I remember very vividly in the mid 1990s, it was the first term of a new school session. We were filled with excitements that at last we had reached the penultimate rung of our secondary education and we were looking forward to our final year when we would have a shot at the almighty WASSCE. But there was a sudden plot twist which in a way could scotch that hope. The school principal had announced an important meeting with us – over 200 students sardined into three arms of A, B, and C, and at the meeting, she had dropped a jolt which hit us like a bolt from the blues and almost ripped our hearts into shreds, maybe not all of us because there were those who had for the most part of their days in school operated in that outstanding realm of distinction. “There is no space for more than two arms in your final year and that means that about half of you will repeat this class.” “Only those of you who score 60% or above in Mathematics and English, and three other core subjects will be promoted to your last and final class,” she had roared. One would naturally have thought that accomplishing this feat shouldn’t be a problem for over 95% of us who had not had any cause to repeat a class from our junior secondary but the issue spiraled beyond the borders of such simplicity because before this time only 40% of total marks obtainable was the benchmark for promotion; so stretching beyond our limits to accomplish more was most definitely going to be an uphill task for many of us who seemed to have taken a permanent shelter in the fringes of average margins to yearly escape the sledgehammer of being wedged to a class for two or more years. But we did it. We accomplished it. About 70% of us. With diligence and determination, and constant reminders from the principal that nothing would stop her from enforcing the letters of our ‘agreement.’ We did it because we knew that no ‘unholy’ help was coming from Macedonia. Little wonder, when we finally had a shot at WASSCE the following year, the bests of us had as many as 8 straight A’s and 1 Credit. True to Samuel Johnson’s words, ‘what you hope to do with ease you learn to do first with diligence,’ and it would shock you to know that this happened in a public secondary school where many of the teachers taught us with Nigerian standards, if you know what I mean, but monitored with Harvard standards during exams. You needed to witness how our teachers supervised us during exams; they practically waited on us like an extremely famished lion waiting on a gang of buffalos to pounce on a hapless one who solely strays from the sheltering company of its comrades.
Contrary to what many people think, this experience inextricably bolstered by my own experiences as a tutor and consultant has loudly affirmed that students or generally, young adults are capable of academic exploits beyond the boundaries of any illusory limits provided they have the needed push. Provide the right tutoring, mentoring and environment, and block all bleeding channels of corruption and see the wonders of being whipped into the line of hard work and integrity occasioned by necessity. I’m sure amazement would be an understatement to describe how they peak and prosper. One of the greatest lies of the 21st century in the Nigerian context is that our students are not capable of acing their exams without being aided. This no doubt comes from the fiery pit of hell as I and several colleagues whose brains and incorruptible professionalism I esteem very highly have over the last 15 years produced- and consistently replicated it- students who on their own trump their national and international exams with outstanding outcomes, thereby collapsing the apparent falsehood on those who pontificate along that ignoble line. Sad thing is that these educational professionals who are not ready to sup with the devil and become tainted and tinted by the blood of countless roasted future are an overwhelming minority but we haven’t come this far to backtrack.
What’s more, as WASSCE gets underway this year, I can only wish my students and all other candidates across the country who are ready to confront this bloodless battle with the grit of their brains and the guts of their pens, all the best. I toast to your peak performance as always.
Quite honestly, I have come to realize that the demon of examination malpractice ravaging the sector like a pandemic of the most ferocious kind is majorly consequent upon the criminal conspiracy of the adult society. In other words, remove adult criminal collaboration, and fiam! the problem vanishes into thin air. The last time I checked, those who superintend over the exam bodies are adults. School owners, teachers, supervisors, custodians and examiners are all adults. There is absolutely no way students can unilaterally manipulate or cheat the system without any form of collaboration with any of the aforementioned adults. Adults who only think of today’s gains but are blinded to tomorrow’s losses simply create an enabling environment for manipulation to thrive. The giant wheel of examination malpractice is massively lubricated by the masses of these morally bankrupt adults who have made a butchery of their conscience, stopping at nothing to ingenuously invent ways to outsmart examination bodies most of which are not also intentional about curbing the menace. While incredible efforts visible to even the blind are yearly made by JAMB to upend this demon, not much has been seen on the part of WEAC and NECO. They seem to be fighting it with kid gloves while the problem thickens in complexity with the speed of Bolt and Powell combined. Given the frightening dimensions that examination malpractices have assumed in Nigeria, one would have expected that these exam bodies to invent very drastic guardrails to browbeat even the most vicious schools and candidates into submission to best practices. I am still waiting to see how many schools caught in the web of this malaise blacklisted and denied the opportunity to feed candidates for at least five years. I am waiting to see droves of school proprietors, candidates and conspiratorial parents who pay to compromise these exams apprehended and made to serve term in a most languishing cell. What about officials of these exam bodies who are on the payrolls of some highly-placed parents and proprietors of school for the purpose of exposing examination questions to them? And what about cheats and charlatans who masque as teachers recruited to supervise the exams? They simply cash in on their rotten network to smile to the bank. They negotiate and strike great bargains at custodian points to get posted to ‘juicy’ centres. Regrettably, these self-serving and solipsistic enemies of the greater good of our society are ‘flourishing’ not just at the expense of a decaying sector but also a decaying future of our children, not forgetting to mention a decaying reputation of the country outside her shores.
