Exam leakage: Who’s to blame?

News about e x a m i n a t i o n leakage has left most of us wondering as to what must be done to stop this malpractice. Recently, there have been concerns that Malawi’s education needs an overhaul as the graduates have been disappointing.

This coupled with the leakage of examination makes the whole situation unfortunate for the credibility of our education system and it was not surprising that some commentators have been calling Malawi National Examinations Board (Maneb) to call off the examinations as their trustworthiness has been questioned. I think calling off the exams is no lasting solution to the problem.

Leakage of examinations has been happening for some time and it is becoming a part of our education system. Looking at examination process, common sense shows that a student has no power, access or influence at all to get the paper before it reaches designated examination rooms. This leaves us wondering: At what stage does the exam really leak? Is it the officials of Maneb, the police who keep the papers as they await distribution, teachers or the invigilators who oversee the whole examination process without any allowances.

We seem to have more questions than answers. If you ask all the s takeholder s you will get one answer: Blame it on somebody else. In fact, one of the callers in a phon-in program that was aired on Star Radio last week asked the host, if he were a student and a leaked paper came across, would he not help himself? Assuming this is a parent of a student who is also sitting for exams, what advice would he give?

I strongly argue, students should not be blamed for leakage and hence it is so unfair for them to get punished because someone somewhere in the chain of the examination process did not do his or her job ethically. There is a question that has been boiling within me for years: Are these students arrested for failing to hide the papers or for cheating? Logic, for sure it is not expected that two girls would have an exam paper without sharing the same with their colleagues.

Arresting students who are caught with examination papers will not solve this jigsaw puzzle because this is like scratching an elephant. In the end, two candidates with an exam paper out of the pool of candidates are arrested and the rest successfully take the exam. There is also a side most stakeholders and as a nation we are giving a blind eye. The education system is now flooded with the private sector which is busy throughout the year actively advertising how best they are at making students pass their examination.

Is it not possible that these can go an extra mile of doing anything to decorate their pass rates so that they shine when results are out? Maneb is not the only board that administer examinations in the country, there so many professionals that do the same yet the issue of leakage has never been raised. What is it that Maneb can learn from such bodies? What is strange is that things continue to be done in the same manner despite the same results being yielded year after year.

For the past five years, leakage of examination has become a hot business. A memory of how Maneb papers sold like hot cakes in Blantyre years back was evident enough that there must be a stage where ethics becomes an issue questionable. My opinion is that there is a need to revamp the whole system because it is obvious that Maneb has failed.

There is more that could be done than arresting a student who gets a paper from a source that up to this date has not been revealed. It is time to hunt for the ghost. Over the years, invigilators have been complaining about late allowance payment. This, unfortunately, has landed on deaf eyes of the board.

The board forgets that a hungry person can do anything to fill the stomach. Let us call a spade a spade for us not to be misled, what could be expected of an invigilator who has travelled a far to invigilate and his pockets are empty. It is time to look into the whole system and make the wrongs right.

—The author is a freelance writer on contemporary issues, working with an insurance Company.