cause and control of unethical conducts in Nigeria university system. The paper enumerated such unethical conducts to include: examination malpractices; secret cult activities; sexual harassment; sales of examination grades; poor in payment of leave allowance and promotion arrears among others. The paper went further to find some of the causes of unethical conducts to include: poor teaching; poor invigilation; poor remuneration, indecent dressing; weak leadership bad administration and failure to, implement government polices among others, further more, the paper went into the stridencies that could be sued in controlling unethical conducts in our university system, among which are establishment of anti-examination malpractice committee in every department, establishment of policy implement authority in schools or zones. In conclusion, the paper recommended the application of the dire cussed strategies as panacea to controlling of unethical behaviours in our university system.

1. CAUSES AND CONTROL OF UNETHICAL CONDUCTS IN
NIGERIA UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
BY
OLALEKAN TUNDE OLOGUNLEKO
MATRIC NO. NOU151499834
M.Ed EDUCATION ADMINISTRATION AND PLANNING
SUBMITTED TO
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

2. ABSTRACT
The paper dealt with the topic, cause and control of unethical conducts in Nigeria
university system. The paper enumerated such unethical conducts to include:
examination malpractices; secret cult activities; sexual harassment; sales of
examination grades; poor in payment of leave allowance and promotion arrears
among others. The paper went further to X-ray some of the causes of unethical
conducts to include: poor teaching; poor invigilation; poor remuneration, indecent
dressing; weak leadership bad administration and failure to, implement government
polices among others, further more, the paper went into the stridencies that could be
sued in controlling unethical conducts in our university system, among which are
establishment of anti-examination malpractice committee in every department,
establishment of policy implement authority in schools or zones. In conclusion, the
paper recommended the application of the dire cussed strategies as panacea to
controlling of unethical behaviours in our university system.

3. Introduction
In the education sector, we basically have three major levels, the primary, the secondary and
the tertiary. The tertiary level of education constitutes polytechnics, monotechnics colleges
of Education and Universities. At all levels of education there exists rules, regulations, laws,
dos and don’ts that is ethics or code of conduct. Ethics, according to Joseph I. Omoregbe,
is“the branch of philosophy which deals with the morality of human actions; or is the branch
of philosophy which studies the norms of human behaviour”. While Fleet (1991) defines
ethics as those standards or morals a person sets for himself or herself regarding what is
good and bad or right and wrong.
Purpose & Role ofUniversity Education
The purpose of a university education has become a subject of heated debate.
Governmentcutbacksandthe stressoneducation asajob-creation engine,apreparation forthemarketplace
is undermining the historic mandate of universities. In the past a university prepared men
and women for professional careers,gave them a better appreciation of the arts, literature,
history, and science. As an institution of "higher learning", a university helped students to
enjoy richer, more meaningful lives. And this original purpose should be reaffirmed. A
university ought to be aplace,which equips people tothink andtogrow,toexchangeideasandget
grounded in goodbooks.
One of the most important things people can get out of their university experience is
learningabout real life and further developing their character. One might think that these
particular processes should have already been finalized. That's right; they should. The only
thing is, theeducationalsystemusedin schools doesn'tleavetoo muchspaceforfreeexpressionand
uninterrupted character development. As a direct result, people really get to know
themselves only after they'veleftschool. Forexample,astudentwho might havebeenconsideredanerdin
his teenageyearsmight discoverin his twentiesthathe hadbeenterribly misunderstood. It iswhile in
university when people get their first glimpses of what it feels like being an adult; when they
finally get away from home and start taking serious responsibilities, other than taking careof
their cat
Then going contrary to the organizational rules, regulations, law, etc can be termed
unethical conduct or illegal beahviour or act or simply disobedience. In our university
system, unethical acts or behaviours are abound, and they work against quality of nigeria
university system.
Unfortunately, this act of unethical conduct, Illegality, misbehaviour or disobedience
in our university system is not given due recognition or attention it requires. Many of the
problems of falling standard in our university system today are imbedded in such unethical
behaviours as examination malpractices, cultism, sales of handouts, abuse of office, sexual
harassment, admission of wrong students and lack of implementation of educational policies
by the concerned relevant authorities.
This paper examines the concept of unethical behaviour in our university system, the
nature or forms of unethical behaviours in our university system, their causes and strategies
for controlling unethical conducts in our university system.

