Cheating and plagiarism is so common

Imagine you are a student, an important exam or assignment deadline is looming near and you haven’t studied for it. You were too busy playing games on your computer, watching TV or socializing on Facebook.

You know that you have to pass that exam but you can’t deny the inevitable fact that with your current preparation, you will not be able to do so. The easiest way out of this scenario (for a normal student) is to resort to cheating or other false means — why do all the work while you can take advantage of the people who do? Yet what is sad, isn’t the fact that cheating takes place, what is sad is that cheating is widely accepted and practiced.

So what leads a student to act in such a way? The sad truth is that cheating no longer carries the stigma it once did. They see it in every facet of life: politics, business, home, and school. This issue was brought to light in the recent matriculation exams where the candidates were seen copying answers from resources that were smuggled in, which they then shared with each other. Some of them even had the courage to leave their seats to go and directly ask their fellows for assistance.

These circumstances paint a grim picture of today’s youth, and it makes many wonder whether the students who are willing to cheat are willing to commit other unethical deeds to get ahead in life.

The precedent being set is dangerous. Yet one cannot truly blame the students. The students are raised to think that cheating is right. It is our job to tell our kids the difference between right and wrong, and when we don’t we fail in this fundamental duty.

The first reason for its existence is that there are many students with families who have high expectations about their grade achievements and future career. Therefore, some students cheat —- when feeling the parental and peer pressure — in order to get competitive, profitable credentials to impress their family or friends. When under pressure, the students are more likely to resort to measures like cheating to accomplish the high prospects set on them by their families.

While there is pragmatic evidence that parent factors have a positive association with, or facilitate, children’s achievement, there has also been great concern that parents’ unrealistic expectations create pressure and foster performance anxiety in their children.

This cultural pressure is endemic, forcing students to be suicidal. Children are considered to be like showpieces these days. They are required to work like machines in order to make parents feel proud.

You will see schoolchildren perturbing excessively and spending sleepless nights, loss of appetite and bouts of depression all of which lead to suicidal tendencies. Relieving the students from such high expectations would help in elevating their performance and will also result in a decrease in cheating cases. The focus must not be on being the best in class, but realizing one’s own true potential and doing one’s best.

What is even more shocking now days is that parents actually facilitate their children in terms of cheating. How can a sixteen year old have enough money to bribe an examiner or buy exam papers before the examination? It has to come from the parents. Parents need to understand that exam results are not everything!

Cheating is a crime. These steps are essential to either fully exterminate or at least minimize this practice to an insignificant quantity.

If cheating in exams isn’t cut off at the root and allowed to be continued, it will set a dangerous precedent in the hearts and minds of our next generation that crime does pay and there is nothing wrong in adopting unfair means to get ahead in life. A precedent that will only help to destroy our next generation.

MOHAMMAD HARIS

Karachi