Causes Of Examination Malpractice Among Secondary School Students And Their Consequences

Education is meant to arouse in individual’s latent skills and knowledge inherent in them or impact such where it is absent. Examination on its part seeks to ascertain whether the technique used in arousing or imparting the skills and knowledge achieved its goal as well as to make a decision about the educational development of individuals. There is however, a very big question mark on the ability of examinations in our educational system to make this valued judgment. This is due to constant incidences of examination malpractice in the system. This research project therefore is an investigation into the causes of examination malpractice among secondary school students and their consequences in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu State. The target population for the study includes the teachers and principals of the 34 public secondary schools in the Enugu education zone. Through random sampling 429 – teachers and principals in 12 of the schools were used for the study. Five research questions guided the study while the instrument for data collection was a 25-item questionnaire developed by the researchers and administered on the respondents. Simple average was used in the analysis of the data collected and the findings showed that; the nature of the educational system in Nigeria; inadequate human/material resources; unscrupulous teachers/examiners; poor remuneration of teachers as well as pressure from parents contribute to examination malpractice. The implications of the findings were highlighted while recommendations for improvement and suggestions for further study were also given.