The Star ­ Tuesday
Date: 11.08.2015
Page 22
Article size: 182 cm2
ColumnCM: 40.44
AVE: 71182.22
Withholding exam
marks is dirty blackmail
EDUCATION Cabinet Secretary Jacob
Kaimenyi attributes the phenomenon
of hundreds of delayed marked
university examination scripts to,
among other things, runaway part­time
lecturers.
Many of these markers suffer repeated
delayed payments and walk away with, or
otherwise withhold, marked papers.
It is said misery loves company but this state
of affairs is ridiculous, even bizarre. Exams
are crucial rites of passage throughout the
education process.
What will Kenyans do next in ternis of
blackmail and cruelty ?
Wilt unpaid surgeons hold on to body parts
until the Health ministry pays up in some
obscure dispute that the patients know nothing
about?
A flawed examination management policy
will stress students no end and ultimately
impact on the integrity of grades and
institutional reputations.
Making hundreds of students suffer such
uncertainty in this wretched manner is
unacceptable. Exam time has its shares of
tensions, complexes and fears, even without
teachers who withhold marked papers.
The Council on University Education should
crack down hard on universities that do not
pay lecturers on time.
The regulator needs to find out whether
the lecturers have a genuine case and why the
universities are unable, or unwilling, to pay on
time and in full.
In the meantime, whatever the lecturers*
grievances, there is no excuse to use marked
exam papers as bargaining chips in matters
that have nothing to do with students'
fulfilment of course requirements.
Quote of the day: "Incomprehensible
jargon is the hallmark of a profession."
— US diplomat and educator Kingman
Brewster jr died on August 11, 1988
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