CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Education is the process of facilitating learning, the acquisition of “knowledge”, “skills”, “values”, “belief” and habits”. Also, Education is commonly divided into such stages as kindergarten, primary, secondary school, university, or apprenticeship as the case may be.
Article 13 of the United Nations’ 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, recognised a universal right to education(9).
Etymologically, the word “Education” is derived from the Latin éducátió (“I educate, I train”) which is related, to the homonym édúcó (“I lead forth, I take out; I raise up, I erect”) é-(“from, out of”) and dúcó (“I lead, I conduct”). According to Oby, Nwafor, Mordi, and Nwaka “Examination is the process of finding out either in written or oral exercise the extent a candidate or learner has acquired and mastered all the necessary skills and competence expected of him or her”..(90). Education is useful for the realisation of aspirations,to the parents, for the promotion of the intellectual growth of their wards and to the society; education ensures a continued supply of capable and functional citizens.
According to Shertzer and Stone -“Education is the yardstick that determines the collective success of both the individual and the society”(38).
Now from the above discourse, it is glaring that education is a gradual process; to acquaint one values, belief, and habits, among others and that it is a continuous exercise that follows one from toddler stage to adulthood, meaning any attempt to eschew a stage distorts progression, and this distortion comes in the form of misconducts such as examination malpractice.
Examination Malpractice according to Oby, et al “…is any irregular or illegal behaviour exhibited by students or candidates or any other individual either before or during examinations which is against the rules governing the smooth conduct of examinations” (12).
Malpractice itself is defined as any deliberate act of wrong doing, contrary to the rules of examinations designed to give a candidate an unfair advantage or ability frequently, or at a given point in time, while placing other candidate at a disadvantage. Malpractice thus is any misconduct in an examination room that is contrary to rules of the examination, the types and aspect of this shall be fully discuss in chapter two of this research
The point here is that Examination Malpractice has become a usual practice in Nigeria. The onions of education aredistorted and intellectual standards questionable, thus constituting menace of half-baked graduates in Nigeria labour economy.
The phrase “half-baked”, has become a phenomenon in the description of the graduates who turned out from various levels of Nigerian tertiary institutions, and this scenario surrounding the half-baked, the oven which are the educational institutions; primary schools to tertiary levels, and the bakers who are the lecturers, as well as other educational and research institutions and the government of various levels, and finally the bakery, that is the Nigerian Educational system.Another implication or effect of this these is redundancy in metal capacity of our future leaders, half backed graduate, substandard in knowledge and reduction of credible and educated men and women in our labour market.
An anecdotal evidence is the saga that happened in a primary school in Edo North senatorial district of the State, in August 15th 2011. The former Governor of the state, Adams Oshiomhole paid a surprise visit to the school and was surprised by a teacher who could not even read what is written in her own certificate.The first question is who gave her that certificate?, Second who employed her to supervise the knowledge of others?.
Another case was reported by Daily Post in March 27,2017 by Danielle Ogbeche, of a serving senator in the Nigeria Legislature. Dino Melaye’s who claimed to have been in two Universities within the same period. However his class mate in Ahmodu Bello University, Sen. Abudussobur Salaam, refuted the claim.(5), it lead to the present Vice Chancellor of the school to visit the Senate.
In addition this study is try to demonstrate that Examination Malpractice is a behaviour; a psychological defect that corrupts the process and means of producing credible and responsible individuals ,citizens of any Nation, In actual sense some of these perpetrators feels the only way to succeed in Examination is by cheating; they do not believe in themselves or ability to reason, or their assimilating capacity, so they indulge in illegal means of succeeding, this is why there is need for Public Relations Tools like counselling to be employed.
Education is as important as human beings because humans are argued by scientist to be higher class of the animal species. According to Marc Hauser (Director of the Cognitive Evolution Lab of Harvard University), in recent article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICA “we humans possess humanigueness”; mental traits, and abilities like generative computation, promiscuous combination of ideas, the use of mental symbols, and abstract thought”(7), more specifically that human learn and be creative in exploration of their environments; innovations, among others.
Meaning that the inability to undergo proper training of the mind (brain) leaves the brain dormant; unproductive or not innovative. One often hears students say in Pidgin-English: “school sweet but exam spoil am”, this gives insight of the declining enthusiasm towards learning; wishingit would have just be fun, fun all through.
The University of Calabar, established in 1975 is situated in Cross River State Calabar, Calabar, is one of Nigeria’s second generation federal universities,controlledbytheVice Chancellor, Deputy Chancellor (Administration and Academic respectively), among other principle and ordinary staff in the institution. Her motto is “Knowledge for Service” thus, the need to assess the learning capacity so far of the process and to what extent the educational objectives and goals have been achieved on the students, so as to render profound services to humanity and the society at large. Every year several levels of examination are conducted in the university and Examination Malpractice keeps lingering, eating deep into the fabric of the institution standard, adding its tie-ings of corruption, as lecturers and other staff of institution join in this trend.
According to the Vanguard Newspaperof March 18,2017, at the pre-convocation press conference, the Vice Chancellor of the school Professor Zana, Itiunbe Apkagu disclosed that 30 students were either expelled or suspended from the university for such various vices on campus, including examination malpractice. On the 19th January, 2016, University of Calabar official Website reported that nine students found guilty of impersonation were expelled, and two other student- suspect of misconduct were suspended indefinitely for failing to appear before the panel and failing to produce another student suspect to be involved in examination malpractice respectively. University of Calabar under the new Vice Chancellor Professor Zana Akpagu has taken the bull by the horn in curbing this insurgency. According to him, “The expulsion and retirement were in tandem with his mission to rid the school of indiscipline and restore its academic glory. He reiterated management’s stance against corruption, saying “The affected students and staff are shown the way out to restore discipline and integrity ( Cross River Watch)(9)..
With all of these in place, one will believe there will be an end to examination malpractice, but from all indications, it beclouds laws against examination malpractice by University of Calabar. Day in, day out, examination malpractice and other misconduct in the educational system still persist, as every Semester Exams record those caught in the act keep increasing.Sorting for example seems to be rampant in University of Calabar,becoming a sort of convention. The above numbers of culprits as disclose by the V.C entails those who were just unfortunate to be caught, meaning there are more perpetrators still in the system.
These and more are the facts we should muse about and retreat our steps, for those who might not know the implication of this act or who still dwells on conjecture should see this thesis as a reference. It is not just pointing accusing fingers to students in these practices, but to also put to correction the eminent challenges affecting them at the same time leading to this kind of behaviour, like inadequate facilities, inadequate orientation, poor salaries of lecturers and other personnel, among others
