Guest Column

NigerianNews

Dr. Yushau Balarabe
Remedial Studies Dept.
University Of Jos
Jos, Nigeria
byushau@gmail.com

What I have so far reported here is the rampant examination malpractice that is currently taking place in our secondary schools. It is my intention to extend the argument by showing that the teachers, parents, examination supervisors, and school principals are also contributing directly and knowingly to these malpractices. 

Epidemic Corruption in our Educational Systems and the Future of Nigeria (I)
by Dr. Yushau Balarabe

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When people talk about corruption, usually they refer to public fund siphoned or misappropriated by civil servant, contractor, politician etc. Hardly do they think of the type of corruption that destroys the minds of our children and siphons the moral values of our society. I am talking about the monumental corruption that is taking place in our educational system. This type of corruption is more dangerous and more serious threat to the future of Nigeria. There is no doubt that educational institutions in any country are the industry in which future leaders, thinkers, politicians, teachers, workers and what have you are produced. In Nigeria, this industry has deteriorated to the extent that in place of being an agent of purifying the minds of our children to become useful members of our society, the industry is now diverting the mind of the children away from what education is all about. Therefore, if urgent care is not taken the future of the country is bleak as far as any meaningful development is concerned.

It has long been observed that our graduates are no more measure up to the standards of both internal and external evaluators. What has not been very clear in this discourse are among others: 1) the actual level of the deterioration at various levels of our educational systems, 2) the rate at which the attitude of our students is changing negatively towards education, 3) the rate at which parents are struggling hard - willingly and knowingly to help their children get grades and certificates devoid of the requisite knowledge, 4) the level of deterioration of the moral values of  the custodians of knowledge (teachers and lecturers) to the extent that they are now certifying that someone is knowledgeable while they know he is not, and 5) the level of government negligence to education and the role of that in the deterioration of the system. These are areas that need thorough investigation. The findings are certainly going to be revealing to all.

I was glad to find myself in Nigerian classroom after a long break. I have been teaching in other places. I am the type of person that could not think of doing any other thing apart from teaching, and got sick (teaching sickness) if I spend sometime without holding chalk or marker. I teach with passion. So, from the first day I started my classes; I was able to attract the attention of quite a number of students in a crowded classroom. However, my aim was much more than that; I was very much interested in inculcating a culture of independent learning to them as university students. Although the students acknowledged the fact that they were enjoying and benefiting from my teaching, it did not take me time to know that there was a problem. In the first place, not many students were coming to the office hours. For those that came, I noticed that they were extremely deficient in basic concepts and elementary calculations. I initially assumed that the lesson must be well understood as commented by many students. However, I was wrong, the result of the first semester examination was extremely bad What was wrong? I asked. I was worried because I know the quality teaching atmosphere I developed and the attentiveness of the student during these lessons. In fact, from the way the students answered the questions, I concluded that the students were generally deficient. Mathematics is a structured subject that needs to be built on sound foundation. However, discussing with some of my colleagues, I was amazed to know that the result was equally bad other courses.

Fortunately, I am not only a mathematics teacher, but also mathematics educator. Therefore, I could not let this go without finding some plausible reasons.  I must confess here that I did not conduct any scientific research yet, but the preliminary discussion I had with some students, parents and teachers gave me some general insight. Summarily, it can be attributed to the monumental corruption in our educational system. None of my findings is perhaps going to be astonishing news to most of the Nigerian students, parent, teachers and school administrators. It appears that each and every one of them has a personal experience to share regarding the corruption in our educational system. What is most surprising to me is the way people seem not to share my worry. I then concluded: "The danger of staying outside Nigeria for too long is the high chances of getting outdated from the reality of the Nigerian society, while the danger of staying in Nigeria for too long is the high chances of getting incorporated into the corruption bandwagon". Truly, I am outdated. However, I am obliged to tell the story before I got incorporated. I hope, together we can rethink the future of our children and the country.

In a nutshell, I come to believe that the deficiencies of our university students can easily be traceable to weak secondary education. And the weak secondary education can easily be attributed to endemic corruption that is taking place at that critical level of our educational system. The terminal secondary schools examinations (WAEC/NECO) are set to measure students' academic achievement at that decisive time of their life. Now people are using all kind of means possible to get "good" results in those exams – the end justifies the means. Without fear of contradiction one can say; most of the results of WAEC/NECO of most of the students these days are not a reflection of the students' intellectual capacity.

I lost a cousin in my first three days in Nigeria. A very close friend of his came for condolence. In the course of discussion, the boy told me that he was the one who wrote the WAEC exams of my cousin because my cousin had to travel. He was telling me this because my cousin told him that I was the one who paid for the exams fees. I was doubly shocked. How can someone write exam for another - for whatever reason, and how can this boy have the guts to tell me this directly with out any remorse in his face? I later got to know that it is a common practice.

Another common practice is having the exams papers some days before the exams. A 200-level student in one of the Nigerian universities told me that the situation is too bad. How bad? I pressed. He revealed that he had his exams papers a week before the exams. "I was amazed to find out that it was truly the exam on the exam day" he concluded. Interestingly, for good number of the students, getting question papers a day or two is not enough to make them prepare well for the exams. Many will have to come to the exam hall with full answered script. I was reliably told that in some places, they will have to write the answers on the board for the students to copy!

A senior teacher in one of the model secondary school in Abuja told me that good number of their students do not register WAEC/NECO with them,  because they are strict. They preferred to go to the suburb schools where they have many options on how they write their exams or who they want to write their exams for them. One teacher told me that he is no more reporting any exam malpractices after marking WAEC/NECO, because you will end up reporting everything all the time. One can see why large number of results are either cancelled or withheld every year. As I was writing this article, the results of five schools in my neighborhood along were withheld. And the reason is nothing more than rampant cheating. I have discussed with two affected students. Both acknowledged the fact that they were "helped" during the exams. What are they going to do? They told me that they were "gathering momentum" in collaboration with the school principals, and they were confident that their results will soon be released.

I raised the issue of "help" during examination with one very dedicated teacher I know. He told me that students now do not read because of this expected "help" from teachers. And if you do not give this kind of "help", you are considered as wicked, and will be disliked by the students and school authority. He told me that in the last exams three students came to his house in the night. What was it? He asked. "We have gotten the question paper". They answered. "Is there anything we have not covered in the class?" He asked. "No, only two small sub-questions", they answered. According to him, he sent them away, because the time they took to come to his house was more than enough to think and get the answers. Again, how could students have the guts to even come to this teacher with a leaked exams questions? I was told that most of the leaked questions are obtained from the teachers!

Last week I watched a comedy TV program, in which a whole class fainted during school examination - just because the teacher decided to change the exam questions in place of the one given to exam officer. I was reliably told that the drama was a true reflection of the happenings in our schools.

What I have so far reported here is the rampant examination malpractice that is currently taking place in our secondary schools. It is my intention to extend the argument by showing that the teachers, parents, examination supervisors, and school principals are also contributing directly and knowingly to these malpractices. 

To be continued