Monday 25 April 2016

Letter from Africa: Ghana's exam cheat scandal

BBC


  • 18 April 2016
    •  
  • From the sectionAfrica
Labone Senior High School students Ernestina Quaye (L), Narteh Andrews (C) and Lisa Okudzetp (R) sit in a classroom on December 1, 2012 in AccraImage copyrightAFP
Image captionMany Ghanaians hope the school system will improve so that they can build successful careers
In our series of letters from African journalists, Ghanaian writer Elizabeth Ohene looks at the novel ways that schoolchildren cheat during exams.
While the whole world has been focusing on the Panama Papers leak, we have been engulfed in our own local leaks here in Ghana. Not of the secret offshore accounts kind but of the examinations kind.
We are in the midst of what seems to be a regular embarrassing crisis. This year, just like the year before, there are reports that the questions for the West African Senior School Certificate exams have leaked.
The morning the exams were due to start, a national newspaper carried a front page story announcing that the questions for three subjects, Oral English, Integrated Science and Social Studies, had leaked and some students had received the questions on social media between the hours of midnight and 04:00.
I have been wondering how helpful leaked questions for Oral English can be. Would I have fared any better if my A-level Oral French questions had been leaked to me at 01:00 on the morning of the exams? I suspect not.
But times change, I have to concede.
this photo illustration, the WhatsApp application is displayed on a iPhone on April 6, 2016 in San Anselmo, CaliforniaImage copyrightAFP[
Image captionExam questions were sent around via social media
There have been photos of the thighs of students with words written on them, which were said to be answers to the questions they were facing in the exams.
As can be expected there is the inevitable outcry from everybody, all the way to President John Mahama, who has expressed his indignation that the West African Examination Council was not able to protect the integrity of its exams.

'Worthless certificates'

The head of its national office has offered the most reassuring explanation: What had happened should not be called a leak of the questions; it was a simply a case of the children getting "foreknowledge" of the questions.
Apparently it only qualifies as a leak when students get access to questions a number of days before the exams.
When it happens hours before, as in this case, then the students had "foreknowledge".
John Dramani Mahama in Berlin on 19 January 2015Image copyrightAFP
Image captionThe president says he is disappointed with exam officials for failing to stop leaks
I was not quite sure whether to laugh or to cry and as I have followed the ensuing discussions and arguments, I notice that most people were only worried that their certificates would be deemed worthless and degraded by institutions in the parts of the world Ghanaians aspire to go to - the UK, US, Australia, etc.
It seems it is perfectly OK for us to have worthless and degraded certificates for our use here in Ghana.

Parents pay

Then I discovered that this was not a problem plaguing us here in Ghana alone.
A little search revealed that other countries on the continent, like Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and, of course, our West African neighbours regularly have similar problems.
India has also had the most interesting stories about exam leakages and/or foreknowledge of questions.
Indian army candidates sit in their underwear in a field as they take a written exam after being asked to remove their clothing to deter cheating during a recruitment day in Muzaffarpur on 28 February 2016Image copyrightAFP
Image captionPeople who want to join India's army write exams in their underwear to prevent cheating
What I find the most shocking about the phenomenon in Ghana, though, is the regular involvement of teachers and parents in attempts to compromise the integrity of exams.
Schoolchildren have told stories of parents giving them money to buy leaked questions.
Teachers have been found to offer prepared answers to their students.
A woman on 3 July 2007 holds new banknotes in AccraImage copyrightAFP
Image captionSome exam papers are bought in Ghana
I have decided there is no point in getting myself scandalised by these outrages.
These days I pick my fights and if parents and teachers think it is acceptable to undermine the integrity of exams, I know I am up against it.
It helps, though, that I now have an explanation for the 30-something-year-old I met recently who cannot read or write and claims to have completed Junior High School (JHS).
Now, when I am confronted with mediocrity in public life, and when I am dismayed with the obvious illiteracy of people in high public positions who are supposed to have academic qualifications, I can safely explain the situation to myself.
They must have had "foreknowledge" of questions in their exams at the basic, secondary, degree and maybe even masters and PhD levels.
More from Elizabeth Ohene:

Letter from Africa

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Letter from Africa: Nigeria community divided over Boko Haram

BBC


  • 31 March 2016
    •  
  • From the sectionAfrica
A woman walks by the damaged Michika Local Government secretariat in Michika, a city recaptured from Boko Haram by the Nigeria military early this year, on May 10, 2015.Image copyrightGetty Images
Image captionBoko Haram Islamist militants seized Michika in September 2014
In our series of letters from African journalists, novelist and writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani travels to a Nigerian town split along ethnic and religious lines by Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency.
Long after the last militant has been annihilated and the final suicide bomb exploded, the effects of Boko Haram's terror tactics in Nigeria's north-east will still be seen and felt. And not just in the bodies maimed or the properties razed or the offspring of rape.
The insurgents are leaving behind in some communities a dense cloud of internecine hatred and suspicion.
Last month, I travelled to Michika on a mission organised by the Adamawa Peace Initiative (API), an interfaith attempt to reduce violence and build peace through a collaboration of local religious, community and business leaders.
Since 2012 it has been engaged in a number of joint peace-building programmes in the north-eastern state of Adamawa, working with the American University of Nigeria (AUN), and Michika is currently top of their list.
The town, one of the largest in the state, has a mixed Christian and Muslim population, with the former in the majority.
It borders Borno state, the heartland of the Boko Haram insurgency.

