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By Bellarmine Nneji
Why do we like highfalutin policies, especially ones that later boomerang on us adversely? Yeah! Technologies are good. They are seen as salvaging situations however there are reverse and obverse situations and experiences with technologies as seen in the obverse side of Holderlin that where the saving power is, there equally lies the danger. Technologies can save and endanger. It is a double edged sword.
Nigerians in both public and private sectors have been inundated with the complaints that the average Nigerian graduate does not know how to fill a form. Others have been equally complaining about the quality of grammar and English spoken by Nigerian graduates who studied English language from Nursery school through Primary and Secondary schools down to the university level. This year, there was an outcry over massive failure in WAEC English language exams. The WAEC board quickly told Nigerians that it was a technical glitch that made the results so. The world is everything that is the case in Nigeria. We clapped as WAEC told us the recurrent and traditional excuse (as long it has got to do with anything online) in Nigeria as the precedence was laid by INEC.
As Nigerians are known to be more English than the people of England, we go to extremes in all things we want to imitate or mimic whether the good or the bad. The western educational settings are already wary of the impacts of technology on education. They operate with necessary precautions. They always put a failsafe mechanism. The Nigerian policy makers appear to be invincibly ignorant of both the need for failsafe mechanisms and even precautionary principle. We are complaining of the quality of English expressed by our graduates, the main subject and exams with which we can assess the quality of English imparted on them is now being made a thoroughfare by makingit entirely online. How can we assess their quality of English without a written essay. We all know that fluency is no knowledge of academic English. How do we assess their critical thinking abilities? How do we assess their imaginative and creative abilities in writing an essay in a spontaneous manner? These are important variables we are tossing away in the rush to CBT exams.
This generation will just delegate their thinking faculties to technology. AI takes over thinking for our kids. They are now hungry for short cuts, almost in everything. The AI is now their prosthetic brain.
Online exams involving only clicking are aiding the scourge of AI on the education of the Gen Zs. How can we assess their ability for the medium of instruction, English language? This is why when you see scripts of students you begin to wonder whether they entered anEnglish class in primary school talk less of secondary school. Grammar is checked across all subjects not only in an English exam. Clicking the options might not show whether the candidate knows the reason why the option is the answer. CBT exams look like the Chinese Room argument. Though it makes assessment outcome fast but that is not the major or even primary aim of education. We should not be only interested in outcomes. Processes matter.
One may not be surprised that someone who never got into an English lesson class can get an A1 grade by merely clicking a particular pattern in the answer options available. Another aspect is that we can no longer distinguish those who are brilliant in English and who would have shown their skills through grammars and essays. Will the CBT be able to assess concord in English exams? This equally applies to the local languages especially the three major ones Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
We can take a cue from western nations and especially the international language testing centres. Despite their CBT, there is also the Essays exams aspect. This gives a scope of the ability to appreciate the candidate’s language abilities and levels. It is largely hoped that the WAEC board would consider an essay written exams to supplement the online ones.
This challenge is not limited to English language only. It cuts across all subjects. Even in mathematics. One can click correct answer options by mere guess work and still make it. Such a candidate would see oneself as being in the same rank with those who really know. In this type of situation, how would one know how the answer is arrived at? This is why, as stated earlier, that processes matter. Knowing the answer but not knowing the reasons why it is the answer (and how it is arrived at, especially in mathematics) is as good as not knowing the answer. In written exams in mathematics, no one jumps the calculation processes and puts up an answer and expects the teacher to score one. This process is jumped over in the CBT exams. This is equally applicable to other quantitative subjects. Everyone can become a Chike Obi because of CBT. The proof of the pudding will only be after the JAMB admissions. That would be post mortem. After the jamb admissions, the results begin to filter in from the various departments.
If we glean at the entire situation from what has been going on in virtual platforms, the teachers at the secondary schools levels have been blamed for graduatingstudents who bastardise English. This campaign is especially being sponsored by those at the tertiary levels. They decry what they have been witnessing from the exam scripts of newly admitted undergraduates.
Aristotle said that things can be made simple but not simpler. We want to get results faster to avoid delays normally emanating from the traditional conference marking. The issue of curtailing exam malpractices can be tricky. The problem of exam malpractice is in the system, the internal. Why do special centres still thrive despite the online system? Despite JAMB’s online version, it is still being manoeuvred by special centres. Let us not be distracted by the symptoms and side effectsbut focus on tackling the virus. While pursuing this objective, we should not lose sight of the essence of education.
When teaching and learning is successful,exam malpractices would not be the focus of policy makers. It is when teaching and learning failthat candidates begin to look for alternatives to beat the system.Curbing exam malpractice is primarily an internal cleansing affair. The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle. Ninety percent of exam malpractices emanate from the inside. It can never succeed without insider collaboration. Just like INEC, any system not corrupted from the inside can easily tackle every other ill emanating from the outside. Nobody is against fighting exam malpractices. The concern here is that we should not lose focus on ensuring that the candidates are adequately assessed and exams really competitive. Herbert Spencer believed that education is involved in social darwinism. Education is based on survival of the fittest. Education is equally not solely for the sake of passing exams. It is primarily and essentially for self-development.The best and real knowledge should be imparted on learners in a way that they can defend the knowledge. Giving candidates false impressions that they really know by their mere passing a CBT exams in areas and subjects that need demonstrations of knowledge acquired is a disservice to the nation and even the students. How can a candidate know the answer to a mathematics question in a CBT exams but cannot demonstrate it on paper outside the CBT exams?
We often create unnecessary loops. If we churn out candidates through CBT who pass English and mathematics without knowing why they answers they provided are the answers/correct, tomorrow they will take up teaching those same subjects they knew nothing about. Then, when the pupils and students begin to ask them questions in class, they resort toabusive and intimidating escape routes. Are we surprised why many teachers don’t give their students room for asking questions? Two students can be involved in a debate for a particular answer to a question, the meet their teacher,the teacher can give an unconvincing answer. If the student is not convinced, how would such a teacher explain such since the teacher doesn’t know why the answer she or he gave is the answer? This is the loop we are entering. Are we not providing a cure that is worse than the disease? Are we not running to meet our loop thinking we are securing technological elixir?
There are subjects that can be completely based on CBT without any loss of the essence of the knowledge content and aptitude requirements. Such subjects do not need much demonstrations in comparison to English language and the quantitative subjects. In this category we think of Social Studies, Civic Education, Literature in English, Government, History, etc.
We have success stories of young Nigerians making waves and winning laurels outside the shores of Nigeria. This may no longer be the case in the near future. We have won laurels in English and mathematics of recent. They were not based on mere CBT tests. The candidates really competed by demonstrating their levels of knowledge in the subject areas not by merely clicking answer options. They must prove the procedural knowledge of how they arrived at their answers. The ability to do such is a sign that someone really learnt and knows.
As everything is being bastardised, the suboptimal is becoming the optimal. We might not be surprised of having leaders who embarrass us at international fora with their English. It is the foundation we are inadvertently laying. Very soon, it will be ‘na who education elp?’
Technology is good; it however needs to be approached with the necessary caveats. Technocapitalism is on the prowl. When we imitate, we need to imitate bearing in mind our own topography. Technological evolution does not act in leaps.
•Dr. Nneji writes from Alvan Ikoku Federal University of Education, Owerri
