Rebukes Cheating Parents, Students and Examiners.
PAYING FOR GRADES
Please permit me to draw your attention to a trend in our society that most of you even as believers engage in.
As a person, I do not believe academic grades are the only determinant of success in life. That is not to undermine the value of good grades.
I admire and reward students who gain and aspire to acquire good grades in their studies. But there are other factors that will determine whether a person will succeed or not. And this is the reason why students, parents and even schools should not pay for their students to get a higher grade than they merit.
By this I mean bribing their way and obtaining grades that are not a true reflection of a learners performance.
While there are various arguments about the grading system used in our schools. I think an important advantage of grading is actually to know what subjects a particular learner is good at, those he or she is struggling with and thereby acquire extra training and resources. Also for career guidance as our church had taught in the seventh service last week.
While you will agree with me that corruption exists in most societies around the world as recent events have proven.
It is crucial that the educational sector is meticulously guarded against this harsh reality.
In 2016 Nigeria ranked one hundred and thirty-sixth placed amongst one hundred and seventy-six countries in Corruption Perceptions Index as reported by Transparency International.
Nigeria’s educational sector has been particularly vulnerable to corruption.
In 2013, Transparency International reported that about thirty percent of Nigerians surveyed said they had paid a bribe in the educational sector.
And Australian scholar Tracey Bretag summarised the conditions describing Nigeria as a country where academic fraud is endemic at all levels of the educational system. Misconduct ranges from cheating during examination to more serious behaviours such as impersonation, falsifying academic records, paying for grades, certificates with gifts, money for sexual favours, terrorising examiners and insulting invigilators. This is how bad the Western world looks at our certificate. For Nigerian students who applied to study in United States, the regulatory body takes time to investigate if the academic transcripts presented are genuine. Some schools will even conduct an entrance exam to be sure if the grades presented shows an accurate picture of the applicant’s abilities. As a result of the widespread cheating, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) had deemed it necessary to start using biometric fingerprint technology when admitting students to Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations.
In 2015, WAEC students in Nigeria had the highest number of cheating incidence of all five countries in the way the council operates. The following year, WAEC ceased recognising 113 Nigeria Secondary Schools implicated in examination malpractice and annulled the results of some 30,654 candidates who sat for the 2012 SSCE. The extent of fraud in University applications have caused the council to develop an elaborate scratch card system that utilises an online pin code verification method to verify the authenticity of exam results. Despite these efforts, we still know there is widespread cheating. To parents and guardians, please don’t pay for your children to be placed in special centres, don’t pay for someone to write the exams, don’t pay for special treatments, don’t pay for them to get grades you know they don’t merit. You are not doing your child any good. You are not also doing the society and image of the country any good. If you know your child is struggling in a specific subject, then invest your money to buy the resources that will help them improve. You can also pay the best hands in that subject to teach them. They should merit every grade they earn so they can also defend the grades wherever they are found. It is the moral thing to do. It is appalling to see believers bribe and pay for grades. Please encourage your children to read and allow them to specialise in the areas of their strength. Don’t force them to specialise in an area that isn’t their strength. For instance, if your child is good in Arts, don’t force the child into Sciences when you know that the child struggles with Maths and other science subjects. That is why most of you end up paying for grades. Allow them to do what they do easily.
Not all doctors and lawyers are successful, l have seen successful doctors, lawyers, teachers, painters, tailors, business men and women. What you should do as a parent is to guide them to discover their true potentials by paying attention to the areas they excel in and providing environment and resources for them to keep striving to excel. This has nothing to do with money, they don’t need money to read. Keep encouraging your children to be studious.You can’t be in this Church or any other church or any part of the world and not teach your children to be constant learners. You can’t be in this church or any other church anywhere and be paying bribe for your children, that is a total disgrace.
To teachers, lecturers and schools, please don’t smear our educational sector more than it already is, you should be seeking to bring sanity and integrity back to our system and restore the pride our education used to have. How can a teacher, lecture and a school be an exam malpractice machinery? You are total disgrace and not worthy of been called a teacher or a school. Let your school be a place where you offer the best of learning exposure and opportunities to your learners while also striving to mould individuals that have good character. What will you teach them when your school is a center for malpractice? How can a teacher, lecturer encourage students to pay for grades?
A teacher or lecturer who should be transfering knowledge and creating a learning environment for learners to reach their full potentials, maybe you are in the wrong profession. No matter how the subject is, some teachers can teach them in the simplest of ways that are easier to comprehend.
Please teach, don’t encourage malpractice, this trend is common in both private and government schools. Don’t pay for your student to get the best SSCE results. Tertiary institutions, don’t pay to acquire the past CGPA. Why on earth should a school do that?
Chokhmah International Academy which is the school of Salvation Ministries can never be little ourselves to that point. The grades the students gets are a true reflection of their performance. We can send our schools anywhere in the world without any form of fear because we know we have trained them well and they merit every grade that is on their certificate.
Please always send your children to schools that holds up to their obligations to teach their children, mould their character and also have moral obligation not to encourage exam malpractice.
To you students, whoever encourages you to cheat is doing you a great dis-favour. You can cheat your way through school but you can’t cheat your way through life. When you land yourself a big job because of your bogus certificate, will you also cheat when it comes to the real life performance on the job? At that point, it will show that you bought your grades. You owe yourself a great honour earning every single grade by studying. You can pay your way through school but you can’t pay your way through life.
If you fail a course, honorably reseat it and do it better. Reseat is not an emblem of failure but an avenue to correct your flaws and come out good. I know people who have failed at a thing severally but kept turning until they got it right and passed it. You can learn anything you want to you have the advantage over the unbelievers because you have the mind of Christ and the Holy Spirit who can teach you anything and everything.
Please let us not be part of the ones who buy grades and results. Merit every single grade so you can defend yourself and your qualification anyday and anytime.
As Exam Regulatory Board, why on earth should you be part of the corruption? You are there to ensure exams are free and fair and also free from malpractice. Taking bribes to give good grades that are not merited made the organization a total failure and therefore shouldn’t even exist. Do your jobs please, stop this embarrassment where the world has no respect for the certificates you issue. Let us bring back sanity and integrity to our educational sector. It is a collective effort that is why l am addressing the main players involved. I love education and l want to see children go to school and excel, l also want them to merit every grade they earn. Don’t pay your way through school, you cannot pay your way through life. One day you will be required to prove every certificate you present and have.
God bless you!
