Smartphones add new twist to war on exam cheats

Safaricom Limited retail agent representatives Jacqueline Wanjiru, Fredah Gechu and Sarah Ndambiri display the new Galaxy S4 smartphones. Smartphones have given exam cheating a new lease of life.

What you need to know:

  • Cheating is a great problem in learning institutions in Kenya. At primary and secondary school level, Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) nullifies results of hundreds of students each year due to the vice.

They have become mobile phones of choice in Kenya, especially for young people, who want multi- faceted gadgets that allow them to make calls, browse internet, take photos, listen to radio and keep abreast with activities on social media.

This has seen many people in the East African nation acquire smart phones as manufacturers strive to satisfy the huge appetite for the gadgets especially among the low end market consumers.

But as demand and number of people with smart phones rises, the devices are posing headaches in some sectors, chief among them education.

Some students, especially those in higher institutions of learning, are turning to smart phones to perpetuate cheating in exams, a vice that authorities have unsuccessfully laboured for decades to eliminate.

While in the past students who wanted to cheat would scribble notes on papers, now they are using smart phones. The devices have given the vice a new lease of life, with only the uninitiated relying on written notes famously known as Mwakenya in Kenyan universities.

It is about 2 p.m. at a public university in Nairobi, the capital and students at a graduate school in the institution are busy revising for an exam due in about three hours.While some are reading on their own, others are holding group discussions just to ensure that they grasp every bit of the topics.

However, to ensure that they leave nothing to chance, the students in one of the groups later scribbled notes in their smart phones.Soon, they stroll to the exam room and the lecturer, accompanied by an administration officer, arrives with exam papers and answer booklets.

The lecturer starts by warning the 150 students against cheating and spells out the severe consequences they would face if found engaging in the vice. He then issues out the exam papers and declares it started.After supervising for about 20 minutes of the two-and-a-half hour paper, he exits the room leaving students' at the hands of the administration officer, who is taking roll call.

At different spots in the exam room, students are consulting their smart phones placed strategically on their desks as if checking time. One would have believed the students were conscious about time, but the gadgets were their bridge to passing the exam." The examination was tough, but I am sure I will not fail," a student exclaims at the end of the exam. "I am lucky that I had everything here," he says as he flosses his smart phone.

The student is not the only one who is full of praise for his smart phone at the end of the exam. Bernard, an undergraduate student at a public university on the outskirts of Nairobi, blames students populations for rise in cheating through smart phones.

"Some lecturers are not strict with use of phones or supervising. They will issue out papers and leave the exam room or they sit and do not care about what is happening in the hall. This gives room for students to cheat," said Bernard, who sat for his end of semester exam last month.

He noted that during one of their exams, a student was caught copying from a smart phone and was kicked out of the exam room. "The lecturer was able to nab her because he was walking around the room. It is disheartening to see someone cheating as you struggle on your own," he said.

Most students in universities in Kenya have smart phones, which cost from as low Sh5040 ($60). "Smart phones are good. Most of us students, since we are always busy and need internet access, cannot do without them. We use them even to do assignments. Those who are using them to cheat are spoiling the beauty of the gadgets," noted Bernard.

Vincent, who works at a registry of a private university, noted smart phones pose fresh challenges in curbing cheating in exams, especially at colleges and universities.

"But authorities know about it that is why some of them have installed CCTV cameras in lecture halls, which are usually used as exam rooms. When you have CCTV cameras, no one will attempt to cheat either from smart phones or written notes because they know they are being watched," he noted.

He added that huge number of students in many universities pose challenges in invigilating exams. "In some courses, you may find up to 2,000 students, which makes it hard for a lecturer to invigilate the exam. This gives student room to cheat," he said.

Cheating is a great problem in learning institutions in Kenya. At primary and secondary school level, Kenya National Examination Council (Knec) nullifies results of hundreds of students each year due to the vice. Xinhua