Karimi Gatimi, teacher and a communications strategist./HANDOUTExams test what a learner has grasped, not who they are nor what they are capable of becoming. As the national exams continue, tension fills the air. Parents whisper prayers, teachers pace nervously, and students feel the weight of expectations pressing heavily on their young shoulders.
While assessments are an important tool to measure academic progress, they are not a death sentence, nor do they determine a child’s worth or destiny.
Yet, every year, tragic stories surface of children taking their own lives after failing to meet the expectations of parents, teachers, or society. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have forgotten that education is meant to nurture, not destroy. We have reduced it to a race for grades, rankings, and mean scores for schools. These are numbers that often say little about the child’s creativity, integrity, or potential.
The pressure to perform has ingrained the dangerous habit of exam malpractice. In the desperate quest for perfect grades, some schools and teachers have gone as far as coaching students with leaked papers or ‘preparing’ them with answers beforehand.
Parents, too, sometimes unknowingly enable this by valuing grades over effort, or even paying for shortcuts to success. What message are we sending our children? That dishonesty pays? That their true effort is not enough?
It is time we all—parents, teachers, and education leaders—take a hard look at the moral lessons we are teaching. When we encourage or overlook cheating, we are shaping a generation that believes integrity is optional. But integrity, not grades, is the real currency of life. In every profession and every relationship, it is honesty, responsibility, and grit that define success.
The introduction of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) was meant to shift our focus from rote learning and ranking to nurturing skills, values, and creativity. We must fully embrace that change. The 8-4-4 mentality of cramming for exams, chasing A’s, and glorifying top schools belongs to the past. The future belongs to problem-solvers, innovators, and creators who can think critically and ethically.
In today’s world, opportunities are not limited by one exam result. Technology has opened countless paths; from digital entrepreneurship to the creative arts, coding, agriculture, design, and innovation. What truly matters is a learner’s curiosity, discipline, and sense of purpose. Grades alone cannot measure that.
Parents and guardians have a critical role to play. Encourage your child to do their best, yes, but also teach them that failure is not final. Model integrity at home. Let your words and actions remind them that cheating is never an option, and that success built on lies is failure in disguise.
Teachers and schools, too, must guard
the sanctity of examinations. Let us nurture children who are confident in
their abilities, proud of their honest effort, and prepared for a world that
rewards integrity over imitation. Let these exams be different. Let it be a
season of truth, compassion, and perspective, where we remind every child that
their worth is far greater than any grade.
The writer is a teacher and a communications strategist.
