A Deputy communications director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Nyamah, has asserted that government’s digitalization drive in the country will eliminate examination leakages and malpractices.
Speaking on the commencement of the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) and the perennial leakages of the question papers, he noted that this will help by way of removing the human element in the handling and transportation of the exam papers.
Mr. Nyamah stated that, not only will the digitalization drive deal with issues of examination malpractice but will touch on other aspects such as corruption in the country.
“That is where this digitalization and digitization is coming in and I think that we should, as a major priority by the current government and every government thereafter,… try to let us have a complete digitalization of our system. You know why? For me, the issue of corruption, this exam malpractices and a lot of our challenges that we have as a people, if we have our system digitalized, it will be very difficult because the human beings do not have to interact with you”.
Richard Nyamah
Human element, a factor in question leakage
According to Mr. Nyamah when the educational system depends on the human element in the transportation of examination materials, they can be tempted to exploit their position for profit by leaking such documents. He posited that when the human interface is eliminated in the educational system by digitizing and digitalizing the system, it will create a barrier for such corrupt practices in the country.
He averred that the introduction of information technology into the examination procedure can however increase or decrease the possibility of examination malpractice. He called for other approaches to deal with the recurring practice.
“I think we should start looking for more innovative ways to stop the issue of examination malpractice”.
Richard Nyamah
Developed countries and digitization
Developed countries, he noted, are able to easily curb corrupt practices because they have been able to minimize the human element in their systems by digitizing their systems. He said the digitalization drive of the overall system must be a priority of the current government and every government after because to him, that is the panacea to fighting corruption in the system.
“If we are able to do this in the educational system and the health system [it will help]. All the developed countries, it’s because they have taken this paper work out of their activities and I hope we will do that too”.
Richard Nyamah
Mr. Nyamah cited the example of the challenges in revenue collection in the country with regards to the lawyers who defaulted in the payment of their taxes. He attributed this to the inefficiency in the system to locate such lawyers in the country. According to him, that would have been no problem at all if the system was digitized to capture everyone onto the system.
He therefore wished all the candidates writing the BECE well in their endeavor to progress to the next stage of their academic pursuit in the country.
