Examinothing in Mozambique…

Yesterday the students of Teacher Training College had an English exam and it was the worse exam I’ve ever seen in my life. Well, we all have cheated in our lives, but in my case, I at least try to hide it as I’m doing it… oh well.

As I teach the first level (the Very beginners), I was watching their exam. They have the biggest number of students, 90, and they were all in a school’s dining hall. Of course, due to lack of space, it was impossible to have them sit totally separately, they were still rather squeezed. So, when the exam finally started, you did not need eyes of an eagle to spot people doing a group work rather than an exam. It felt logical for me to remove one of the people in the middle and put her to sit in another place. I tried it. They r e f u s e d. Well, as I explained the situation to one of the few teachers present, all I got was being laughed out. “Why do you bother?” they seemed to ask.

And it got just worse. Soon, most of the teachers took off and left 90 students for me and one other guy (their actual English teacher). The other guy was not too concerned how the exam is done as long as it’s done on the paper and so I was literally running around the dining hall, trying to keep an even minimal order. All useless. All of them were constantly talking, sometimes checking their note books or little papers hidden in their pockets. When they were spotted, they laughed and continued exactly the same as before (Just to reming you, I am not talking about kindergarden kids, the students are 20-40 years old.). The worse cases were the ones who, in spite of me stearing at their eyes, stare back and then copy the neighbour’s work without any second thought. It was awful.

I tried to get teacher’s attention to the fact that what’s currently happening is no exam but a simple group work, but he just told me not to care and notice! I guess among these 90 people were almost none who did not cheat. I hope there were some, but they were just too unnoticable…

After the “exam”, I was walking towards the DI house and met the project leader and the school director who was having a conversation with some important guy whom I didn’t know. He asked me how I am and I briefly described what had just happened. He seemed really upset (or at least acted upset) and said something must be done about the issue. After about 5-10 minutes when I was lively describing me running around the dining hall for my fellow volunteers, the English teacher I told you about appeared at our door and asked me in a rather angry way: “Why did you tell the principle that the students were cheating at the exam?” I must have looked puzzled and asked him: “Well, didn’t they?” And then he gave me the most amazing answer: “No, I didn’t see anything and didn’t hear anything. Anyway, all our big w o r k with the exam is now nothing, because the director might make them have an oral exam instead and anyway, now we are in trouble because of you…” Well, what can I say? My guess is even if this happens, it’s just this one time and then this thing continues just as it has until now. I’ve heard of unbelieavable stories of students buying their second chances with 100,000 Meticais (50 EEK, about 2,5 pounds) and stuff like that. I don’t know what can I do about it.

The mentality of corruption and simple, constant lying is the thing that disgusts me most about Africa. And they don’t even consider it wrong. Coming back to the beautiful “exam”, about 20 times I was quietly asked by some student to “help” them. Help – it means to give the correct answer. When I later asked them do they even know the concept of exam: to do it with your own head, without any outside help, they looked kind of confused. “But teacher, if you would have to take a Portuguese exam, you surely wouldn’t know all the answers and you also would cheat.” The simple thought of leaving an empty gap or guessing the answer didn’t really occur their minds.

The other sad truth is that probably, if these 90 people wouldn’t have had the chance to copy as much as they want, most of them would not even pass. And that would be rather bad for the school’s reputation. And unfortunately, this is most likely not only happening in EPF Lamego, but in every single “normal” school in Mozambique.

Lamego,
10. 06. 06