Exams Paper Mafia

The disturbing news that examination papers set for Trinidad and Tobago students by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) had been withdrawn and the exams postponed, because of a security breach which had seen examinations papers being sold for $5,000, made me wonder how many professionals may have obtained their degrees by corrupt means.

I wondered, too, how many students at the University of the West Indies St Augustine Campus and at other universities as well had corruptly replaced others whose entry qualifications had fallen short of theirs because they had preferred, and rightly so, to seek upward mobility the honest way and not through having had access to examinations papers in advance. The $5,000 fee corruptly charged and corruptly received, for example, for the CAPE Communications Studies Paper II is an indication that the organisers of the security breach and the sale of the paper to persons in Trinidad and Tobago had aimed, specifically, at the TT market.

In the past there had been several occasions in which the integrity of the University entrance qualifying examinations had been compromised, whether through the illegal passing of papers on a “friend-friend” basis or for monetary gain. In addition, there had been reports of teachers positioning themselves to assist students at examination centres or favoured students allowed additional time in which to complete their exam. In turn, the dishonest practices did not arise with the establishment of the Caribbean Examinations Council in 1972, but had been around with the University of Cambridge Senior Certificate and Higher Certificate examinations. And these examinations had begun as early as 1863!

Interestingly, some students who were regular dunderheads somehow managed to do well in examinations. I wish to make it clear that corruption in examinations was never the norm and only a minority of students became involved. This week’s exposure of not only the security breaches, was the setting of a $5,000 charge per exam paper suggests that a clearly well organised and brutally cynical examinations paper mafia which has studied the market carefully enough to hold that there were parents and/or guardians willing to pay out large sums for papers for their charges is at work.

The question must be asked: Why Trinidad and Tobago and not, say, Barbados or St Vincent? The answer must lie with Trinidad and Tobago’s energy and energy based wealth and the country’s being a major trans-shipment point for illegal drugs coming from Colombia via Venezuela on their way to high consumption centres such as the United States of America and Western Europe. Today’s crude oil prices on the international market are fetching in excess of US$126 a barrel and appear set to rise yet further. The wealth from crude oil and natural gas as well as the illegal drug trans-shipment trade has trickled down through the Trinidad and Tobago economy. Whether we accept it or not, and there are, literally, tens of thousands of TT nationals and/or residents, who are neither directly connected to energy and energy based industries nor to the drug trade but whose wealth is, indirectly, connected to crude and/or natural gas.

But whether the clients of the examinations paper mafia are connected even remotely to the drug trade is not the issue. What is of essence here is that by purchasing or seeking to purchase the CAPE papers they are indulging in criminal activity and, tacitly, signalling to their children that it is all right to cheat at examinations and by extension throughout life as well. Suppose, just suppose, that some of these children should decide on careers in, say, medicine?

The move to compromise the integrity of the Caribbean Examinations Council’s Cape process must be condemned and steps taken to have those responsible arrested, charged and placed before the country’s courts and if found guilty handed down punishment commensurate with the crime. We must send signals, or rather continue to, that criminal behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in Trinidad and Tobago whether it is the sale or even gift of examination papers or the helping of students at exam centres. It is better to teach a child how to fish honestly.