“CHEATING
UNLIMITED”
Tashmia
Zaman
THe
exam room was almost filling up as I entered it. It was quarter past
eight and the exam was going to start exactly after fifteen minutes.
I started to look around for a seat and ended up sitting in the first
row as all the seats behind my row were already filled up. As I sat
there I was amazed seeing what others were doing around me. A few
were writing notes on their palms, some were laughing as they showed
their friends the small crib note-pads they had brought along with
them. Last but not the least, the few that were sitting beside the
wall were saying "I came really early so that I can write all
the notes on the wall". Our history teacher finally entered the
room. She gave us a smile and started passing out the test papers.
The papers were divided into 2 groups A and B so that the students
sitting beside each other wouldn't be able to copy from one another,
but little did she knew that the students exchanged their papers so
that they had common questions with their neighbours. At the end of
the exam as I was walking down the stairs I heard a boy saying to
his friend "Man you should have told me that you studied. All
my writings on the wall went down the drain". I was shocked I
mean, a student who studied all day long will get good grades along
with the one who didn't even bother to open his book...
Cheating in examinations
has become a common thing in the country. In the last couple of SSC
examinations a lot of students got expelled for cheating. It's not
like all students are cheating, but quite a lot definitely are. Cheating
is not only the easy way out, it's the preferred way these days.
It's a habit that
grows and a child who cheats gets more specialised in it as he or
she starts growing up. For example a child of grade 1 cheating from
his friend's copy is going to start writing on his ruler or pencil
box in grade 3 and then maybe start bringing crib notes from grade
6. By the time they make it through high school and into university,
their methods will have become very sophisticated indeed.
One of the latest
favourites amongst cheating tools is the Internet. These days most
of the assignments handed by students in both schools and universities
are usually downloaded from the Internet. In fact students use Internet
more then they use their brain. Teachers are aware of various forms
of 'Cyber-Cheating', which may include downloading papers from the
Net or purchasing an essay from an agency.
What are disadvantages
of cheating? Firstly it's risky. Once you get caught cheating, your
reputation is down the drain in a school or university, and if you're
cheating in a board exam like the HSC or A' levels and you get caught,
you're expelled from the entire exam.
Have you ever
wondered what will happen when you finally graduate from your University
and your time has come to face the real world, the world where competition
is gradually growing day by day? Have you ever thought about what
you'll do when you're going to a job interview and your boss asks
you a question about something that you don't know because you cheated
on your exams on that topic? What if you end up failing all your job
interviews because you don't know half of the things you're supposed
to know, according to the academic qualifications you supposedly have?
Having second thoughts about writing on the wall yet?
What makes you
cheat? The fear of failure and its consequences. What if my parents
beat me or scold me? What if I end up being in the same class next
year? What if people especially friends laugh at me for failing?
Well I would suggest
fail, but don't cheat. Be honest to yourself. Face the fact that you
didn't study. Once you can face that, I can guarantee that the person
inside you would want you to study and at the end you will not only
learn to face the truth, but will also figure out that studying is
the best policy to be successful in life.
How to prevent
students from cheating? My research led to some web sites where I
found some suggestions under consideration:
*
Schools need to have zero-tolerance policies in place regarding cheating.
*Teachers must be vigilant and alert to all forms of cheating, particularly
those using the new technologies. The real solution is to make assignments
meaningful and interesting for your students.
*More oral exams should be taken to see if actually the student knows
a thing about the subject being taught..
*Parents must take an interest in their children's work and ask to
see everything and anything!
*Students must learn to be true to themselves and their own values
and not swayed by outside pressures and influences.
Once a cheater always a cheater so its always better to avoid cheating
on the first place and avoiding it would end you up being truthful
to no one but yourself as you all know that "Honesty is the best
Policy.”
Pressure
to Perform
Ayesha S. Mahmud
CHeating has been a major problem
in our schools for quite sometime. Although the authorities are very
much aware of the problem and are trying to put a stop to it, no one
really seems to be worried about why so many students resort to such
measures. No one is bothered about why most students prefer to cheat
rather than actually study for their exams.
Is it really in the Bengali nature
to be deceitful? Does our tendency to cheat have something to do with
the fact that most Bengalis are simply too lazy to do some hard work?
"<>Lekha pora kore jeye, gari bari pai shey". Yes,
it is true. Those who are educated have better opportunities in life.
In a country where a large percentage of population is illiterate,
putting stress on education is a good thing. It seems, though, as
if the main motivation for students to go to school is that they can
get a good job later on. Students care more about their grades rather
than about actually learning something. It is simply much easier to
cheat and do well on your exam than to study and take a risk. If good
grades are all that is needed for a good job, why bother studying?
Many people criticize our education
system and have doubts about whether it provides any real motivation
for students to go for higher studies. The mass cheating that goes
on during the exams undermines its credibility. Teachers are sometimes
accused of leaking the questions before the exam. When did our moral
sense desert us? With so much corruption around, people are hardly
bothered about some students cheating in the exam room, especially
if it is some unimportant exam. But these are the same children who
will one day grow up and run the country. It is almost scary to think
that they learn how to be deceitful from such an early age. I suppose
it is easy for us to simply blame our education system or to accuse
the authorities of not doing enough to tackle this problem. These
children, however, spend only a third of their day in school. What
values are they taught when they are at home?
I once came across a young boy who
told me that he had been expelled from school for cheating. When I
asked him why he had been cheating, he replied simply "I am not
smart and I don't have good brains like my brothers. If I do not do
well in school my father will be very angry." I did not like
to imagine what his father would do when he got angry. Although this
may not be a very common occurrence, many students do cheat in exams
in order to please their parents. The sad thing is that they learn
nothing in the process, and they would probably have done much better
had they spent their efforts on studying. In our society, and I suppose
in many other societies, good grades are given the utmost importance.
If you do not have good scores on your exams then you are not smart.
It is literally as simple as that. A child who has poor grades but
is excellent in sports or other activities, such as acting or singing,
is considered to be far less talented than a child who has perfect
grades but does not participate in anything else.
This year's SSC and HSC examinations
provided us with a pleasant surprise. There were very few reports
of cheating during the exams and the results were much better than
previous years. But this is no reason for us to be complacent. The
concerned authorities should take action so that no one gets the opportunity
to use unfair means during the exams. No matter how much we try to
justify it, there is simply noexcuse for cheating. It has to be stopped.
