By Yusuf Moijuah
Exams malpractices have destroyed the credibility and general conduct of public examinations by the West Africa Examinations Council, Sierra Leone WAECSL. They have dragged the trustworthiness of what used to be a credible exams body over the years. The play is a well-coordinated game that has come a very long way in destroying the education system, starting from even before, during and after the civil war. They are the most covert tricks that are run throughout public examinations’ calendar in the education sector.
WAEC officials can attest to the fact that they have agents all over the place if not at all syndicates across a country helping students to cheat in exams by way of using their phones. They have passed their examination papers that they could not defend at the end of the day. There are so many of such people in the current private and public sectors with no exemption of WAEC itself. It is unimaginable that people now take WAEC exams in private homes, which in itself is a total misuse of office and grand corruption.
Recent among is Monday 27th May, 2019’s strike action by pupils of the West African Methodist Collegiate boys, blaming heads of their school for their failure to bribe WAEC officials and invigilators to help them cheat in this year’s exams. The riots led to the arrest of 25 pupils by the Police for causing havocs ranging from throwing stones as well as other damages to school property worth millions of leones.
What could have brought bribing for grades to the minds of pupils if it had not been jointly perpetuated by schools and exams council authorities, which could not be strange occurrences in schools and as private exams, and pupils have become so addicted to cheating to the extent that candidates hardly study now for exams. They instead prefer to pay money to invigilators and WAEC authorities to acquire their requirement into the various universities where they hardly prove well as university students at the end of the day, rendering negative impacts on the country’s education.
These, coupled with less motivated teaching service, are also affecting Sierra Leone’s educational system even amidst the much advertised ‘free quality’ education. By all indications looking at things from demands by collegiate school pupils, it seems as if WAEC officials have been doing covert businesses with candidates for exams grades for decades at detriments attempting candidates themselves which is largely responsible for the spate of examinations malpractices that are being exposed in Sierra Leone.
Frankly speaking, the issues of riots over disagreement by school authorities to encourage candidates to engage in the illegitimate acts of examination malpractices that occurred while taking exams in Bumbuna, Tonkilili district, Sierra Leone Muslim Brotherhood Islamic Secondary School, in Freetown, Korwama Catholic Secondary School, Newton, in the Western Rural District and Njiama Sewafe in Kono all leaving 74 people, including pupils and teachers, in custody awaiting trial, should be blamed on government, WAEC, Police deployed to secure the centres in question, and other key players charged with the task of conducting the exams in a very credible fashion. The authorities from the line ministry of basic and secondary education in the first place failed to handle it all and if not properly addressed problems will always continue in WAEC exams.
The head of WAEC, Arnold B. Kamara, and his officials that were assigned at the various centers in question should first of all stand down from their positions and surrender themselves to a competent probing authority for investigations into the matter of examination fraud, while the ministry fixed the problem once and for all. Again if we are to ask, cheating and exams malpractices if not condoned or jointly planned and executed by WAEC officials and on-ground at centres, teachers, who else will tamper with highly secured exams materials, when the Police always provide security for the question papers and answer booklets at centres across the country. What went wrong at the various centers in the ongoing exams was collectively planned by both council staff and teachers to extort moneys from lazy pupils, so let the investigations start now with WAEC itself and if any staff is found wanting the law takes its course to restore public confidence and credibility in the examinations body.
This is essentially what Minister Alpha Timbo of basic and secondary education needs to do to solve such problems. Besides, WAEC owe the nation explanations about the sufferings of those poor children languishing in Police cells, as against their human rights only because authorities at WAEC deliberately failed to do their assignments succumbed to the extortions of moneys from candidates. The detentions of those students as suspects leaving WAEC officials and their aides walking in freedom streets have generated widespread public outcry against government, Police and WAEC. Hence government should therefore do whatever is humanly possible to ensure their immediate release and conduct independent investigations into the management and administration of all WAEC examinations rather than going after poor students, mostly looking for easy means to pass exams in a country where a teacher is still paid less than $150.