4. Infact, this topic should be a food for thought to every meaningful stakeholder in
education if we want to maintain a high standard in our university system.
Definition of Terms
In this paper the following terms are defined.
Education: Education is an indispensable ingredient for economic, political, social, cultural
and spiritual growth and development.
Fafunwa (1974) defined education as what each generation gives to its younger ones, which
makes them to develop attitudes, abilities, skills and other behaviours which are of positive
value to the society in which they live.
Kneller (1971) defines education as the process by which society deliberately transmits its
cultural heritage through schools, colleges and universities and other institutions. Education
is the process of teaching on the part of teachers and learning on the part of learners. But the
educative process is also facilitated by school administrators, who have the responsibility of
creating the enabling environment for the realization of educational ends.
Ethics:At its simplest, ethics is a system of moral principles. They affect how people make
decisions and lead their lives. Ethics deal with values that people use to guide themselves
when making choices about their relationships with other people. Ethics has to do with rules
of a game or code of conduct expected of a group of people in an organization or in a
profession. These human actions and behaviour are governed by a set of norms or code of
conduct within any given society. Hence,ethics is“a normative science of human
conduct”(Okeand Eskot1). It is the science that is concerned with the rightness or wrongness
of human action or conduct in the society. Ethics covers the following dilemmas:
 how to live a good life
 our rights and responsibilities
 the language of right and wrong
 moral decisions - what is good and bad?
Ethical Conduct: Ethical conduct is a good or expected type of behaviour. This is a desired
moral type of behaviour or legal behaviour from a professional. Ethical conduct can be quite
complex and is determined by many factors:Fleet (1991) identified five factors that
determine individual ethics. They include: 1. Family influences (2) Peer influences (3) Past
experiences (4) values and morals and (5) situational factors can go a long way to shape
one’s ethics.
Unethical Conduct: unethical conduct can simply mean unacceptable behaviour. A
behaviour devoid of good, it is a bad act or an illegal act punishable by law. Unethical
behaviour is an act of disobedience in an organization. This is an act that is contrary to the
rules, norms, morals, regulations, ethics and laws of a group of people.
Types of Unethical Conducts In University System: There are many different types of
unethical behaviours in our university system nowadays. There include:
1. Examination malpractice. This ranges from coping of another candidate’s work, taking
in already prepared answer material into the examination hall to aid a candidate or
candidates, Giraffing, impersonation to leakage.
2. Cultism: Cult activities involve both teachers and students. This is act of joining secret
cults in universities for one reason or the other, best known to them.
3. Sales of unauthorized books to students by teachers, and worse still forcing students to
buy such books.

5. 4. Sexual harassment. This is one of the immoral behaviours on the part of male teachers.
Here female students are intimidated by male teachers, threatening them with a failure
if they do not have sexual relationship with them.

