The education system is the instrument a society uses to equip its entire people to lead productive public lives and full personal lives according to their talent and interest. This system must be such that gifted individuals have full opportunity to develop their skills; it must give scope for the training of a leadership group and at the same time provide for the development of all the vocational abilities needed for the creation of a progressive and democratic society.
The quality of education that we impart to our youth and the priority at which we rate it contribute largely to the formation of the attitudes they carry over into public life. So whatever kind of seed we sow in the classroom, the manner in which we nurture it and the strength which it imbibes in its various stages of growth will all determine the harvest that the nation will reap in the form of its educated youth coming out of the schools, colleges and universities be it a clerk in an office, a soldier in the battle field, a school master in a village school, a University Professor, a bureaucrat running the administration in a seat of power. University is regarded as the single and most important industry for the production of high-level manpower in Nigeria. The aims of university education are to raise the intellectual tone of the society, cultivate the public mind, purify the national taste, supply the principles of popular aspirations and give enlargement and sobriety to 59 ideas of the age. To strengthen these principles the stakeholders in Nigerian university education sector tend to guard jealously the integrity of the university and the quality of graduates produced (Olayemi and Oyelekan, 2019).
It is not surprising that the available records revealed that Nigerian universities in the past decades have been producing high quality graduates.
Daisi (2017) affirmed that, many graduates from Nigerian universities have distinguished themselves in their various fields so much that some of those graduates are now renowned scholars in the best universities across the globe. According to Olayemi and Oyelekan (2009) these attestations are quite resounding more so that quality entrants transformed into quality graduates.
However, in recent years the integrity attached to Nigerian universities seems to have faded away. This is evident in the way and manner in which the stakeholders in the university education sector maintain the constant criticisms on the procedures and quality of graduates produced by Nigerian universities today.
Examination is the focal point on which the entire education system revolves and the success or failure of the system of examination is indeed an indicator of the success or failure of the education system. Examination is an important aspect of the education process. This is the stage at which the learner’s knowledge, skills, ability and competencies are assessed, and judgement made about such performance. The outcome of such judgement is used for diagnosing as well as placement of students. Beating the due process of examinations leads to malpractices. However, the rate at which examination misconduct occur in the Nigerian educational system is highly disturbing and, therefore, needs prompt attention by all stakeholders. In the light of this and many other concerns, this paper therefore discusses the Nigerian university education system, Examination misconduct as the form of examination misconduct in Nigerian Universities, its form, causes and impact on the standard and quality of university education. The paper concludes by highlighting the suggested ways of curbing examination misconduct in University campuses. Examination malpractice defined examination as spoken or practical test at school or college especially an important one that you need to do in order to get a qualification. The Wikipedia further asserted that a test or examination is an assessment intended to measure a test-takers knowledge or skill, aptitude, physical fitness or classification in many other topics. A test may be administered orally, on a paper, on a computer or in confirmed area that requires a test taker to physically perform a set of skills. Examination is an organized assessment technique which presents individuals with a series of questions or tasks geared towards ascertaining the individual acquired knowledge and skills. Examination malpractice is defined as any deliberate act of wrong doing, contrary to the rules of examinations designed to give a candidate an undue advantage. Examination malpractice also known as cheating is the illegal action that students take during their examinations to try to make good grades by cutting corners. Examination malpractice is an act or irregular manner of testing candidates which contravenes the rules and conventions guiding the conduct of examinations. Examination malpractice has done a lot of harm to students since many of them have neglected their books with the hope of performing the magic they are used to in every examination. Examination malpractice in Nigerian educational system has been widely discussed and viewed as a major challenge not only to examination bodies but to school administrators, the entire education system, the government and the society at large.
The hues and cries about examination malpractice taking place at all levels of the Nigerian educational system is nothing but a reflection of the decay in the value system of the society. The Nigerian society is that which celebrates mediocrity and views cheating as being smart. The society does not want to know how an individual achieves success. The important thing is the success. In fact in Nigeria the end justifies the means instead of the means justifying the end. In actual fact examination malpractice is a variant of the wrongs and corruption in the society. The politicians employ rigging at elections and enjoy enviable political offices and so do students cheat from primary to tertiary institutions to move from one level of education to another. All sorts of misconducts take place in and around examination venues to take undue advantage of the process and achieve “success”. To make matter worse it is not only students that are involved, Business centres inside or around schools, parents, teachers, school heads, and examination officers all collude with students to perpetrate this misconduct. For Example, It is common during Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination, to see up to 5000 persons in examination centre that has 500 candidates. The other persons who are not writing the examination come around to crowd the venue as aids to those writing the examination. The collusion between two or more of these agents makes it more difficult to combat. Even the penalties stipulated in Act 33 of 1999 constitution ranging from cancellation of results to 21 years jail- term has failed to achieve any significant shift from the cheating culture due to the effect of collusion (Ijaiya and Oduwaiye, 2004).