It is noteworthy that the brainwashed students are reduced to pawns on this chessboard of illegal money-spinner as they now unabashedly revel in the endemic music that they cannot stride past their exams unaided. So their brains are numbed and their skulls dumped as they through their adult cronies manipulated their ways into the university. But soon their rumps are sadly exposed for all to see as many of them cannot beat the system of the Ivory Tower. So abysmal are their performances in examinations similar in complexity to what they had done in senior secondary that they are advised to withdraw. I was not taken aback at all when in 2016, the Federal University of Technology, Minna rusticated 460 students on account of shameful 100 level results. In the same year, the University of Ibadan rusticated 480 Year One students while the Federal University of Petroleum asked 150 students to go back and rewrite UTME. This has now become one of the unfortunate realities in our universities as students are almost yearly rusticated on account of examination malpractices or poor performance.
Or isn’t it offensively ironic how a system vested with the power to socialize and orientate the young with coveted values of honesty and diligence metamorphose into a bastion of calculated fraud and scam just because some unscrupulous elements in their cunning wisdom believe that their students cannot pass examinations on their own?
The society is not at all spared of damning consequences of historic proportions if this madness is allowed to continue. How can our society make progress at an appreciable speed if it’s governed by people who believe they cannot get ahead if they do not cheat? How can we continuously operate in disillusion and cast aspersions on the integrity of those at the centre of our governance when we as stakeholders in just one sector of the economy cannot nip in the bud an ugly trend that is capable of turning the entire country on its head? We contribute to the filth and humongous cesspool of corruption which wrestles with the stability of the centre and denies the vast majority of our people access to their commonwealth of prosperity. It is sad enough that today some of our leaders treat us to comic theatrics when invited to the courts of ‘public’ scrutiny to account for their deeds in office, but I can assure you that if some of our young adults who have bought into this egregious mentality take the reins of power in the future, they will not hesitate to sell this country and relocate to the moon! If we must prevent this from happening, the time to act is now. It is time to heed in toto the rhetoric of John Lewis “if not us, then who; if not now, then when?” All men of goodwill in the sector must join hands to rid our society of this self-made hydra-headed demon. But examination bodies must take the lead and show real seriousness to deal decisively with the issue and provide the required leadership that will encourage people who know something to speak up and provide nailing, compelling evidence for them to act. Or isn’t it offensively ironic how a system vested with the power to socialize and orientate the young with coveted values of honesty and diligence metamorphose into a bastion of calculated fraud and scam just because some unscrupulous elements in their cunning wisdom believe that their students cannot pass examinations on their own?
It may be true that the whistleblowing policy of the present administration may not have worked all the magic at the centre, however, it is one tool I feel if adopted in this sector would work like the talisman of India because there is hardly anyone in the sector who is not aware of schools and individuals around them who engage in this devilry. I strongly believe that for a start this policy is capable of sending these shenanigans to the trash can of history. We can then later innovate ways to make the sector completely foolproof of all kinds of vices. The days when unscrupulous school owners fail to employ the best hands to teach but engage ‘machineries’ and deploy all kinds of formation in the exam halls should be over going forward and fast. We need to parcel these depraved individuals with their cess and knavery to where they rightfully belong – the deepest recesses of jail- so that the wings of our teeming youths can be let loose from the mental lockdown of complacency.
What’s more, as WASSCE gets underway this year, I can only wish my students and all other candidates across the country who are ready to confront this bloodless battle with the grit of their brains and the guts of their pens, all the best. I toast to your peak performance as always. For those playing in the league of deceit who have perfected ways, as usual, to cheat their way through, I don’t know what to wish you. I only wish that you defect to an honorable league so that we can together build a society worthy of our pride.
*Odubajo is a Business Communication and Educational Consultant, and a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos. (He can be reached on +2348028115734, [email protected])
