The Ethics of Teachers’ Practices During Evaluations at University Level: The Case of the University of Maroua

Abstract

University is more and more faced with the question of ethics these days, especially with regard to student assessment. Some deontologically reprehensible teachers’ practices seem to persist in a setting where the student is in a weak position in the face of a lecturer with a great deal of control and a great capacity for harm. This paper examines the ethics of teachers’ practices during students’ evaluation from a systemic perspective through strategic analysis. Such practices include mark-buying, sexual harassment, and unfair subtraction of marks. The main question in this work is what can explain the persistence of this plight. The data collection process involved the interview of twenty (20) informants, comprising students’ representatives and victims, and personal observations. After having taken stock of the most reported breaches from some lecturers at the University of Maroua, Cameroon, the work scrutinises the reason for their recurrence from three main points: impunity due to the poor application of regulatory provisions, the absence of a moral code in the recruitment procedure of lecturers, and the lecturer’s freedom of impression.