A story published last week about a Murang’a University lecturer who was sacked for falsifying students’ marks points to depravity deeply ingrained in universities.
He was dismissed mid this year for awarding marks to a female student who had not sat the final examination and deleting from the list of the test results one who had.
The lecturer challenged the decision but the High Court dismissed him, ruling that the university had made the right call. The university did the right thing.
Manipulation of exam results by lecturers, especially the male ones, to procure sexual favours from their female students, is so pervasive across the whole spectrum of education that it is in many cases overlooked as a misdemeanour.
Cases of depraved lecturers demanding intimacy in exchange for false high marks are common across the world, just as are cases of female students offering themselves to their teachers to ‘pass’ exams.
The culture, which, fortunately, involves only a few lecturers and students, strikes at the very core of university education.
It undermines the quality of academic programmes. Students go to school to learn, gain exposure, sharpen their skills and improve their chances at a quality life.
Universities exist to create knowledge and disseminate it, hoping to create a more informed, diverse and developed society.
The sex-for-marks culture is, therefore, a blatant attempt at circumventing the whole process of education for one to merely receive a paper that serves as evidence of having attained the required standards for a certain profession or career.
It means that some of the students graduating in various disciplines are quacks who cannot be entrusted with any responsibility in society because they simply ‘bought’ their degrees.
It also means that the perverted lecturers, who should otherwise be role models as academic gatekeepers, have abdicated their role of moulding young minds into responsible citizens, instead promoting debauchery and reinforcing a culture of corruption.
This is why we commend Murang’a University for acting quickly and decisively against the lecturer – if only to serve as a lesson to the rest of the institutions where such moral decadence reigns.
The courts did the right thing to stand by the university.
The lesson is that institutions of learning, especially universities, must deal ruthlessly with sex pests and those engaging in perverted activities.
Universities should enforce rules and regulations and take hard decisions on transgressors.
All efforts must be made to restore the dignity of our universities and other institutions of higher learning.
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