Spotlight

New Delhi, 26 March 2015

Cheating in Exams

REFLECTION OF ROT IN SOCIETY

By Dr S Saraswathi

(Former Director, ICSSR, New Delhi)

Bihar’s cheating scandal shows the rot that has set into the system.  From 1,217 examination centres across the State, 1,000 people were taken into custody. Of these were eight Home Guards, among parents and friends who were caught on camera climbing windows and passing on “help sheets” to the students. Apparently, they even threw stones at the authorities who stopped them, and offered bribes to policemen and teachers to pass on “chits” to their wards.

The Patna High Court has stepped in and ordered the Police Chief to take steps to prevent this rampant malpractice. The evil is growing and has established itself as a routine practice in some places and the authorities seem to be complacent about it. Hence, remarks of a mountain out of a molehill!

The Bihar Minister for Education has confessed that stopping malpractices in exams was impossible without support from the society – a statement condemned by the Court as “unfortunate and shameful”.  It has decided to take these reports as Public Interest Litigations. 

The Bihar incident, which drew global attention, is, however, normal in many States. In fact, sophisticated devices are coming into use. The cheaters – students and their helpers – have also become bolder and more open in cheating due perhaps to the fact that in the larger society, cheating and corruption have become part of normal life. 

The irony is that cheating goes on right in front of the superintending authorities, who remain unmoved or watch as spectators or in some places act as connivers. In others, the Police use force to disperse them and in some, they remain helpless.

Around the same time, another news came from Jhansi of an assault of a professor by a student (who is president of a students’ union), with his friends for objecting to copying in an exam.

Malpractices connected with examinations have taken various forms like leakage of question papers, copying from other students or from books and materials concealed in dress, monetary inducements in evaluation, etc. With the arrival of electronic gadgets, which  facilitate easy, instantaneous, soundless transmission, malpractices have increased with a sense of pride.

The Andhra Pradesh Government had in 1997, sought to put an end to the endemic leakage of question papers, and enacted a law providing for stringent punishment to the guilty. It was then noted that this was a growing menace regularly happening and overtaking the offence of mass copying which was the main problem till then.

The Andhra Pradesh Public Examination Act 1997 – Prevention of Malpractices and Unfair Means Act 1997 (Act No.25 ) - was enacted as the law then in force was found inadequate to control effectively organized malpractices in relation to Public Examination  carried on by persons with vested interests operating individually or collectively. The objective was to prohibit unfair means adopted by candidates to pass Public Examinations like leakage of questions, mass copying, manipulations in evaluations, inducements for admissions, etc.

The law prescribed punishments also for various offences. The then Chief Minister took a stern view and ordered cancellation of registration of a Tutorial College found guilty of leaking question papers.

In 1999, in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, mark sheet scam led to cancellation of admission of over 200 students involved in the scam.

In 2003, over 3,000 students of law colleges in Orissa boycotted final university examination and held demonstrations against ban on copying. It was then reported that almost all students had books and notes with them in the examination hall.    

In 2008, the Supreme Court ordered that examination cheaters should be severely punished and advised the authorities “to use an iron hand to check such malpractices which affect the country’s progress and academic standards”.  The judgement had reversed the view of a single judge in the Delhi High Court who took a lenient stand and cancelled the punishment of suspension of the student for a year given by the institute.

Examination Bye-laws of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) deals extensively with examination malpractices and has listed unfair means that merit punishment. The concerned student may be disqualified that year or barred for five years and even permanently for very serious offences.

Other countries are not free from this problem in the educational institutions. In Bangladesh, in 1999, over 10,000 students sitting in college final examination were expelled for copying from textbooks and demanding “right to copy”. Violence erupted in centres following this, and teachers were assaulted and examination halls set on fire. The Police had to even use teargas to disperse crowds of relatives and friends forcing their way into the examination halls.

In Pakistan, officials were said to have felt at times that examination quality related mainly to personal security. A Punjab Commission for Evaluation of Examination System and Eradication of Malpractices concluded in 1992 that cheating was boundless. The authorities had to deal with defaulting examinees and corrupt subordinates, and face threatening orders of some bureaucrats, public representatives and gangsters. Evidently, public examinations had become devoid of “validity, reliability, and credibility”, as a scholar stated.   Against this, the situation in India seems better though there are cases of impersonation against some public figures.

Nigeria faced a severe problem that it introduced biometrics into the registration process to prevent impersonation. China introduced laws against examination malpractices. In 2014, a case of use of electronic devices to help students in the national graduate entrance examination came up. Over 200 students were involved in cheating and over 100 used communication devices.

Educationally advanced countries are also not free from this menace.  British Universities reported massive cheating instances in about 80 institutions involving about 45,000 students in 2009-2012. It was termed “academic misconduct” and ranged from taking crib-sheets and mobile phones into exam halls to engaging private firms to write essays for payment. In one year, over 16,000 cases were registered and universities spent millions on software to identify malpractices.  Even universities proclaimed as world’s best like Oxford and Greenwich are not free from the problem of plagiarism and other forms of cheating.  Reports say that thousands were caught even last year, but only a tiny percentage faced expulsion.

These are some specimen incidents recounted here to show the global spread of examination malpractices. But, we need not wait for solutions to come from abroad.

RJD President, Lalu Prasad Yadav recommends introducing “open book” exams and allowing students to carry these with them. He feels that finding answers from the books is also a difficult test unless the students had opened and read the book before the exam.

This method may be one among many that can be used along with writing tests without any form of guide. Students may be allowed to use libraries and internet to gather information.   

Bihar incident has highlighted the extent of indiscipline pervading our society.  Parents and  teachers  not only fail to infuse study habits in their wards, but actively support them to indulge in malpractices and train them in immoral short-cut to success in their future life. 

Shortcomings in the examination system alone are not the reason for malpractices. Our society is submerged in all-round corruption of which examination hall is a piece. The fight must be against all kinds of corrupt practices. For this, our leaders should not tolerate corruption in any form. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)