Academic frauds: A tough nut to crack
Frauds in academic milieus are of multiple types. But I must state from the outset that this piece brings to the fore only a few of the biggest frauds.
Although cheating in exams within academic milieus has become an outdated phenomenon, it seems always afresh topic to write about.
Reasons behind cheating are always the same.Suggestions of how to strangle this absurd problem are made to a fault.
The big question to answer here is: how does this problem spread across educational institutions? Let’s sparkle this debate from XI and XII level exams!
To secure an appropriate answer to the question posed before, it is necessary to understand one thing as to how this dishonest behaviour incites the cheating malfeasance among students.
It is the teachers of three categories.First, those who are not good at teaching. Second, those who are not regular at their job.
Third, those who look at the textbooks and fill up the boards and get their students fill their copies with what they have written on the boards.
This is the first step where students start copying others’ content, and it enflames the cheating addiction among them.
Look around the bookstores, and see how they are crowded with people in the days of exams.
What is most shocking is that the parents go to purchase the solved papers’ booklets and guides, etc.
Students too do the same, it often happens when their parents are outrightly unserious in the matter of education.
This dangerous wrongdoing increasingly affects younger generations too. Parents indispensably need to be serious in this serious concern.
They could be warned through media of all types about the detriments which this demonic malpractice could carry out.
A study has found that the examinees tend more to hire external contacts who converse with them the answers on the sly.
Siblings and friends go along with examinees to help them in cheating, infiltrating the examination halls.
To discontinue this heinous misdemeanour, policemen are deployed. But they themselves turn accomplices in this misfit, allowing people infiltrate the exam halls or delivering personally their copies to examinees.
In return, they are paid off.It is very clear to note here that the police encourage not only the cheating system, but also they contravene the exam rules and further the rampant corruption.
Point to ponder upon is that the blogs have also started partaking in strengthening this absurd system, introducing some new cheating tricks that can help students do cheating in exams.
Such types of detrimental contents move around students and they share those tricks with their friends too.
For this, a mechanism should be developed to remove this kind of content from websites or at least this kind of content must no longer be accepted.
For universities, it’s a globally recognized fact that these institutions are the final stage for students wherein they learn how to chart out their future plans.
But the institutions are entirely at an unsuccessful war with themselves. Like X and XII level exams, they are fallen prey to the cheating system.
Some institutions might, however, be busy in the war against cheating in exams. But the progress seems still unsatisfactory on the common grounds.
If the question papers are dexterous, students start quarrelling the slogan of ‘out of course. ’ This slogan is likely the result of rote learning toward some specific topics.
Students touch nothing but notes, and this results in rote malpractice, and writing the learnt-by-rote things in the answer copies is again itself a cheating.
In the university level, a vigilant invigilation can truly play a significant role in breaking the legs of cheating system.
Students taking exams must not be allowed to communicate with one another as they let their friends look at their test papers, and no student should be offered a lenience right after they are caught to have cheated.
Besides, bringing mobile phones in the exam halls is always prohibited. If these mobile phones are collected from students during exams, they are at risk of being stolen.
Otherwise the chances of cheating are possibly many.For girls, burqas are helpful in this regard.
As far as the time-rule is concerned, some students are given extra time in the exams, but others are left bereft of such thing.
This unjust practice ignores the rule of time. The second part of this piece moves around the assessment of answer copies. It is done unjustly to enough extent, if not at all.
During assessments, favour is set for some students in awarding them with big numbers – no matter what shit they fill in their copies.
To the best of my knowledge, some teachers receive texts over texts and calls at full throttle across the assessment process.
To stop this, assessed copies must undergo a double-blind peer review process so that the initial assessments can be done sincerely.
Since a study argues that the assessment process puts the challenge to the credibility of degrees and certificates and the validity of qualification.
Appalling thing to note today is students make phony assignments copying others’ content.
Not only such assignments – full of copied-content, but also those made without copying anything do not undergo a strong assessment to make difference between copied and uncopied assignments so that the justice can be done in both ends.
High-achieving students who show stellar performance in their academic endeavours must be appreciated so that they can mount more efforts to do their best.
It is to regret severely that the students are taught how to do online paraphrasing of the content.
This holds them back from writing original pieces, and this may really undercut their career advancement.
During the pandemic-induced lockdown, plenty of students remained engaged in the academic dishonesty of cheating in online exams.
Aligned with this dishonesty, a study carried out in 2020 confirmed that the students who practice dishonesty within academic milieus may probably do the same in the professional workplace in near future.
This is how cheating dishonesty disperses across the education sector.
The scholars should collect the views of teachers, civil society and the students as well about cheating.
This will truly figure out many ways forward. As a study has found that students viewed the uselessness of material the root cause of this dishonest behaviour.
At least, this helps understanding the need of a revised, updated and fresh syllabus to teach.
An anonymous external must be invited to conduct the viva voce of students in the end of every examination.
This will underpin demystifying the quality of education. Most strikingly, the solutions are many, but the frauds of so many types have increased at such a speed that they could never be curbed at all.
Is there any possibility to strangle this plethora of shits? Not at all. Phew!
—The writer is the member of the editorial board for a Russian research Journal.
