Higher secondary certificate: ‘We cheat only to pass our exams’

Committee to decide action against offenders.

SUKKUR/HYDERABAD:

At least 2,500 students have been caught so far for using unfair means during the annual higher secondary school exams held by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), says its Sukkur controller, Mehmoodul Hassan Khokhar. A committee will decide what to do about them.

Four districts - Sukkur, Khairpur, Ghotki and Naushahro Feroze - are part of the Sukkur BISE. Twenty-three teams were sent to keep an eye on cheating.

Though policemen were deployed outside all centres to prevent cheating, they were used to send material to students. The lower staff also helped.

Larkana BISE’s Controller Mohammad Alam Thaheem tightened security after cases surfaced. When the Rangers were deployed, not a single person dared to go near the centre, while most of the students, who were completely dependent on cheating, reportedly left their answer papers blank. It has been claimed that there is a mafia, which springs into action at the time of the annual examinations and hires teachers who can quickly solve the papers for them.

On the flip side

The students argue, however, that they “cheat only to pass exams.”

“As soon as we enter board examinations from class IX, the tendency to cheat creeps up on us,” says Shiraz, who is sitting the HSC II pre-medical exams and has studied at a government college. He ascribes it to the pressure of getting good grades for subsequent admissions to universities. “Unlike primary or junior school level exams, the percentages in your SSC and HSC exams factor in admissions to university.”

“It’s easier to copy and paste than to cudgel your brains recalling what you have studied and remember,” says Hassan, a student of a leading private college.

But for Akhtar Ali the blame for cheating falls squarely on the shoulders of the teachers, who do not do their job properly. “While giving lessons at evening tuition centres, they don’t have any problem answering a thousand questions. During a lecture at the college, however, even a single query ruffles them.”

Zulqarnain, a pre-engineering student of a government institute, blames the disparity of education standards between private and government colleges as well as a lack of admissions prospects at universities. “My parents can’t afford a private college. I need a good percentage to get admission in an engineering university as thousands of students are pitted against each other for a few hundred seats.”

The courses taught at schools and colleges should be designed to capture the student’s interest, says Aqsa. “Even brilliant students cheat in certain subjects,” she asserts.

Some students find fault with their course books, which they say are more complicated than the guides that contain simple answers. “The examiner expects us to pen memorised answers which are set down in the guides,” says one student.

Despite a ban, selling guides and solved papers outside examination centres carries on. “Iqra, New Memon, Ali, Aqsa and Abdul Wahab are the best publishers of guides and solved papers,” says a bookstore owner whose shop is located next to the entrance of two examination centres, Muslim College and Noor Muhammad High School.

Mehmood Khan, a college lecturer, describes this as ‘an unscrupulous’ system of education. The students proposed remedies to reinvigorate the process of learning. Hassan opines that, “The system of board examinations from class IX should be abandoned and replaced by the semester system.” Seconding this view, Shiraz says that after being checked by the examiner, the papers should be handed over to the parents.

Zulqarnain proposes that the grading and percentage system should be abolished and a student should only be declared as either having passed or failed. Athar argues that the fear of God would work wonders as well. “Cheating is a sin which students will not commit if they fear God,” he argues.

“There should be a dialogue on the pedagogical goals of exams,” says Aftab Ehsan Qureshi, former principal of Nazrat College. For her, the moral training at home needs to work in tandem with any meaningful educational reforms. Muslim College’s Prof Muhammad Farooq is pessimistic about limiting cheating because of pre-determined patterns of question papers as well as teaching methods. “Studies should be centered on developing cognition rather than making students memorise what has been taught. The only remedy against cheating is introducing open-book exams.”

With additional reporting from Sarfaraz Memon

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2011.