britone mwasaru

High school was interesting for me, not because I was the fun or cool kid but because of the different people I was able to school with. My schoolmates were from very diverse backgrounds and this was very crucial to my education. I say education and not schooling because as we might know those are two different things.

Recently, I have been thinking about cheating. Schools have a not so good way of dividing students of the same class into different streams. They somehow put the “smartest” one together then there is the stream that seems to have the not so smart students, the ones who have the most fun. I say fun because we seemed like the most united ones and we took P.E (physical education) time very seriously. Unlike the other students who would use this time to go the library, we would go play. Yes, we took the “all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl” saying seriously.

You might notice the smartest is quotes because passing the exams is not about knowledge of a subject but your ability to cram and write all that on a piece of paper. Ask a student about the topic and they don’t remember after the exam. This need for cramming made my life later in University a bit difficult. The clustering of students based on their performance is a problem that I hadn’t thought of while in high school. The problem is that some students thought they were less capable than others. This might lead to a lack of confidence in one’s ability to learn new things or maybe think they are not the smart type. This really affects one in life. There are times I find someone comparing themselves to others. Where one’s life is at is compared to the other or who is driving the best car. The comparison has been beaten into us. You find that some would refuse to collaborate on projects because of this competitiveness.

Interestingly, I would hear rumours of how even these smartest students would get access to exams before we all got them during the exam time a.k.a cheating. At the time I would hear stories of how teachers would actually buy the exams on behalf of their students. I always wondered, if they were so smart why would they need to cheat and why would the teachers be willing participants.

As I navigate life it’s become clear why this was the case. When you are told that a set of exams at the end of your four years in high school will determine where you end up in life you might be tempted to cheat. We were told how important the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (K.C.S.E) exam was. The results would determine the university you get to go, your career prospects and ultimately how life turns out. For teachers, their students’ performance was tied to promotions or demotions (might be in the form of teaching the not so smart students), getting fired and maybe their salaries or bonuses. If these things depended on your students’ performance then you might be incentivised to help. Then again, exam cheating is a huge business. The other incentive for the teachers might be that the students were customers.

According to a Daily Nation article 70 teachers were arrested in 2024 for compromising the integrity of the exams. What happens if we design an education system where a single set of exam does not determine one’s “future”. Future is in quotes because one comes to realise that that was not entirely true. I am not saying that getting A grade and going to prestigious university does not set one to success. It really depends on your interpretation of “making it” in life.