Ending e-cheating

•Examination bodies must fight electronic-based malpractice to a standstill

THE 2019 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) witnessed heart-warming developments in the never-ending fight against examination malpractice.

Attempts by unscrupulous supervisors and candidates to post questions on the WhatsApp social media platform prior to the commencement of papers were detected through the use of innovative tracking systems which enabled the council to immediately identify the centres involved and apprehend the perpetrators.

According to WAEC’s Head, National Office (HNO) in Nigeria, Mr. Olu Adenipekun, the culprits were taking photographs of examination questions and sending them to their associates via WhatsApp. The recipients would then prepare answers and return them through the same route. WAEC’s technology enabled it to centrally track, monitor, detect and foil a variety of malpractices perpetrated at examination centres nationwide. Several supervisors and candidates have been arrested and handed over to the police.

For a body whose functions have been continually hampered by determined and ingenious cheats, this development is indeed welcome. The emergence of cutting-edge information technologies, especially mobile phones, social media and the internet, have enabled desperate candidates to perpetrate malpractices unhampered by the previously-insurmountable constraints of time and space.

Electronic devices are now capable of storing huge amounts of information, including text, audio and video which can be unobtrusively sent or transmitted with ease. The advent of so-called “wearable technology” makes it possible to incorporate such devices into clothing or worn as fashion accessories in order to deceive invigilators and obtain an unfair advantage.

In 2000, six per cent of the 636,064 candidates who sat for the Senior School Certificate Examination, as it was then known, were involved in examination malpractice. In the following year, five per cent of 1,025,185 candidates were involved in malpractice. In 2017, the results of 13.79 per cent of the 1.559 million candidates who sat for WASSCE were withheld.

This rampant cheating is the consequence of a toxic mix of the overemphasis on certificate qualifications, peer and parental pressure and collusion, as well as the virtual collapse of moral values in Nigerian society. The possession of the right certificates has trumped competence and ability. Dishonourable success is widely preferred to honourable failure. Ethical conduct has now given way to the attainment of successful outcomes by whatever means.

WAEC’s attempts to counter examination malpractice through the innovative deployment of cutting-edge technological fixes must be proactive if it is to properly respond to the scourge. Thus, it must emulate the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) in anticipating and blocking loopholes that unethical candidates will continuously seek to exploit.

The registration process must be made foolproof in order to deter multiple registration by individual candidates. The examination itself must be enhanced with better biometric access control systems that will make it impossible for mercenaries and other impersonators to get into venues.

Server-hardening systems must be continually refined and upgraded to forestall the hacking of WAEC’s systems. The less-easy it is for examination malpractices to be perpetrated, the sooner potential cheats will realise that there can be no viable alternative to legitimate preparation.

It is crucial that WAEC ensures that those who are apprehended for their involvement in examination malpractice are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The council’s protocols for dealing with such situations should ensure that culprits undergo a process that is strict, fair and invulnerable to abuse or manipulation.

All cases must be properly followed up; it is especially important that any attempts to get the police to drop such cases are stoutly resisted. There can be no better demonstration of WAEC’s determination to fight examination malpractice than the assiduous prosecution of those caught committing it.