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The Students Who Feel They Have the Right To Cheat
ub3r n3u7r4l1st writes with this story of endemic cheating in Indian Universities and the students who see it as a right. "Students are often keen to exercise their rights but recently there has been an interesting twist - some in India are talking about their right to cheat in university exams. 'It is our democratic right!' a thin, addled-looking man named Pratap Singh once said to me as he stood, chai in hand, outside his university in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. 'Cheating is our birthright.' Corruption in the university exam system is common in this part of India. The rich can bribe their way to examination success. There's even a whole subset of the youth population who are brokers between desperate students and avaricious administrators. Then there's another class of student altogether, who are so well known locally - so renowned for their political links - invigilators dare not touch them. I've heard that these local thugs sometimes leave daggers on their desk in the exam hall. It's a sign to invigilators: 'Leave me alone... or else.' So if those with money or political influence can cheat, poorer students ask, why shouldn't they?"
This is why university degrees from India are about as valuable as a high school diploma in the U.S.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Don't be surprised if students ask for the same thing.
Oh, was this about India? Silly me. I thought the story was about the USA.
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So if those with money or political influence can cheat, poorer students ask, why shouldn't they?
Hey, if those with money or political influence can murder someone and get away with it, why shouldn't everyone be able to? It's their democratic right!
Seriously, is this even a QUESTION? The real problem is not that you CAN'T cheat, it's that others CAN.
Quick let's hire more of them to replace US workers. I mean, with high ethical standards like they're expressing, what could possibly go wrong?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I keep hoping my Verizon stock will crater. They lead the oligarchy that controls the Internet. But until it does collapse, I'll continue to cash my dividends.
There's another tautology out there:
"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
There is nothing shady about backdoor conversions. They were forbidden in the past, and then made explicitly allowable in 2010. Cheating on tests, even in India, is not explicitly allowed by universities. In that case it is pure corruption.
So if those with money or political influence can cheat, poorer students ask, why shouldn't they?"
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Sadly, most people learn this little gem of wisdom too late in life. Cheating only harms the cheater. It may mildly harm those who employ these people, but it doesn't take long for others to see despite your piece of paper, you're just an idiot who knows nothing, when you cheat.
So I say, if that's what they want to do, let 'em. It'll bite them in the butt soon enough.
Just hit my two score birthday, so perhaps its the age talking, but MAN are kids today idiots.
He's right though -- allowing everyone to cheat would fix the problem in no time. It would be amusing because then the previous batch of cheaters would be complaining that their degree is entirely worthless because of all the other cheaters, then there could be some discussion as to why one group should be allowed to cheat while another isn't, and then they can either get rid of grades entirely or try to stop the cheating.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I like your comment, but I do want to point out a difference in magnitude about your example:
Case in point, a friend in the medical profession was actually complaining about tax dodges while setting up his own backdoor Roth IRA [personalcapital.com]. When I asked him about abusing the very rules he was decrying, he simply shrugged and said he doesn't make the rules he just follows them. He acknowledged it's shady as hell but pretty much felt like his hands were tied.
I will say that this example is an order of magnitude different from cheating on a school exam. In this case, the doctor is following the written laws. Of course, the laws are foolishly written in this case, and should probably be fixed, but few people believe that tax loopholes represent a "moral" quandary. (Update - another poster explained that backdoor Roth IRAs are explicitly allowed by the law, so it isn't a mistake apparently. Perhaps the name makes it sound worse than it really is.) Cheating however, is closer to lying. The cheater is lying about their knowledge and skills. That lie denies someone else their right to education, instead granting it to some lazy person who does not have the credentials.
Back to your medical professional, I would still go to a doctor who had a backdoor Roth IRA. But I would not want to go to a doctor who cheated their way through medical school! In America, we mostly accept the concept of "merit," but I'm not sure that all cultures do. It wasn't that long ago that India had castes, where birthright was more important than merit. Is it like racism in the US: publicly most everyone agrees it is wrong but there are still deep-seated biases?
