News and Comment
Cheating on Exams
is an Issue that runs out of hand in Secular States

News:

The number of examination irregularities grew 60 per cent to 2,709 as the impact of the teachers' strike and poor supervision witnessed in this year's Standard 8 examination began to be felt. There were 1,702 candidates caught cheating in the 2014 Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE), which means there were 1,007 more candidates engaged in cheating this year. The rise in the vice will also put ban of ranking on the spotlight, whose main goal was to reduce intense competition that encouraged exam cheating. But the current cases are still below the high of 2011 when the country recorded 7,974 cases of cheating, the highest in the past 10 years. (Source: The Standard)

Comment:

Cheating on exams in academic institutions is a worldwide issue and has recently worsened worldwide, and as it appears, it is almost running out of hand as the capitalist democratic countries seem to be unable to cope with the vice created by the capitalist ideology criteria of benefit in determining man’s actions and the fact that capitalists tend to blend education with the issue of prosperity in life. Where those who are less or not educated at all, are ever portrayed to be destitute who are missing opportunities of improving their living conditions whenever they arise. This wrong perception about life and the essence of tranquility and composure, has turned education in commercial commodity just like any other commodity, thus creating a spacious room for forgery of fake certificates and selling of exams. According to Fair Test, The National Centre for Fair and Open Testing, in Bangladesh, 7000 students were expelled for cheating on final exams in the nation’s universities. In Cambodia, police had to encircle schools to prevent crib sheets from being passed to thirteen and fourteen year students taking high school entrance. It is said local bookstores where copies of the previous and possibly current were for sale, were reported to overflow with customers. While in New York City’s Wall Street, The National Association of Security Dealers (NASD) had to investigate dozens of stockbrokers who may have paid impostors to take employment licensing tests. The cheating allegedly occurred on the Series 7 exam, required for those who sell a range of investment product as well as the Series 63 test, which state security regulators must pass.

Similarly in Kenya, the issue of cheating on exams is almost the same as elsewhere. A cursory glance at these irregularities, one will find out that they are caused mainly by the bad supervision of the education sector, which is one amongst the key issue in society. Where some of those who are entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of the exams, tend to leak it to the either students, parents or schools. Either because of bribery, according to the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) statistics more than 200,000 students scored less than 200 marks meaning they are technically illiterate thus ineligible for secondary school admission. To avoid this embarrassment, students, schools or parents turn to cheating on exams, by obtaining the exams papers earlier.

In total 927,789 sat the national exams, up from 880,486 the previous year representing a 5.37%. Cases of pertaining to exams cheating are bulky, hence the figure the ministry of education mentioned is no more than mere lies. We have seen certain cases where Muslims’ schools are intentionally subjected to humiliation by having their results cancelled just like what happened to Abu Hurairah some time back.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Hussein Mohamed
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in East Africa