Exam cheating ticking bomb

It’s said that whatever goes around comes around and you reap what you sowed. And education is the greatest investment a parent can offer their children, unlike inherited property that can be brought down in seconds. But its quality matters.

The reigns of Dr Fred Matiang’i and Prof George Magoha (RIP) at the Ministry of Education exposed the decades-long rot in the education sector. Besides examination leakages, whereby tests were sold like peanuts, the rampancy of result delays and manipulation was normal. Passing with ‘flying colours’ was the preserve of a few well-known schools.

But schools and parents who pride themselves in exam cheating for their students or children jeopardise future generations. It is such a big societal betrayal of fake success the schools release to the community. 

Exam cheating breeds incompetent ‘professionals’.; incompetence breeds professional negligence, which, in turn, leads to loss of lives, money and property. There’s a proverb that says if you bring maggots into your house, do not blame anyone when lizards visit you. Soon, the cheating will burst its banks and overflow harm to society. All the signs are there.

All this is for the commercialisation of education that has compromised and eroded the quality of learning in schools. The end game is to drill the students to pass exams and attract more enrollment, not to impart knowledge. It’s absurd that parents spend hundreds of thousands of shillings to secure slots for their children in some schools.

The mantra, education being the key to success, is now false. Our children must be told that it is a way to succeed, not the only one. That’s why degrees have become a paper like any other. Those who never performed well in class are doing well in other ways.

The cheating extends to institutions of higher learning. Then ‘buying’ jobs. Expecting these people to be professional is like attempting to boil the Indian Ocean waters. Who’s to blame? Not the lizard!

Mr Munoko is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. [email protected].