6. 5. Sexual or monetary gratification. Here students offer either sex or money to teachers or
even both, or ordinary gift items in order to pass or obtain high grades in
examinations.
6. Sales of admission to students. Students who did not do well in their Joint Admission and
Matriculation Examination always pay some amount of money to some officers who
use admission period for making money.
7. Poor storage of students’ results. Students’ results are in many cases not available for
computation as a result of poor record keeping by the concerned authorities.
8. Collection of money from students for computing their results by the concerned
authorities.
9. Allowing students who did not attend lectures to sit for an examination and also to have
result in such course.
10. Lecturers not attending lectures as expected and not covering the course contents.
11. Allowing non-professional and unregistered teachers to continue in teaching profession.
Thus, teaching should be professionalized in Nigeria.
12. Non—payment of full magnetization benefit to lecturers is an unethical behaviour on
the part of the government.
13. Delay in payment of Annual leave of allowance.
14. Poor invigilation of examinations.
15. Inadequate provision of teaching materials by the concerned relevant authorities.
16. Inadequate provision of academic and even non-academic staff by the government.
Causes of Unethical Conducts in our University System
There are many causes of unethical behaviours in our university system among
which are discussed below.
1. Examination Malpractice: Adesina (2000) traced the history of examination
malpractice in
nigeria to 1914. Whenthere was a leakage of the Cambridge examination.
Okafor (2005) saysthat students indulge in examination malpractice because of faculty of
educational upbringing of children during their school days. Admission of wrong/weak
candidates into university system. These academically weak students indulge in examination
malpractice in order to pass in their examinations.
Another reason for examination malpractice is failure on the part of the school
authority to punish the culprits adequately. This attitude encourages students to indulge in
examination malpractice. Furthermore, poor attitude to teaching and learning by teachers
and students forces students to put hands in examination malpractices. This poor attitude is
manifested in teachers’ lateness to lectures, absent from school, poor coverage of course
contents. While students do not attend lectures, do not do their assignments and class quiz.

7. Another good reason why students practice examination malpractices is insufficient
examination invigilators. When invigilators are not enough in examination hall, students
take that as an advantage to cheat in an examination. Worse still, poor preparedness on the
part of students for examination induces such students to involve themselves in examination
malpractices.
Another reason why students put hands in cheating during examination is unseriousness on
the part of the invigilators. When the invigilators are not serious with the business of the
day, students will capitalize on that and start cheating.
2. Cultism: The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary defined cult as a small group of
people who have extreme religious beliefs and who are not part of any established
religion. Ogunade (2002) defined a secret cult as an enclosed organized association or
group devoted to the same cause. It is an enclosed group having an exclusive sacred
ideology and a series of rites centering around their sacred symbols. Secret cult is a
terminology coined by a former Military Head of State- Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida
between 1983 -1984. Before this period, these gangs had always been referred to as
fraternities. The members of the cult, according to Ogunade (2002) commit themselves
to oath and allegiance, which serves as their strong bond. This group of people is
always violent when defending their course. secret cult activities are unethical behaviours
found in our universities today. This involves both students and teachers. It has been found
that students indulge in secret cult activities because of insecurity in school and harsh school
administration, and to intimidate other students. According to Afe Babalola (2006), cultism
exists in our tertiary institutions (especially the universities) for the following reasons:
Long years of military rule and its attendant brutalization of the civil populace.
The employment of discretionary admission which favours less brilliant students but
prejudices the interest and chances of brilliant and talented ones.
The Presence of non-students in the halls of residence of higher institutions which makes it
easier for extraneous forces to employ them for diabolical ends.
Access of students to dangerous and sometimes sophisticated lethal weapon.
Readiness of some university administrators to employ cult members for their ownselfish
ends like suppression of vocal and dynamic student leaders.
Existence of fear as a result of lack of security on campuses.
Inadequate accommodation leading to over-crowding and all manners of sharp practices.
The course system which allows a student to stay in school for a longer period than
necessary and which makes him to lose focus and thereby becoming â „‟ professional
student in the process.
3. Sales of unauthorized textbooks and handouts to students. This act is unethical
behaviour. This is common in our universities, simply because of poor remuneration
of teachers and poor supervision of teachers by the immediate head of department and
lack of adequate punishment to the culprits by the management.
4. Sexual harassment. Mbe (2007) was of the view that in tertiary institutions, sexual
harassment is a common unethical behaviour among male lecturers. The major cause
of this ugly act is lack of self-discipline especially on the part of men. Secondly, the
type of dresses the female students put on go a long way to bring about sexual
harassment. Nowadays,our female students put on dresses that expose them to danger.
Thirdly, the rate at which our female students visit the offices of the male lecturers
coupled with the mode of their dressing and the time could call for sexual harassment.
Also in the other way round, the female students in their quest to pass and to pass with
high grades do harass the male lecturers sexually. Furthermore, the difficulty in

