GCE Board begins probing into exam malpractices

Close to 10 schools will, on August 10, face the Examination Executive Committee, EEC, of the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE Board.

These institutions have been summoned by the Board to answer charges of examination malpractices ranging from impersonation, use of mobile phones, use of pre-prepared materials, absenteeism, the use of multiple choice questions with regular pattern, among others that characterised the 2013/2014 session of the examination in these institutions.

Besides the above schools, some individual candidates, Superintendents of examination centres and Principals of various institutions of learning have also been summoned to appear before the EEC of the GCE Board for related examination shortcomings, and to assist the EEC in investigating some of the allegations.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Post, the Registrar of the GCE Board, Humphrey Ekema Monono, said these institutions, whose results have been withheld and candidates who have been summoned, will be rigorously vetted.

If found guilty, the Registrar went on, the schools and the candidates will be severely sanctioned. Some of the sanctions include; suspension of candidates for either three years or one year - depending on the gravity of offences. But, the results of any found not guilty, will be released.

This move, the Registrar went on, is intended to put an end to cheating and other examination misconducts that can tarnish the image of the Board.

Monono threw more light on the performances of the candidates in the various levels: out of the 81,877 candidates who sat for the Ordinary Level, only 28,177 succeeded, scoring 34.77 percent. This year’s results, he added, recorded a decrease of 11.36 percent as compared to last year.

The reason for the poor performance in the ordinary level session, Monono said, can be blamed on the students’ ages.

“The students are very young and are not focused, their level of understanding is equally very low. The absence of teachers in most schools and the problem of teachers not following the right syllabus is another issue.

Some of these teachers do not make an effort to complete the syllabus and it reflects on the students’ results. Again, some teachers in Government schools are becoming lazy, students in private schools perform better because they are well coordinated.

The syndrome of teachers not being Principals or Vice Principals in most Government schools, is greatly affecting the students. This, of course, shows that some teachers don’t love teaching and only use it to gain transfers to other ministries,” Monono stated.

Meanwhile, the Registrar lauded candidates’ performances in the Advanced Level. According to him, the Advanced Level recorded an 8.01 percent increase as opposed to last year. The Registrar attributed this increase rate to maturity of the Advanced Level candidates.

"The candidates are more focused and do not need teachers to follow them around,” he averred.

On the issue of collaboration with the MTN Mobile Phone Service Company, the Registrar said “results were not sold to MTN and Orange.

We signed a contract with Agence de Regulation Telephonique that uses the Short Message Service, SMS, Code. We wanted our candidates to receive their results with ease. We don’t sell results to MTN.”

On the GCE Board’s omission of Physics results, Monono said; “The problem was caused by poor network, but we assured the candidates that the Physics results are found on the candidates’ results slips.”

The GCE Board boss observed that their biggest problem is the lack of teachers; especially in the rural areas and that most teachers in the field do not have the passion for the profession and fear that schools may soon run out of teachers as trained teachers end up in different ministries and not in the classrooms.