Kwamchetsi Makokha
13 November 2009
opinion
Nairobi — As the national schools examinations ended this week, the country was remiss in not thanking Mr Paul Wasanga, the head of the Kenya National Examinations Council, for nurturing a culture of deception during his short but continuing tenure. Cheating in examinations has finally given the much-discredited 8-4-4 system the fizz to keep it alive and help it to contribute to the nation's growth.
From obtaining test papers in advance and preparing to make a great impression on the examiner with their answers, to hiring university students to write examinations on their behalf to carrying reference material into the torture chamber, Kenya's achievement-oriented students are forcing a re-evaluation of the education system.
Until now, everybody has condemned cheating in examinations, saying it is dishonest and deplorable because it is patently unfair. Yet, the skills that students display in cheating at examinations are the very ones the world is looking for. They are the talents that attract reward and praise.
Few people would condemn the honest self-evaluations many candidates make and arrive at the conclusion that they could not make it without a little help. Such humility and willingness to acknowledge one's weaknesses is often the beginning of radical steps to address personal deficits.
Candidates who have no illusions about their intellectual deficiency use their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses. Deny yourself that half a loaf of bread everyday for a month, and you take the surprise out of the biology examination by seeing it in advance.
Or have your parents to buy it for you. That way, you read only what will be tested. In the real world, surprise knowledge is useless. Even a surgeon reads only about a specific area the night before operation. She does not cram the whole of human anatomy, only to find that the patient has appendicitis.
Candidates who hire other people to write examinations for them are only cottoning onto the principles upon which the rest of the world operates. Companies, and even the Government, fork out a fortune on outsourcing and consultants -- experts who sell their intellect and time.
There is no point in a soap manufacturer insisting on training security guards. An airline has no business building houses for its staff. In the same way, students who recognise that they have a weakness in one area or another, but can pay a teacher or university student to do the work are only creating employment and boosting the economy.
The by-word in the world of work is that it is not important what you know, but who you know. An effective home manager has the cellphone numbers of the plumber, electrician, pastry chef, fumigator, decorator and baby-sitter. If you have the money to pay for it, there is no point in insisting on doing it badly. In the outside world, this is considered smart, although in school, they say it is cheating.
Life is about staying ahead of the competition. It is codified in the myths and legends we tell, celebrating cunning in tales such as Abunuwas. There is no job that needs anyone to cram and reproduce material of any length. Examinations, too, should not be focused on testing rote memory. They should be designed to appreciate lateral talents that betray the slyness that would characterise a life skill.
Because of placing too much premium on the certificate rather than the brain, Kenyans might be suggesting that they have no ability to distinguish a brain from a mound of dung. And because of this lack, anyone who gets a certificate can perpetuate even greater frauds on society.
They can become engineers, architects, journalists, doctors, artists and priests without even basic knowledge of numeracy and literacy. It is ironical that examination authorities should be so harsh on cheating candidates when evidence abounds that the most admired people in our society today are the poorly paid guards and police officers who make off with nearly Sh50 million in the space of a month.
It is dishonest to penalise cheating when people who defraud Central Bank of billions of shillings can afford to retire into ministry by buying air time on the national television station to preach. It is unfair to expect students to sit examinations without any help when theft abounds, and people in leadership have illegitimate land title deeds.
One would even argue that between stealing an examination and stealing an election, the latter would appear more serious. Surely, the youngsters cheating in examinations deserve to be rewarded.
The snoring has ceased and the partners are bonding this weekend. If you listen carefully, you can hear the whistling of sated contentment in the seaside city of Mombasa where the partners are bonding - two years after they came into their union. How have they worked so far without bonding at all?
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Your justifications for the cheating are poor and your conclusion misses the point that habits develop at an early age. If you expect leaders and adults to be more honest it needs to start at the beginning.