8. establishing the case of sexual harassment and the inability of students to report the
case of sexual harassment can go a long way to encourage sexual harassment in our
tertiary institutions.
5. Paying for examination grades, popularly called “Sorting”. students paying money to
lecturers in order obtain a good grade or to offer sex by the female students to male
lecturers or material items is an unethical behaviour in our university system. The
major cause of this behaviour is poor students attitude to learning. In our universities,
students are hardly attend lectures, do their assignments or class quiz. Thus, they fail
in their examinations. To remedy this ugly situation, they resort to sorting. Secondly,
poor remuneration of lecturers by the concerned authorities encourages lecturers to
involve themselves in unethical behaviour.
6. Not keeping students’ attendance by lecturers during lectures up to 75%: to qualify for
writing examination. But this becomes difficult to determine since majority of the
lecturers do not keep such records. The major reason for this is nothing but lack of
seriousness on the part of the lecturers. Many of the lecturers

9. are not committed to their job, and thus, do not show much concern about the welfare of
their students.
7. Students not punctual and regular at their lecturers. Nwakpa (2006) opines that it is an
established fact that many students do not attend lectures as expected, and even when
they do, they go very late some do not even do their home work. This is so because
such students depend on examination malpractice and peer influence and family
background could make some students to dodge lectures.
8. Allowing students who did not attend lectures to sit for such course and also have result
is an unethical behaviour on the part of lecturers. The reason for this is that many
lecturers do not keep attendance record to substantiate this case.
9. Poor class lecture attendance by lecturers. This is an unethical behaviour practised by
many lecturers. Observation shows that many lecturers hardly go to lecture halls until
the semester is far spent. They only go to introduce their books and threaten students
with failure if they fail to buy such books. To cover their weakness they hardly allow
any student to fail so that they might not report them. The major cause of this act is
that head of departments hardly supervise the activities of the lecturers and that
students are afraid to report their teachers who are not doing their work very well.
10. Allowing non-professional teachers to teach by the concerned authorities is unethical.
This practice is purely unprofessional. It is unheard of that a non-professional teacher
is employed to teach in a College of Education, which experience is he or she going to
impart on the students? The reason for this is purely political, to protect government
interest at the expence of quality of education.
11. Non-payment of monitization benefit. It is an unethical behaviour on the part of the
government for not paying one hundred percent monitization benefits to tertiary
institutions workers. The reason for this ill-treatment is purely political and it is
tantamount to mal-administration.
12. Delay in payment of leave allowance. It is a common practice in State Universities.
Leave allowance is always delayed, just like promotion arrears. The concerned
relevant authorities in our tertiary institutions are fond of trampling on our rights. This
is also an act of bad school administration by the school administration. This could be
caused by greediness and selfishness on the part of the school administrators.