Many students enrolling into universities make their ways either through various forms of examinations malpractices, ranging from taking papers in private homes, at examiners houses, paying for grades to name the lists, have equally posed some serious problems for first year students if not throughout their stay in a number public universities off late, and a whole trouble in offices and other places of work, due to series of disconnections at the formative stages and processes of preparing a perfect human resource from our universities.
This is because traditional institutions, including the gateway to higher learning- WAEC- over the periods deviated from upholding standards by way of compromising examination rules and seemingly dealing in results to candidates at home and abroad, making exams malpractices a real money making deal at WAEC centres across Sierra Leone. Council and its examiners have also encouraged so many people to believe that as long as they can pay for their grades, they can get you your university requirements, to which a large number of WAEC staff have subscribed to during in-depth interactions with them.
It is an open secret that examination cheating take place at all WAEC centres, where either exams are being taken by mercenary candidates for a particular person, solve problems so many things that have in the last few years captured the attentions of authorities. From there anybody can brag of an excellent university study requirements from WAEC, but hardly perform well on courses at higher institutions. No wonder why the medical school at Njala University, the Engineering Department at Fourah Bay College and College of Medicine and Allied Health Science normally throw out a number of students out of programmes for failing to measure up to the demands of their various pure and applied science courses. So only God knows why and where our much trumpeted ‘free quality’ education is taking us, when malpractices have become normal exercises to aid paid up grades.
Government after the other have in recent years either devised stringent measures to curb the problem or downplayed the negative impacts of such organized syndicates from WAEC office down to examination centres and during marking of scripts, a real business run by exams councils with agents everywhere looking for highest bidders to make their grades by crooks.
They are neither prevented from entering university or other tertiary institutions due to lack of departmental requirements, while those whose parents have the right connections with or do work for WAEC, pass their exams with flying colours, leaving the thousands failed, adding to the growing number of high school dropouts in the country. This is unfair, apart from the fact that it is a corrupt practice, and it must stop now to restore serenity to the examination and WAEC once more.
What should be cleared here to us all, including WAEC, is that candidates are not attempting the exams to fail, so exams council and its official partners should take the blame for the rampant examination malpractices that have been going on all these years. Also, government, through the line ministry, should introduce other forms of punishments as seizing of defaulters’ result or place a permanent ban on certain candidates, but it should not be jail term on minors for being encouraged into such mistakes by WAEC officials, invigilators and the Police.
However since WAEC lacks the capacity to conduct credible exams and continue to compromise rules causing massive failures, former President Alhaji Dr Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of blessed memories introduced the continuing education project through the access programme. A scheme designed to prepare people without traditional qualifications for study at universities, though it to a large extent targeted ex-combatants with the primary aim of transforming them from combatant livelihood into useful citizens. And the directors, permanent secretaries and chief administrators, as well as other senior civil servants in public and private sectors, are products of the then fostering education programme. However, Sierra Leone has graduated from the level, with the full understanding that without the traditional five credits requirements you will not be admitted to study at university, and WAEC seeing high demands for requirements subjects by candidates tends to be blind to the rampant examination malpractices particularly in this year’s exams.
In 2018, 35 schools were involved in examination malpractices in Freetown and Western Area Rural district, according to council data. That itself is a serious concern that needs urgent attention by the line authorities if we are to continue to push the ‘free quality’ education on a proper footing.
Moreover, malpractices in examinations does not stop at high school level in Sierra Leone but also take place in colleges and universities, mostly involving high profiled students including a former lecturer at the Institute of Public Administration and Management, Mr. Morovia and Isha Nasser During, who worked at the office of the president in 2007, involved in serious exams malpractices while taking their law exams at the University of Sierra Leone. They were rusticated but USL equally left with the scandalous stigma. Similar practices are ongoing in other tertiary institutions – colleges unreported due to its systemic nature that is why government should continue to stand tall against exams malpractices to ensure fairness in getting university requirements.
Therefore candidates and students attempting the exams should prepare themselves well before the papers are ready to avoid relying on malpractices, because if you only study well no need to rely on foreign materials in an examination environment neither get involved in malpractices, which could be largely blamed on WAEC, Police, candidates and government through ministry of basic and secondary education for failing to provide the right monitoring mechanisms for the proper conducts of exams.