Written by Patience Nyangove and Marianne Nghidengwa
Thursday, 17 June 2010
FIFTEEN Polytechnic of Namibia students have been caught in the past three weeks cheating during examinations fuelling fears of half baked graduates from the institution. Cheating cases recorded so far include those of students caught trying to write each others' exams; those who are caught in possession of small strips of papers where answers are written and those who write answers on papers using invisible ink amongst others.
In one incidence a student was caught writing another student's mathematics examination after he had entered his student number instead of the friend’s he was writing for.
In an extraordinary case during a test, a student reportedly, with the help of an invigilator took another student’s examination answer sheet and copied and a lecturer who marked the papers noticed the offence and gave both zero.
Polytechnic of Namibia, Registrar Corneels Jafta confirmed the cheating incidences.
“So far we have caught 15 students cheating during the current exams. We know that students cheat. They have been doing so for years. We know there are some students who don’t value learning but just the final graduation certificates. The good thing is that these students who do this are cheating themselves because when they go into the job market they are the ones who fail to perform because they don’t know anything,” Jafta said.
He said students caught cheating appear before a committee where, if found guilty, are either suspended or expelled from the institute but added that cheating is no longer as rampant as it was in 2000 when he joined the college.
“I believe we are catching all of them that are trying to cheat. We are implementing prescriptions from international education institutes to catch those that try to cheat.”
Polytechnic, Rector, Tjama Tjivikua said such cases are dealt with according to the students' disciplinary code available in the prospectus.
Student Representative Council president, Trevor Chika refused to comment on the issue.
A student who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity said: “There are many students who have been caught cheating both in tests and exams. I can't give further information as we all know what Informanté is!”
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