The biblical admonition cliché: "you reap what you sow” has lost its luster among the fraudulent college students whose motto is: it is not how much you read but who you sit next to in the exam room. Even worse is the new motto that states: you reap according to the invigilator’s sloppiness.

With hawk-like necks strained and stretched beyond any logically explainable degree, students treat themselves to an optical venture that leaves them with an undue advantage at an exam. Intentionally, I will stay off the phrase "half baked” and solely focus on how the poor evaluative tools and exam environment pose a deleterious threat to our quality of education.This may seem, to you, a simple issue but when we finally find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, we should at least have the decency to accept that we’re the ones who securely tied the knot.

How big is the problem?

Cheating is not just an examination room problem but a cancer that eats slowly right from the copied assignments to the plagiarized thesis whose owners know nothing about. At the end of the day, we end up with graduates who lack employability skills — technical mastery and basic work-related capabilities — workers (of course right from the manager to the cleaner) who are clueless in matters pertaining to their jobs.

It should be noted that our education system will be weakened to the bone if its quality is to be brought to scrutiny in the light of weak evaluation processes. If we keep killing all the caterpillars, it will be unfair to complain about the lack of butterflies. With the upcoming graduation ceremonies that will usher in many graduates into the world; I can’t help but question the yardstick upon which the success of these graduates is measured.

I’ve seen numerous students cover their laziness by stressing the importance of big-heartedness over hard work. They teach that generosity, especially in the exam room, is more important than revising and they use that idea to distract the good students from their own inability to perform.

However, the students should not carry the blame alone. Some educators encourage cheating by repeating the same exams year in year out. They are well seasoned for copy/paste more than the students themselves. But as renown African author Chinua Achebe says, men have learnt to shoot without missing that birds fly without perching. The students have learnt to dance to the tunes of our drums. Even worse are the educators who literary give the exam to the students beforehand. Others are so reckless that they will leave the exam lying on their desk.

An exam is a test in which you demonstrate your individual qualifications and skills within the framework and on the conditions laid down by the institution for the relevant exam. Like it or not, Rwanda’s  education (like any other country’s) is experiencing an epidemic of trickery and cheating, ranging from primary school teachers rigging key assessments through to university undergraduates disciplined for plagiarism. Shady practices, and in some cases outright fraud, are woven into the fabric of our education system as the use of exam results and performance indicators increase the pressure on students, teachers and institutions to succeed.

Each method of cheating usually lends itself to particular strategies in the classroom that, if enacted, would discourage students from even attempting to cheat. Indeed, a good testing environment benefits all students. A well-proctored, disciplined environment ensures fairness to everyone and provides comfort by assuring students that their academic achievements are being fairly measured. Cheating interferes with some of the best qualities of undergraduate education, including the intrinsic pursuit of knowledge and wisdom that an academic course of study normally encourages. Seen in this light, it behooves us as educators to do all we can to prevent it (minimise its presence), or failing to detect it (minimise its effectiveness). The very quality of undergraduate education depends on our success in this endeavor.

What is the way forward?

Educators must be true to their call. They must insist on originality and encourage students to do personal research. I mean if you are getting my assignment directly from a text book then you may as well hand in the text book to be marked. Even worse is the Internet copy/paste syndrome. The situation seems hopeless but don’t we always say we should be the change we hope to see? It begins with you and I. We must learn integrity. Denying honest and industrious students the opportunity to learn at the expense of a fraudulent one who wants things easy is the worst we can do as educators.

In addition to that, learning should be made as practical as we can afford it to be. Franklin asserts: "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Lessons/lectures involving lazy generalizations and sit-down-projector teaching lead to rote learning. Even in church, congregators interact with the preacher through an "amen” (or hallelujah if you wish).

When it comes to preventing cheating in the exam room, which ought to be the real goal, much of this advice calls for proctors to roam the examination room frequently. For large classes, the use of multiple proctors is highly encouraged. Instructors in the same discipline or department might agree to help each other proctor as a joint service. Proctoring actively is a full-time activity that requires complete concentration to be done effectively. As a proctor, one should give full attention to the classroom anyway, to be available to answer student questions and to reinforce the impression that students and their work environment are the top priority.

The writer is a lecturer at The Adventist University of Central Africa