Every other year when The Kenya National Examinations Council(KNEC) announces the national examinations results, and some students or even schools fail to receive their grades due to cheating.
Cheating in the national examinations in Kenya is an actual crime and can lead to serving some time in prison. Students are warned every now and then against this illegal activity. Despite all these warnings, some still go ahead and do it anyways.
Have you ever wondered why students would put their future and reputation at risk just for these national examinations? Here are some of the reasons why many students cheat in the national examinations;
- Unpreparedness
- Pressure from parents and society
- Peer pressure
- Fear and panic
- Laziness
- Competition with other students for higher grades
- Lack of understanding about consequences
- Inability to balance their student life
- Self-justification habits
- Being misguided by teachers
1. Unpreparedness
Lack of enough preparation for an examination may make one doubt their ability. There are many things can cause unpreparedness. In most cases, students are the root cause of this as they fail to manage their time well.
Sometimes a student may a victim due to situations like absence from schools for failure to pay school fees. However, since the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), has its own fixed exam dates for everyone. One has to therefore sit the examinations prepared or not.
2. Pressure from parents and society
One major setback of the 844 education system is how a student’s entire academic journey is described using just one final examination. Society is quick to judge a student using their KNEC examination results. Some parents exert too much pressure on their students. This makes a student so much afraid what might happen if he/she fails, that they try to find alternative ways to pass. Sometimes external pressure may be too much for a child to handle, and some may even end up attempting suicide.
3. Peer Pressure
Pressure from peers is one thing that causes many people to mess up in life. Before going to school, most parents usually warn their kids to hang with the right people. Sometimes a student might be well prepared and ready to face the examinations, but cheat since his/her friends convinced them to do so.
4. Fear and Panic
Examinations usually impact different people in different ways. Some may panic and fail to deliver what they are capable of. This may lead to fear of bad result hence one may opt to cheat.
5. Laziness
Lazy students may fail to study before examination and therefore end up looking for other shortcuts in order to still do well.
6. Competition with other students for higher grades
Some people are natural born competitors. Such people would want to compete in everything and come out as the winner. They may even challenge others in order to win. Sometimes after challenging others, a student might feel threatened and therefore opt for the easiest way out, cheating.
7. Lack of understanding about the consequences
Examination cheating is a real offence in Kenya and is punishable by the Kenyan law. Sometimes, a student might be genuinely clueless about how much of a deal this crime is.
8. Inability to balance their student life
School is a place where different people from different backgrounds meet and learn to correlate. Students are allowed to grow in so many ways while in school. Many schools have different activities that students can perform in. Sometimes a student may get involved in other activities and situations, both at home and school, that may cause them to lose their focus on education. This may lead to unpreparedness hence cheating.
9. Self-justification habits
Students with this habit will cheat and tell themselves how it will not happen and that it would not cause harm to anyone.
10. Being misguided by the teachers
Teachers sometimes tend to mislead candidates by helping in cheating or even allowing it to happen. Students would therefore conclude that it is okay to cheat, and that you can get away with it.
