Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Students Who Feel They Have the Right To Cheat

Posted by samzenpus on from the eyes-on-your-own-paper dept.

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?"

14 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. Be the Change You Wish to See in the World by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    When I was younger and I first came across this quote by Mahatma Gandhi:

    You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

    I always thought it was bizarrely tautological. If you wish something to be different and you personally can make a choice for it under your control to be different, then you make the correct choice. For example, I don't throw a soda can out the window of my car while complaining about pollution on the highway. Other people obviously don't care but I control the drop in the bucket I'm responsible for and I make the ethical choice.

    But as I got older, I actually found and still find people that think they should be forced to do it the right way even while complaining about the abuse. Case in point, a friend in the medical profession was actually complaining about tax dodges while setting up his own backdoor Roth IRA. 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.

    It was deeply troubling ... I get a similar feeling about this article. I understand it is sometimes harder to play by ethical rules than legal rules when everyone around you is benefiting from misconduct but ... it seems this is yet another example of the caste system thriving in India. It's simply stupefying on the "My dad is Li Gang" level.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Be the Change You Wish to See in the World by Reason58 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Be the Change You Wish to See in the World by paiute · · Score: 5, Funny

      "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; and enough ammo to change the things I can."

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    3. Re:Be the Change You Wish to See in the World by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. Ok... just turned two score, but... by Kenja · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just hit my two score birthday, so perhaps its the age talking, but MAN are kids today idiots.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:Ok... just turned two score, but... by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There's a name for the effect, which I can't recall, but we tend to project our current self into our past self's shoes. When someone in their 40s thinks about when they were a teenager, they remember it as if they had the experience and wisdom that they have in their 40s, not as they actually were in their teens. This is one of the main reasons older generations talk about how kids these days are dumber, etc... because they don't accurately remember how kids were in their day, just how they would have been if they had decades more life experience.

      TL;DR: You were just as dumb as a kid as the "kids these day" are that you're complaining about... you're just too dumb to account for the decades in between.

    2. Re:Ok... just turned two score, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Depends... I'm about the same age as the parent poster, and I know I've done some dumb things, although nothing that would constitute as autodarwination. No grunge tattoos, no Prince Alberts, no Skid Row-esque ear to nose piercings.

      I don't really see the college student age range as dumber. Hell, they have far more info at their fingertips than when I was in college (I had to either use the man command, or actually go to the 1300 page binder that had all the stuff printed out near the room of VT-100 terminals.) The difference is income. Camaros, Buick Regals, and Mustangs got replaced by Civics... and now because of declining incomes, at best, people have low-end Mazda 3s, VW Jettas, Kias, or Hyndais -- cars that people would have sneered at five years ago.

      Less income available, coupled with inflation makes people have to improvise. With the Trans-Pacific Partnership allowing for China to have even more control of the US, living standards only will get worse unless one owns a business or is lucky enough to have enough investments to not have to actively seek out work.

      The high schoolers I encounter are not dumb either. Stuff that was done way back when (racing, donuts in the parking lot, moving a teacher's car to the football field) would cause a teen to wind up in jail with felony-hard charges, and where I live, there is no definite release date for juvis... they have to "earn" their release in the private prison system... or stay in until age 21. Just telling a teacher off, something that might get an afternoon of detention or maybe a day of ISS... will earn jail time, maybe even a felony. So, high school kids are pretty limited in their "rebellion" to what type of breed of cat pictures they can stick on their backpack in class. Music sucks, as pirates have caused record labels to collapse, and only corporate-made bands are promoed. Yes, one has more bands to find, but the days of having a radio station as something in common with others is long gone.

      The kids have not gotten dumber... they just have a pretty crappy hand dealt to them. The wealth in the US has fled offshore, so have the meaningful jobs. Their kids will be the ones walking to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways.

    3. Re:Ok... just turned two score, but... by pnutjam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
  3. Worthless degrees by Spazmania · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Worthless degrees by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative
      You over estimate the university degrees from India.

      I am from India. I know what I'm talking about. But for a few good schools like IIT, IIM, IISc, AIIMS, NITs etc rest of what passes for college education in India is nothing more than rote-memorization and regurgitation. Both the Physics Nobel laureates of Indian origin (Raman and Chandrasekhar) are alumna of the University of Madras. Today, that univ does not have a single math prof capable of correcting an answers in a Real Analysis examination. The syllabus specifically says, "Real Analysis, with theorems and proofs as stated in the book Real Analysis by Apostal". You deviate from the proof given in that book, the professors are incapable of checking whether it is right or wrong. It is a disgrace to call it a university.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:Worthless degrees by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wrong! These Indians with a university degree is worth more than an American with a degree in CompSci at UT. The H1B status proves it!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  4. India... by djupedal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where less than 20% of the MBAs are employable. They'll do anything to get that skin, and then do nothing with it but weedle. I had to interview over 5k of them just to come up with 150 that were anywhere near hiring, and 10% of those didn't make the first six months. That figure fell to 50% after two years, as they were constantly looking for lateral moves inside the country. The country? China.

  5. Old Saying. by jklovanc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So if those with money or political influence can cheat, poorer students ask, why shouldn't they?"

    Two wrongs don't make a right.

  6. Re:SNOB by cryptizard · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's an urban legend.