THE VALUE OF HONESTY.

THE VALUE OF HONESTY

In Kenyan universities, students are forewarned that if they fail in their examination, they’re given one more chance to sit the paper, and in case they fail twice, they’re sent back home. I was told the same during my orientation when I joined university. This got me thinking, ‘why would someone be sent home just because he/she can’t do well in exams? Why wouldn’t he just remain in school and finally graduate with a dismal grade, like high school?’

There is this classmate of mine who says he’ll pay someone to sit the Calculus examinations for him, and that he cannot strain himself to prepare yet there are other easier means of passing. I don’t blame him. Back in high school, we misinterpreted the principal’s advice of approaching an exam as a group and instead did exam as a group. We never wanted to stand by ourselves in the face of an examination. Perhaps, we had no clue what being honest in exam benefits. We had no knowledge of the impact of a genuine result in someone’s life. Many, despite being past high school, still don’t understand why they should be honest at least with themselves, if not with the examiner.

I did my exams (KCSE) in 2015, hence it may seem quite erroneous for me to advice someone in matters of honesty. Well, I’m not trying to defend myself, but as a matter of fact, I cannot tell whether or not I deserved what I got, but I did work hard enough to attain it. Now the fallacy that a 2015 candidate knows nothing about honesty in examinations leaves me out, because I actually do know, and there are many more who know too.

What worries me is whether people understand the importance of being honest, especially in examination? Kenyan education system has totally lost meaning because of dishonesty in examination. People no longer understand the purpose of education, as much as they don’t understand their own purposes in life. My mom is a teacher, and she often tells me that there are some kids that the teachers at times brand as ‘impossible pupils’. This is to mean that they cannot by any means benefit from classwork. What worries me is that these kids are not sent out of school, not because the teachers like their presence in school, but because their parents will swallow you alive seeing that you’re destroying their kid’s future. Despite that, will the government sit aside and watch pupils being sent from school because they can’t keep up with classwork? And will the government contain a school head who consistently produces dismal results? If you thought there is any other reason why exam cheating is the anthem of Kenyan schools, think again.

It won’t be so easy to convince a form one kid to study hard if he/she is ever willing to pass the final examinations. After all, the Matiangi era will soon end, and Kenya will go back to its times. Leave alone this, you should ask me how hard it was when I was in form one, to tell a fellow the importance of studying. Fortunately, or unfortunately, all these fellows, even the ones whose faces never met with the face of a book unless a teacher is in class, are now in universities. It is not their fault. Why should I strain myself with reading, yet I know it is not going to help me in life? I only need to pass my exams, and there are better and easier means of passing. The only reason why people go to school therefore is to pass the exam, and get a certificate showing that you went to school and passed, because that is what the parents want.

People need to realize that education is not only found in schools. People need to understand that formal education is not the only option for success in life. One’s inability to do well in class is not inability to succeed in life. One’s success in class is not necessarily success in life. Have you ever wondered why universities is the home of every immoral practice today? It’s because they’re filled with people who are better elsewhere other than the universities. These people don’t comprehend the relationship between themselves and formal education, in short class is not their thing. They don’t see meaning in whatever they go for in the universities, hence they end up engaging in such idle activities.

A society without farmers is incomplete, a society without police officers and soldiers is incomplete, a society without watchmen is incomplete, a society without ‘boda boda’ riders is incomplete. Certainly, pastors and religious leaders are also an important part of the society? If everyone had a degree, wouldn’t the president be driving himself? If everyone became a doctor, wouldn’t the people be starving? If everyone becomes a teacher, who would have been pilots, or engineers. The society needs every kind of person, despite gender or intelligence quotient. There is therefore no point in forcing someone to become what he/she is not meant to be.

You could have cheated in high school examination and qualified for a very good course in college, where you will still cheat to defend your chance, but your degree may not be very helpful to you if that is not what you were born for. You could be straining someone with a degree in Economics and Statistics yet this person can go out there and become a very good farmer. Someone could be struggling cheating to finish a degree in Medicine yet he/she can get out there, start a business, and become a millionaire. Cheating in examination to prevent ourselves from facing the university senate for goodbye sentiments is not just injustice to the lecturer, or the university, but injustice to our country, to ourselves and to our Creator, who hates sin like political opponent.

Time has come for us to reform our country and the world. Change begins with just you and me. If you’re a medicine student who is heavily dependent on the other side of the examination paper, think of the many patients who will die while you’re looking for your notes to refer to how he/she can be helped. This finance student who does not attend classes, because there are easier ways of passing, please think of how poorer you’ll make our country become when you will boldly squander millions of public funds, because you never learnt to effectively manage funds. Cheating yields the procurement graduate who will purchase a single wheelbarrow at a hundred thousand Kenya shillings.

I realized that universities send home students who can’t do well in class because they know that there are other things that this person can do and succeed in. Why do you struggle with Calculus knowing that is not your taste? Go for your taste. If you didn’t know, then get it from me, a genuine result is a genuine life, and a genuine life is a better nation; what we’ve been fighting for since we got recolonized by the black colonizer. You are the change, make a move!