Smart way of cheating
The use of unfair means in exams has done grievous harm to our education system. It is a curse that affects those students the most who indulge in it in the mistaken belief that passing exams is all that it means to acquire an education. The copy culture makes students unemployable, adversely affecting the entire society, and is also marring the image of the country. This year too, like many previous years, we are regularly hearing about the use of unfair means in the ongoing intermediate exams in Karachi.
For the past few years, unscrupulous elements and unwise and lazy students have been caught using smartphones and other technologies to pass exams in various parts of Sindh. Such students are harming themselves more than anyone else trying to clear exams through trickery being entirely oblivious of the fact that degrees and certificates thus acquired are not even worth the paper they are printed on. They cut a sorry figure in the company of those who have acquired degrees through hard work. In this year’s intermediate exams, students have been using WhatsApp and other portals for cheating in exams. Besides, question papers of several subjects have been leaked before the start of exams, and solved papers have been on sale to those willing to pay the price. Some such attempts have been foiled while some went unnoticed. Examinees freely copied from the answers made available on smartphones and other net devices.
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Fifteen students have been caught copying answers from smartphones at one exam centre. Of these, 12 students were linked to one WhatsAPP group that made answers available on the phone. The Board of Intermediate Education Karachi says it has proof against a WhatsAPP group involved in leaking exam papers to examinees. It has contacted FIA’s cybercrime branch for further investigation of the matter. The long existing neglect of education betrays the lukewarm interest that the government has in the betterment of education. How long will we go on making nonsense of education?
Published in The Express Tribune, August 3rd, 2021.
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