Final year students in the country’s Senior High Schools (SHS) are writing their written examinations now process they started on Monday.
This is time when the examination candidates are being tested on what they learnt from their primary stages in their academic pursuits to date, when they are completing senior high schools and looking forward to entering tertiary institutions.
When public examinations are mentioned, what comes to mind these days is the integrity of the process. This has been informed by recent scandals which have often culminated in the cancellation of papers.
Cancellation of papers is a regrettable action which although painful, is necessary to protect the integrity of examinations. Foreign higher institutions of learning accept the transcripts of our tertiary institutions and certificates issued by our sub-regional examination body, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), because over the years, the body has maintained the integrity of the tests it has conducted as have our universities.
Without such integrity, certificates or results issued by the examination body will be worthless and treated like waste paper.
We support all measures needed therefore to protect the age-old integrity of examinations conducted by WAEC.
The cancellation of examination papers did not start today. In the early 60s, middle school leaving certificate examination papers for form four pupils were cancelled in some parts of the Ashanti Region over suspected malpractices.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with WAEC in its bid to secure the integrity of the ongoing examination and others under its aegis. The involvement of security agencies such as the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) towards this end is a step in the right direction.
We are longing to see the end of the current examination sessions and to learn that there were no incidents of malpractices such as cheating in the halls and leakages of questions.
Children or students have no way of accessing examination papers which are secured in police stations and other secured places. When, however, in spite of such enhanced security measures, any of the known malpractices are noticed that should be traceable to teachers or even persons with links to the printing houses or other sources.
Those who attempt cheating should be fished out and their collaborators made to face the prescribed law.
Those who encourage kids to embrace cheating are harming our future as a nation. Children who use such means to climb the academic tree will most likely become moral misfits in society, the effect of which would be anything but good for the country.
Children should be made to regard examinations as exercises to test how much they learnt at school and not a deliberate effort at torturing them mentally.
Honesty begins at both the home and in such places as examination halls. They should be exposed, adults who encourage children to cheat by giving or even selling to them so-called leaked papers. They should be named, shamed and jailed to protect the integrity of public examinations.