Examination Malpractices in Ghana: Whose Fault? WAEC, Students or Invigilators?

Examination malpractices seem like a naughty visitors who hves come to stay in Ghana. I say in Ghana because I only know about the terrain in which I live. It is easy to see students idling about simply because they think “Manna will fall” when it is time for their final exams. As a teacher, I feel saddened by the current trend so much so that I shiver thinking about the future with these ignoramuses as people holding the reigns of our nation.

What baffles me is that, they find creative means of cheating, means which need thinking, one would think they would channel that time into their learning. Just read some of the ways by which they cheat.

Imagine them using dots on erasers as answers to the questions, so one dot means A, two means B, three dots means C etc.

Some also write the answers they think are right on their rulers.

Other daring ones write them on little pieces of papers and put them in their veils: some of the Muslim females or in their pockets.

Some put huge books in their under-wears; the females claiming they are pads, some males put their papers under their belts or excuse me to say in their anus.

Some also hide phones in their shoes, some have phone watches which they use to communicate with people outside the examination halls.

Some put them in their hair (those who plait or wear weaves).

Some fold the papers and put them under their tongues.

The worst of all, I hear, there are flip-flops in Ghana which have inbuilt materials where cheating materials can be hidden.

Some boldly take their phones into the examination room, when caught, they say it is an oversight.

Some keep things at the urinals, hoping to use the excuse of  urinating  to cheat when they find the paper difficult.

Some write answers on their thighs.

Some put papers in the pads of their braziers.

Some intentionally fold their clothes and sew just to put their cheating materials, what they call “ap)”, there and sew it back only to remove the seams to take them out for copying when no invigilator is watching.

Some write some answers in their clothes.

Some hide pieces of papers with some topics in their zips.

Some write topics in their handkerchiefs.

Some store answers on their calculators, so end up wanting to write English examinations with calculators.

Some also put them in their pen corks to cover their pens

Some open the screws from the calculator and put the materials in there, screw them back only to take them into the exam room.

There is also the unthinkable- yet- impudently- thought of and tried with impudence impersonation.

There are many others I cannot list. But these are all genius ways of cheating, if a student can think through ways to cheat, why can’t he or she sit down to learn? It seems no matter what invigilators do, some students find ways of having cheating materials, so the invigilator becomes their “bitches and bastards” to an extend of some students threatening an invigilator they think is stern. I have personally witnessed an invigilator being threatened by a student in an external examination, his problem was that the poor lady was parading too much around his area.

So the next thing I will ask is, how do these students get the exams questions in the first place? A man I know told me that the West African Examinations Council (WEAC) has no printing press. They give their questions out on contract for others to print. If this is true, then they do have an alibi. It could be the printers, but then again, he pays the piper who calls the tune. The fact that some of the questions leak must make them bow their heads in shame. If these students have most of these questions, then definitely, it comes from above, invigilators need not take the blame for the cheating in the system. It goes both ways, invigilators must be extra vigilant, but there is no need for all these troubles on invigilators if the security is tight from up there.

Of course some of  the invigilators are rumoured to take bribes in order to allow students to copy, some teachers also find ways of writing the answers for their students. Some parents fail to show interest in their children’s education and some back them up in cheating (rumoured). Whatever it is, I want to say that the standards of education is falling in Ghana. If something is not done as soon as possible, education for literacy may just end up being education for illiteracy. Every nation mostly depends on its educational system to grow, we must wake up as educationalists, we must wake up as Ghanaians, we must wake to fight this canker and make education real. It is by doing this that we can fully rise above the corruption plaguing our nation.

Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2014