10. 13. Poor storage of students’ results and making lecturers to compute students’ result.
These are unethical behaviours found in our tertiary institutions. Poor record keeping
has brought about missing results, and has put some students into big problems such as
repeating courses and even not graduating when they supposed. This is caused by
carelessness on the part of the concerned officers.
14. Poor examination invigilation. This is an illegal or unethical behaviour practised in our
universities. It is a common practice in our university system. Most of the
examinations taken in our tertiary institutions are not adequately invigilated. This
could be as a result of not having enough invigilators in our universities. This is
supported by Nwakpa (2006) when he opined that inadequate provision of manpower
during examinations caused students to cheat in examination hall, when they see that
the available examination invigilators are inadequate.
Strategies for Controlling Unethical Conducts in our University System
It is no longer news that the Nigerian university system has shifted away from its
cherished core values of accelerating individual, community and national development. The
institution that was set up as an embodiment of integrity and reinforcement for positive
ethical values has become a villain and a culprit. It is not enough crying over spilled milk!
What is expected of us now is to look inwards and ascertain where we got it all wrong and to
proffer solutions.
Since 1948 when university system came on board in Nigeria, the university system
have been faced with cases of indiscipline or unethical behaviors among students and
personnel. It has become obvious that the broad aim of producing morally high-level
manpower for national development cannot be really achieved in universities polluted with
varied unethical conducts. It then becomes necessary therefore to evolve strategies for
controlling unethical behaviors in our university system. Such strategies are discussed
below:
1. Fighting Examination Malpractice: I since fighting examination malpractice at the
school level does not actually yield good fruits as expected, it is then advised that we start
this fight from the various departments. Each department to create Anti-examination
Malpractice Committee. The committee shall be in charge of invigilating all examinations
involving her departmental students. The committee shall be empowered by the school
authority to punish the culprits appropriately in line with the school ethics. This committee
shall be paid special examination allowance by the school authority. This will go a long way
in hasting judgments on examination malpractice issues.
With the committee on ground in every department if not abused, will definitely bring
examination malpractice in our universities under control.
2. Establishment Of Departmental Disciplinary Committee. The vastness of tertiary
institutions especially that of a university makes the handing of indisciplinary acts very
difficult. Many indisciplinary behaviours are not reported to the School Central Disciplinary
Committee. In every department almost everybody knows what each other does, but nobody
wants to report anybody. In every department, all the bad eggs are known. To deal with the
bad eggs, it will be cheaper and easier to do so at the departmental level.
This committee will be saddled with the responsibility of: lecturers’ absenteeism from
lectures, checking the quality of lecturers’ instructions, checking how

11. lecturers mark the students’ answer scripts, checking how lecturers generate the students’
Continuous Assessment (CA), checking how lecturers keep students’ attendance in their
lectures, checking the sales of textbooks and handouts by lecturers, checking the dressing
pattern of the female students, warning and cautioning lecturers when ugly information is
heard about them, investigating cases of students involvement in secret cult activities.
With the establishment of an effective and efficient disciplinary committee in every
department, most of the unethical behaviours in our universities will be brought under
control.
3. Application of the Principle of Leadership by Example
Present (1979) developed a general guideline on ethical behavior for administrators. This
general guideline, “if what I am about to do in my job should later be seen on nationwide
television, would I be able to explain and defend my action?
If the answer is No, the guideline suggests that the administrator should not do it”. Present
was of the opinion that we should first examine the consequences of our actions before
carrying them out. The principles of leadership by example means that we should do those
things we want others to do first, so that our subjects shall emulate us. This follows the
biblical saying, which says do unto others what you wish them to do unto you. If a leader is
corrupt, he cannot succeed in fighting corruption, and vice-versa.
Fleet (1991) mentions the two most common approaches to the management of ethics to
include: top management support and codes of conduct. Top management support is
essential for an organization to cultivate and maintain a culture in which ethical managerial
behaviour can thrive. How can administration demonstrate this support? Leadership by
example! When they can uphold ethical standards themselves as middle and lower –level
managers, other staffers are likely to follow suit in their footsteps. Such administrators or
leaders can sponsor and encourage training in ethics. This can take the form of workshops,
seminars or in-house courses to sensitize employees to ethical conflicts.
There is no behaviour that cannot be controlled if the concerned leader is ethically upright,
effective and efficient. Experience shows that students who are not serious in their studies
are always very serious with identified serious lecturers’ courses, as they attend lectures
punctually/regularly, do their assignments/quizzes and do well in such examinations. Thus,
every unethical behaviour in our tertiary institutions is just at the mercy of the leader.
4. Employment Procedure

