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Bizarre hitch hits Nairobi university exam
University of Nairobi students sit an examination in Taifa Hall on Tuesday. Questions have been raised about he quality of one test that was to be done. Photo/CHRIS OJOW
The University of Nairobi had to cancel an examination after students discovered it had major irregularities. The students walked out in protest on Monday, saying the examination had been administered together with the answers and that the questions were below standard.
They also said some of the questions had been set before, adding that the examiner had just recycled old materials. The paper was on HIV/Aids, a common subject studied by all university students. The university also has campuses at Kisumu, Bandari and Mombasa, which were set to administer the test.
On Tuesday, vice-chancellor George Magoha vowed to take disciplinary action against the lecturer responsible. He described the action by the lecturer as unprofessional and unacceptable. “This was sabotage and disciplinary action will be taken against the lecturer to prevent another case like this,” Prof Magoha said.
“An exam should be an exam … it should test what the students have been learning for a certain period,” he added. Lecturers and students at the university who sought anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter told the Nation that the paper was “substandard and even a Standard Eight pupil could tick the choices and score an A”.
Prof Magoha, however, said competent lecturers of the course were not enough, adding that the university was making efforts to address the problem.
Raised questions
The incident raised questions regarding the calibre of lecturers, process of setting and administering examinations, quality assurance and standards. Besides this case, a lucrative examinations brokerage market involving the sale of term papers, and project and thesis writing has emerged around campuses.
Ready-made answers are offered to students with the money to pay. Term papers and projects account for as much as 40 per cent of the entire degree coursework, especially for postgraduate students, which means a high score in this section easily pushes a candidate closer to the pass mark.
This practice is largely associated with Masters of Business Administration parallel degree programmes. These evening classes have more than 200 students per session conducted by a single lecturer. “We are upgrading our quality control system,” Prof Magoha said, adding that his administration is currently installing surveillance cameras to spot cases of malpractice during examination periods.
The vice-chancellor admitted that the university was facing challenges in handling the number of students applying for the evening courses. The university has nearly 46,000 students and 1,500 academic staff. It has a revenue of Sh8 billion per academic year.
The bulk of the money comes from the part-time students, while Sh3.5 billion is injected by the government. The number of part-time and distance learning students have exceeded that of full-time ones, prompting one of the lecturers to write a PhD thesis on the scenario.
Dr Guantai Mboroki, a senior distance-education lecturer at the university, has raised the alarm over the quality of the programmes being offered under the part-time arrangement. When contacted for a comment, the Commission for Higher Education boss, Prof Everret Standa promised to call back but did not do so.
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Nairobi University Degrees are no longer worth the paper they are printed on. The graduates are nothing but stone throwing vandals. I fear the lecturer will be stoned by his own students. Gone are the days the institution had some respect...I am ashamed to have been there and I never talk about it lest I am judged to be a hooligan and vandal.
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Magoha should shut-up. The Kenyan Universities are run on a template. You know what is going to happen before you join, study courses of no interest, cannot choose. Why aren't lecturers given the leeway to devise their evaluation mechanism? Same CATS 30%, Final exam 70%. Why do you teach Common(Sense) Courses? I took them and they were total waste of time. Go on, collect parallel program money, give people the degrees they want, they will figure out what to do with them once they are out there. The "Cream of the nation" is no more.
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I thought the exams are set and handed over to the department chair before the start of a semester. If this was done and the paper was scrutinized before being printed, none of such crap should have occured. The lecturer and the chair r as guilty as Al Cappone.
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