A divided community

Although tensions have always existed between the two religious groups, they have managed to live in peace.
"When we were fleeing Boko Haram," one Christian woman in Michika recounted, "I saw two abandoned children who were about seven years old and took them with me to Yola. They were Muslim but it didn't make any difference to me."
But all that has changed.
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani:
Adaobi Tricia NwaubaniImage copyrightAdaobi Tricia Nwaubani
"The Christian and Muslim children exchange insults in the streets and in public transport, calling one another names and making hateful or snide remarks"
Boko Haram overran the town in September 2014. For the next seven months, Michika was part of the militants' so-called caliphate, where they hoisted flags and defaced government signboards with Arabic inscriptions announcing the greatness of Allah.
After the Nigerian military liberated the town, the thousands who had fled gradually began to return.
But these days, the Christians and Muslims are at loggerheads.
map
"Because our Christian religion tells us to treat people well, the other side decided to take advantage of us," said one Christian man.
While a Muslim woman complained: "I heard two women whispering about my hijab, then one of them asked me to tell them what I had hidden underneath."
The Christian and Muslim children exchange insults in the streets and in public transport, calling one another names and making hateful or snide remarks.
The two religious groups now have separate market days - the most important day of the week in this agricultural community.
A woman speaks during community leaders meeting in Nigeria's Adamawa stateImage copyrightAdaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Image captionMost residents of Michika don't trust their local political leaders
The Christians have chosen Saturday as their fixed big day for buying and selling produce from their farms, while the Muslims have theirs on Sundays - when the Christians are in church.
As a result, customers who used to come from far and wide to buy from Michika market now prefer to go elsewhere, leading to a further plunge in the fortunes of a town already economically devastated by the militants whose presence interrupted the yearly planting and harvesting cycle.
The different groups accuse each other of showing favouritism when relief materials donated by NGOs are being distributed, saying that who gets what, when and how is determined by the group to which the person in charge belongs.
With the poor agricultural output and the loss of other means of livelihood abandoned during the period of Boko Haram occupation, these relief materials are a major source of survival for the people.
"Christians in this town are in the majority so they deprive us of our rights," a Muslim man said.
Boko Haram at a glance:
A Boko Haram leader speaks in a propaganda videoImage copyrightBoko Haram video
Image captionBoko Haram has sworn allegiance to Islamic State and often displays its trademark black flag
  • Founded in 2002, initially focused on opposing Western-style education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language
  • Launched military operations in 2009
  • Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria, hundreds abducted, including at least 200 schoolgirls
  • Joined so-called Islamic State, now calls itself IS's "West African province"
  • Seized large area in north-east, where it declared caliphate
  • Regional force has retaken most territory last year
But another resident complained: "There are no Christians holding top positions in the local government or House of Assembly."
The suspicion in Michika sometimes goes a little bit beyond religion.
For example, the professional game hunters and vigilantes, two groups that have taken upon themselves the role of protecting the community from further attacks, have been shooting one another dead, each accusing members of the other of being Boko Haram sympathisers.
The head of the hunters is Christian and that of the vigilantes is Muslim, but both groups memberships are a religious mix.
Local hunters and vigilantes in Nigeria's Adamawa stateImage copyrightAdaobi Tricia Nwaubani
Image captionHunters and vigilantes have played a key in the fight against Boko Haram
All these sordid experiences were recounted in detail by the residents of Michika, during dialogue sessions organised by the AUN-API initiative.
The town's leaders, women, men, youths, hunters and vigilantes, met in classrooms of the government secondary school, with academic staff and a respected imam and priest acting as mediators in a community where people no longer trust their own local leaders.
It was the first time that the people of Michika had been given the opportunity to discuss these deep issues openly.
Many described their experiences and regrets in tears. Others spoke with passionate anger and bitterness.
At some point while the chairman of the hunters was speaking, the vigilantes stood up and stormed out of the meeting.
But, overall, the consensus from the various dialogue sessions was the same: The people were glad for the opportunity given them to finally talk about these issues and begin the healing process.
"We had been carrying these grudges instead of tabling them," a man said. "We had been pretending as if they did not exist."
More from Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani:

Letter from Africa

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