is done before sitting for papers. The intercepted materials were not used to penalise the offending candidates. At one examination centre in Embu, all of the candidates made the same spelling mistake when answering a particular question on British politics. This was irrefutable evidence of collusion.
"There were 20 suspected cases reported during marking by the examiners. It was alleged that candidates presented similar and identical responses," the committee found.
JOURNALISTS AT FAULT
The committee's chair, Tinderet MP Julius Melly, has previously said that the ranking of schools by performance in national examinations is a major factor that contributes to examination fraud. While meeting education sector stakeholders last March, Melly blamed the media for continuing to rank the best-performing schools and candidates despite the government having stopped ranking.
"Cheating is motivated by the desire to succeed and teachers craving to be promoted. Principals are under pressure from parents and students that they assist in cheating or they will be sent away from the school," Melly said in remarks published by the Kenya News Agency.
As the media compete with each other, it is very difficult to achieve consensus on whether to stop publishing school rankings or celebrating top performers. The public is eager to know the performance of schools and, as such, no media house will risk losing customers by not reporting on exam performance. Besides, even if mainstream media outlets agreed not to publish the names of high-scoring schools and candidates, the information will probably leak out through social media anyway.
Amidst the obsession with high achievers, it is worth remembering that the pass rate in national examinations is worryingly low. Data from Knec shows that only 19 per cent of candidates who sat the KCSE examination in 2022 got a grade of C+ and above. The pass rate has hovered at that level for several years now.
As educationists ponder how to eliminate examination malpractices, equal attention should be paid to the 81 per cent of secondary school leavers who get low scores in KCSE. What is to become of them? Why do we have a school system where so many students are performing poorly? These questions need urgent answers for the sake of millions of young Kenyans in primary and secondary schools.