I know very few people who turn down tax benefits because they disagree with that particular tax benefit.
A test is way to assess whether or not someone understands the material. But keep thinking it's a control issue.
Cheating only harms the cheater...
There is one other group harmed, and quite seriously, by widespread cheating: those who have worked hard and honestly for the best diploma they can both achieve and afford, but see it devalued to worthlessness because too many holders of the same diploma are cheaters, and incompetent.
Keep this article mind when hiring your next H-1Bs over your American counterparts which undergoes extensive liberal arts and ethics education.
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All along I thought this was a nice little anecdote. Now you're telling me it's nothing but a Christian copout for doing the right thing?
How about Jesus saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's the same thing. If you think something should be a certain way, then it's up to you to follow your conscience. Not say, "Oh well, it can't be helped, might as well profit from these slaves."
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I remember going to high school in the early 80's...
Holy shit did we have it made.
I've been saying for years now that I'm glad I was a kid when I was. Kids today have it rough, and from a multitude of angles:
I'll tell you straight up, I have a lot of respect for Millennials, if for nothing else, all the crap they are faced with...
And the fact that as a whole they are optimistic in the face of it.
My generation(X) had bad attitudes right out of the gate...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
About to hit 42 myself and completely agree. And we were thought to be completely rotten teens by adults.... today's kids make us look like genius saints.
-said every 42 year old in history...
Cheap storage VM.
i'm ok with this, if [you/your children] are first in line to undergo surgery from a doctor that cheated his way through med school.
As an educator, I feel I should comment: exams are absolutely unnecessary if you have self-motivated students who just want to learn the material. But neither is a classroom -- just hand them a book and some video lectures, and they'll figure it out. A good university's job is to educate students and certify that the students learned the material. You can't certify that they've learned the material without testing them, and you can't make sure that they learn the material without providing them with incentives, because most students are not sufficiently self-motivated.
Would the slaves have been better off in Africa, dead of one savagery or another?
First, your racism is showing. Second, the answer is an unequivocal "YES!"
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
Exams generally try to determine how you have memorized some subject, not how you can adapt what you've learned.
Really? Let's say that you're taking the final exam for a course in Trig that consists in nothing but solving problems (and showing your work) that aren't in the text book. If all you've done is memorize the material but haven't learned how to use it, how are you going to pass the test?
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Actually, "acquiring more" slaves from Africa became illegal in the U.S. in 1808 via the "Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves." That act was passed by both northern and southern congressman, not even two full decades after ratifcation of the Constitution. We started on the gentle path to the end of slavery more than three decades before the civil war.
Suppose, just for a moment, that the abolitionist movement of the 1850's had been led by pragmatists instead of idealists. Imagine an alternate history where they demanded, not the immediate abolishment of slavery but a "born free" act where any child born in the U.S. was a free citizen regardless of parentage.
Gradual change. No immediate threat to the southern economy. No pressing need for secession. Yes, the last vestiges of slavery would have lasted into the first two decades of the 20th century but there might have been no destructive war. And no vicious hatred in the south persisting across generations and taken out on the only victims available.
Without the racism born of southern civil war hatred for the north, black participation in the world wars might have been seen as a good thing rather than a bad one, leaving large numbers of blacks college educated under the G.I. Bill afterward. Which could well have led to civil rights a decade early and both more gently and more completely.
And Abe Lincoln wouldn't have needed to reinterpret the Constitution to permit the vastly increased federal and executive power we so often decry in this very forum.
The idealists of the 1850s took a trend that was growing inevitable and instead of letting it play out backed their opponents into a corner, yielding an immediate, grisly, and needless war.
And yes, I despise H1B. As you say, it's an indentured labor program. There should be no work in the U.S. without the opportunity for citizenship and never, never a case where an employer holds the key to an individual's ability to remain in the country. I'm in favor of permitting talented technicians to immigrate. Even those with Indian degrees. ;-) But the H1B program does it in a way that's unethical.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.