The university system evaluates the achievement of students? learning by administering two major types of examinations. Each course is evaluated by continuous assessment test (C.A. Test) and semester examination. These two types of examination are not spared of malpractices or irregularities of one type or the other. It is the intention of this researcher to find out the remote causes of examination malpractices, the types or forms of malpractices and recommend measures aim at stopping or reducing the ugly trend. (Onyechere, 2004). Although many educational researchers from a variety of background has carried out various investigations and discovered that examination malpractice is a phenomenon that has started some decades ago and the effort by government administrators and stake holders in the educational sector to curtail the ugly trend have not yielded any fruit. The derogative falling of our educational standard is becoming uncontrollable, the pollution of our education by both stake holders and students is now pointing towards the wrong direction. Our dependency on external technology results from our inability to purge out this menace. Nigerians known with our emphasis on certificate orientation (i.e. presentation of certificate for job employment is gradually telling on our technological development. The certificate qualification orientation unknowingly bedded in us (our nation), lead to many acquiring same certificate by all means, positively or negatively. All forms of misconduct and malpractices had and are still been introduced to achieve this eccentric menace (certificate). Our mind, which is part of that, that control our thoughts and action and are channel towards the easiest way out of achieving this eccentric “goods”. The development of our intellectual capacity are derail due to the fact that state holders (government, administrators, teachers, students and parents) are primarily focusing on the end result of our education.
The term “examination malpractice” has been defined by various researchers in different ways. Examination malpractice is an illegal or unethical behavior by somebody in the process of testing an examiner’s ability or knowledge by means of questions (Ikupa, 1997). Oluyeba and Daramola, (1992) remark that examination malpractice is any irregular behavior exhibited by a candidate or anybody charged with the conduct of examination before, during or after the examination which contravenes the rules and regulations governing the conduct of such examination. WAEC (2003) defined examination malpractice as any irregular behavior exhibited by candidates or anybody charged with the responsibility of conducting examination in or outside the examination hall, before, during or after such examination.
The aim of this project is to devise a mechanism for curbing the rate of examination malpractice in the university. The mechanism would serve as a restriction for students and lecturers alike who indulge in the act of examination malpractice during exams. This mechanism would put a check on the rate at which this ugly trend is being popularized by the university. The mechanism will be anchored on a process which overseas how students/lecturers take and conduct examinations. The students over some period of time would begin to realize the consequences and negative effect of examination malpractice and at the end of the day, this would instill some form of self-confidence in these students, in order for them to study and write their examinations themselves without any form of assistance or external aid. A check would also be created eventually, willingly or unwillingly in the mind of the lecturers and parents alike to refrain themselves from such ugly acts.
Applying a strict check on how examination is being run and taken in the university would improve the quality of graduates that are being sent out of the university. This leads to the rebuilding and growth of the society eventually. It curtails the rate of violence and other negative occurrences in the university to be reduced because for students who are busy with their academic work, would not have the time to indulge in one form of violent activity or the other because he/she is unaware of the consequences involved when they do so.
The scope of this project is to analyze the causes of examination malpractices and various forms that it takes. Also an automated system will be developed for this project work, where the head of examination malpractice panel can have a pictorial overview of cases of exam malpractice relating to any student. By this, he is able to pass an instant judgment/punishment without any form of lobbying/bribery.
This project work during research was limited by the fact that some students were not willing to release the right information for fear of being exposed or implicated. Again, some students carried away questions with the intension of filling it and returning it but they never did so, due to this fact, some questionnaires were lost. This led to the fact that the numbers of questionnaires given out were not the number of questionnaires returned, moreover, the behavior of the respondent (students) during the collection of the data, so there was no 100% collection of data.
Examination: Is an organized assessment technique which presents individuals with a series of questions on tasks geared towards ascertaining the individual acquired skills and knowledge.
Malpractice: Is any irregular behavior that goes against a laid down rule.
Questionnaire: Is a set of carefully structured questions designed to systematically elicit information that is relevant in this study.
Data: Is a set of unprocessed information.
Process: In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed to achieve a particular action.
Respondents: This refers to all the students who participated in the filling of the questionnaires