THE country is now transitioning to the endemic phase of Covid-19. After two years of battling the virus, which keeps mutating, there is an all-round visible expression of relief in the population.
Small entrepreneurs are especially comforted by the return to near-normalcy in their ventures.
The hustle and bustle of the Ramadan bazaar is back, albeit with the remnants of standard operating procedures.
The selling of Hari Raya wares at the Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman side lane has resumed with greater vigour after the two-year lull.
Everyone is praying for the permanency of this return to normalcy. All hope the economy will pick up steam again soon.
Though not as well-publicised as the economic struggle, the education sector has also experienced pain during the pandemic.
Talk about a lost generation has been making the rounds as the school system was badly disrupted.
Key school assessment examinations, such as Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), had to be postponed many times because of the the rise in infections.
The Education Ministry has been receiving brickbats from parents even as it tries to deal with the issue as best it can.
It has not been easy. We should give credit to the ministry for maintaining, to a large extent, the integrity of the examinations.
There is no denying that the integrity of the assessment mechanism is critical in any form of learning and skill-building.
The higher education sector has struggled to address the issue of academic integrity for some time now.
As the pressures of ranking and peer competition grew, some have suggested that academic integrity may have been compromised.
Cases of plagiarism in publications, though mostly isolated, have become a growing concern.
The other equallly important aspect of academic integrity is the assessment of students' learning progress.
The final examination has always been the most important factor in assessing student learning achievement.
Any compromise in the integrity of the examination process would simply translate into a failure of learning, and students who cheat in their examinations are cheating themselves.
The quality of graduates coming out of the higher education system may not be a true reflection of what the nation aspires to have.
The pandemic has done much damage to the examination process, and the need to conduct examinations online is partly to blame.
It has been shown that online examinations have not produced a true assessment of student learning.
Though there was no direct evidence of cheating, the unnaturally excellent results of the assessment have indirectly provided unequivocal evidence of rampant cheating.
Though not all resorted to the practice of copying, the results do not lie.
Most important of all, it affects the academic integrity of the higher education institutions.
The higher education authority should reevaluate the practice of conducting higher education examinations online.
Unless that is done, the quality of the talent that the nation produces each year may be seriously compromised.
We must make it a policy that all final examinations in the country, like the SPM, are conducted physically.
As we strive to be a global hub for higher education, it is imperative that we demonstrate the utmost academic integrity.
In everything we do, be it participating in university rankings or managing the whole process of higher education learning, our resolve to maintain academic excellence should not be compromised.
Only then can we attract high-calibre students to our institutions.
Our teaching system must produce high-quality graduates who have been rigorously tested for their competence.
Examinations must have zero tolerance for cheating, which is impossible to achieve online.
The research that we do must demonstrate the originality that is synonymous with a high level of integrity.
At the end of the day, it is the demonstration of academic integrity that will put our higher education system on a par with the best in the world.
The writer is a professor at the Tan Sri Omar Center for STI Policy, UCSI University