A Descriptive Survey of Teachers’ Perception of Triggers in Examination Malpractices: The Case of Public Examinations in Zambia

Examination malpractices have continued to jeopardize the educational system despite several measures put in place to end the scourge. Perhaps the reason for this is that the root cause has not been thoroughly analyzed. This study has gone back to the root to find out the root cause of examination malpractices by getting the views of teachers on each stakeholder’s acts of omission or commission that lead to examination malpractices. The stakeholders identified in this study are government, teachers, learners, and parents/community. A descriptive survey was adopted for this study. The population comprised all schools that conduct examinations offered by the Examinations Council of Zambia, while the target population was three (3) randomly selected schools per district with School Guidance Teachers purposively selected. A questionnaire was designed and administered to School Guidance Teachers. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results revealed major contributing factors for each stakeholder, as for the learner factor being inadequate preparation for the examination, with the teacher factor being inadequate teaching and failure to complete the syllabus; poor and inadequate infrastructure was attributed to government, while, for the Parent/Community, it was lack of monitoring learners’ school progress. The study recommends that, in order to nip examination malpractices in the bud, each stakeholder should play their honest part by negating the identified factors.