AN INDEPTH EVALUATION ON THE ISSUE OF EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE IN NIGERIA

• Main Authors: Davies Kelvin Udim, Umar Abubakar, Joshua Otobong Essien
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Preschool Teacher Training College "Mihailo Palov" 2018-12-01
• Series: Istraživanja u Pedagogiji
• Subjects: reasons of malpractice; causes of malpractice; effects of malpractice
• Online Access: http://research.rs/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/2217-7337_v08_n02_p204.pdf

There is a decline in the quality of graduates from secondary schools in Nigeria. A situation where some secondary school graduates cannot write a very good letter is a cause for concern. Secondary School teachers, parents and the society have always complained about the quality of school products. All these are alarming signals which portends danger for the country. A number of issues could have led to these problems and the most pronounced among them is examination malpractice. Examination malpractice has eaten deep into the Nigeria education system. The purpose of this study therefore was to examine the issue of examination malpractice in Nigeria. The use of secondary sources of data was the main method of data collection adopted in this research work. The secondary sources adopted in this study include materials like Newspapers, magazines, textbooks, internet, journals, government publications, official documents etc. After analyzing the data, it was deduced that collusion among candidates, impersonation, giraffing, inscription, scientific malpractice and bribery were some of the forms of examination malpractice in Nigeria. This study also found that fear of failure, craze for certificates, desire of parents to choose the profession and university, pressure on students to pursue courses which they have no aptitude for were some of the causes of examination malpractice in Nigeria. This study also found that the examination malpractice has a negative effect on the society, leads to irreversible loss of credibility, has negative consequences on the individuals and institutions of learning, leads to moral decadence and brain drain, leads to corruption, it discourages hard work among students. This study also found that measures of curbing examination malpractice include: societal reengineering and re-orientation to revamp moral values, retraining and reassessment of teachers, appropriate recognition and remuneration of teachers and examination officials. Curbing examination malpractice depended on our will power. This study revealed that examination malpractice is not perpetrated by Angels but human beings. Based on the findings above, this study recommended that aggressive campaign should therefore be mounted, educating all the stakeholders about the dangers in engaging in the act and let them be informed of the dignity in having a clean examination system, the Federal Government should try and make the salary of teachers reasonable, qualityand affordable education should be made available for all, this study concluded that Parents should not celebrate success without a commensurate input and that examination malpractice should be discouraged entirely.