12. As it has been observed that in our university system, there exist non-professional teachers,
which constitute unethical behaviour on the part of the administration and the state
government. This problem can b controlled through employment procedure. The school
authority should be able to spell out the qualifications required for lecturers, and stick to that
on professional ground, and refuse to be pushed around by the politicians. Once the
administrator refused to be influenced by any means, the issue of having non-professional
teachers as we have them in our school, it will be a thing of the past.
5. Establishment of policy implementation and monitoring committee in our university
system, or in each of the six Geo-political Zones. To control the unethical behaviours on the
part of the school authorities and the government, educational policies in Nigeria should be
made to be applied to all the schools concerned. There should be no distinction between
federal and state schools. What is applied to federal schools should equally be applied to
state schools. To ensure that such policies are applied and implemented, the National
University Commission (NUC) should establish policy implementation and monitoring
committee either in all universities or in each of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. The
work of such committee will be to ensure that government policies relating to university
education are implemented using adequate monitoring mechanism.
When this is done the issue of non-payment of monitization benefits, SSANU, ASUU, delay
in paying leave allowance and promotion arrears will be brought under control. With this on
ground, workers in universities will unconsciously be motivated and forced to drop majority
of their unethical behaviours orchestrated by poor conditions of service. This will equally
enhance the quality of university education and reduce the level of industrial actions in our
university system.
Summary and Conclusion
The following reminder from strike (1988;6) may serve as a concluding advice on
this topic.
“Human beingsare moral agents. They are responsible for their choices, and they
have a duty to make choices in a morally responsible way. Thus, it is crucial that
people be able to reflect ethically on their choices and their actions. This is
especially important when individuals have power and influence over the lives of
others we can think of few area where it is more important than in the
administration of schools”.
It is recommended that an ethics course be introduced in our university system to equip our
future teachers on ethical behaviours. While the already practising administrators, should be
exposed to ethical training through seminars and workshops. It is the belief of the writer that
if the discussed strategies for solving unethical

13. behaviours in universities are adopted, the issue of unethical conducts in our university
system shall be drastically reduced.
Recommendations
It is hoped that the ideas discussed in this paper will encourage school administrators,
governments, teachers and students think through some of the unethical conducts or
behaviours they exhibit in their jobs so that they may change positively, and become more
reasonable and ethical. A lot of unethical conducts can be controlled through ethical
reasoning among the concerned people when they are convinced and understand the moral
basis for ethical conducts.
References
Adesina, S. (2000) Students and examination, Ibadan, Adeogun Pub.
Fafunwa, A. (1974) History of Education in Nigeria, London George Allen, and Unwin Ltd.
Fleet, D.D.V. (1991). Contemporary management. Boston, U.S.A. Houghton Mifflin’s Co.
Kneller, G.F (1971). Foundations of education. New York: John Wiley and sons.
Mbe, K.O. (2007). Indiscipline among Teachers . Unpublished paper presented at the 10
th
Ezoke Day, January is.
Nwakpa,P. (2006). Indiscipline: A clog on the quality of higher education in Ebonyi State.
In Nigerian journal Vol. 8 (1) 139-143.
OGUNADE,R.(2002; "Secret societies and-cultic activities in Nigerian tertiary institutions"in
Leading Issuesin-GeneralStudies,University of Ilorin Press.
Okafor, O.O. (2005). Management of examination malpractices in secondary schoolsin
Ebonyi L.G.A. Unpublished B. Ed Project of LASU.
Oke, M. and I. F. Esikot. Elementary Ethics.Lagos:MacGrace AcademicResource,2005
Omoregbe, Joseph I. Ethics:ASystematicand HistoricalStudy. Lagos:Joja,
Pastor (Dr.) Paul Nwakpa. Causes and Control of Unethical Behaviours in Tertiary
Institutions in Nigeria: Academic Scholarship Journal, 2010
Present,P.E.(1979). People and public administration. California, U.S.A.:Palisade
Publishers.