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Education cheating is a conundrum that is faced by today’s education system, where cheating in school, high school, and college students are cheating in their education and academic learning in many ways. The problem associated with cheating in education is that it is a habit that stays with these people throughout their lives and develops into an uglier form with their progressing age. The need to identify how students cheat, why do they cheat and how can cheating be controlled is a necessity because this is one way that the county can be alleviated from the problem and more honest students can benefit from their education. Honesty must be promoted, practiced and spread in order to make the society a better place, because it is these very students that become the future of the country and if they are not pure in their hearts, then little can be done for the betterment of the future.
Cheating is seen as a crisis in schools all over because where on the one hand, parents and teachers invest in the children and students by giving them their best in the form of education, ease and comfort and knowledge, students reciprocate by dishonesty and treachery in their examinations and tests from which they neither learn nor have the ability to deliver anything further.
The problem with education cheating is the kind of society it creates later on with the students having their own way which develops as a stronger habit with increasing maturity of age. Not only is that, education cheating a proof of the growing laziness and procrastination among the youth in an issue as sensitive as studying. Where there was once a time when children loved studying and getting an education, but nowadays some young children and teenagers find school work a burden and a liability upon them. (ABCnews, n.pag).
However, the first thing to point out and understand is that why students cheat in the first place. What drives them to cheat and become dishonest? The answer lies in many dimensions of how they perceive school, high school and college life and what demands their education has from them. Firstly, it is, of course, the struggle for their grades. Every student wishes to get the finest of grades, score the most A’s, and A+’s they can and make it to the top of the list of the best students in their class. However, they sometimes fail to realize that this requires constant emphasis on their education and diligent attitude towards studies. Some students get too caught up in extracurricular activities at school, or they end up working at part time jobs where they cannot give sufficient time to their education and studying, hardly making up for their homework. Hence, when their exams come up, they have no better option than to cheat and get their way through. Rather than studying for their test, these children spend more time devising ways on how to write down their answers or what ways they can use to cheat during the exam.
According to an article in Forbes, cheating is an issue that affects students of all ages alike and it is an issue related to the character; a good character will never allow them to cheat and show dishonesty in work, whereas, a bad character is a test of their integrity and when students cheat during an examination or a test, they are not only cheating their parents, or their teachers or their school or college, rather they are cheating on themselves. (Ehrlich and Ernestine n.pag).
Moreover, there is an increasing in people in using other people’s written material and using it as their own in submissions for papers and assignments which means that they have thoroughly cheated in their work and used someone else’s hard work, usually called plagiarism. Many students, especially college students are very sick of this attitude of other students which is why they feel they are now numb to all this, and they can also cheat because others do it and get away with it as well. This creates an atmosphere of impending dishonesty and many students then get misled by it. ‘Others are doing it so why can’t we’ become a common and rampant excuse. Many students also have the tendencies to follow the rest of the pack, especially if their friends are doing it, they feel compelled to do it too. Getting the right grades is what they are after and it doesn’t matter how they get them. Some high school students are so unnerved by the college life ahead and its expectancy for good grades that they find it silly if they do not cheat and get good grades to get into college and use the same techniques later on to get through it. (Church, n.pag).
Many a times, it is not only the average and below average students who are inclined to cheat; it is the smarter ones as well who are more in favor of cheating and getting great scores as always because they are fearful of the fact that they cannot afford a bad grade on any one subject and the hovering pressure above their heads compels them to resort to sly methods of cheating and dishonesty in examinations and assignments. (Church, n.pag).
The pressure does not only arise from their own expectations, but also from the expectations that their parents have relied on them and how they are forced to do better than anyone else in their class and outdo everyone else. This makes many students feel under pressure and burdened excessively that leads them to cheating on their tests.
However, what must also be considered are the various methods that are taken up by these students and how do they manage to cheat. There is plagiarism at first which is a major issue in the papers that students get from writing on their own. Many students are in the habit of simply copying and pasting material off the internet and writing it on their own which means they are cheating because their work is not genuine. Others paraphrase and write material pretending to make it their own but do not cite references neither do they acknowledge the original writer of the work. At other times, students tend to have other people write their papers for them such as online writing services that can offer to write papers at very low rates that they are willing to pay. This also counts as cheating because they have not put in any intellectual effort on their own and have deceived their teacher or professor into thinking that it is their own hard work. (Kelly, n.pag).
Other means are the most modern ways of cheating that students resort to in present times. These include recording answers or their course work into their iPods and MP3s and then using them during a test. Also, the cell phone issue is a major way of cheating nowadays. Text messages, screen shots of answers, students using the internet during the examination, their friends outside helping them get the answers to questions via sending pictures of the work to them are some of the ways they get through with them. (ABCnews, n.pag).
At other times, students have saved and stored entire mathematical formulas and equations in scientific calculators so they can use them during the exam with ease. Teachers also lack to check these at times and students then take full advantage of their negligence with ease. Basically, children follow the mantra of the society that they can do whatever they want in order to succeed hence they choose to cheat to get their desired results. (Kelly, n.pag).
What is alarming for the society are the consequences related to cheating and what after effects it has on the students as they grow up with this vile habit instilled in them from ripe ages. The severest of consequences is the lowered self-esteem and morale of the student when they get caught cheating, and they have to face serious consequences for it. Many a times, students have to be marked with an F, or they have to have their parents called in and moreover face humiliation in front of the entire class. This is especially harsh on students who have a good reputation.
Other than that, it is a bad habit that has a repetitive nature and once a student cheats and gets away with it, they will resort to cheating every single time without a break and will not break the chain. They will even be tempted to cheat on a paper they know they can do well without cheating, and this ruins their confidence and honesty in themselves for good. (Middle-earth's, n.pag).
It’s not easy for students to understand in their teens or middle school life that while they are cheating in school in order to get away with bad results and grades, they are actually wasting their time in school because they are not working hard in learning anything rather they are passing their time just to get out of school with a decent grade that was gained effortlessly. Studying does require efforts and hard work that only those with sincere hearts can make.
Moreover, there are students who lose their ability to think and write on their own when they plagiarize and ask others to write their papers for them. This leads to helplessness and bad grades in college papers and essays where they have to write on their own and think critically. Therefore, there cannot be any positive consequences of cheating in education. (Ehrlich and Ernestine n.pag).
However, this situation can be curbed by the society if they make an effort towards it. The schools can take strict measures such as installing cameras in classes, having more than one teacher supervising a class during even the simpler tests such as surprise quizzes or class tests so that the littlest chance of cheating even on the most minor of things can be prevented. Also, students can be checked through the internet Firewall system where their exchange of emails and data can be monitored and cheating related material in exams cannot be exchanged this way. (Ehrlich and Ernestine n.pag).
Furthermore, the duty lies with the parents of the children to guide them from day one about honesty in learning and how they need to work for themselves in order to get good grades, Some parents deliberately help their children with schoolwork that makes them dependent on others. Not putting too much pressure on the children also helps in curbing the issue because children often blame their parents for their problem that they expect too much, and they need to live up to their expectations. Parents need to be exemplary for their children so that if children see that their parents are honest, they are tempted to be honest as well.
Conclusively, education cheating is an issue that harms the education system because it involves dishonesty and cheating on the part of the student in their school and college work. Students cheat to get good grades, they use various methods for it and hold many factors blamable for their cheating habit. Cheating can be eliminated by taking concrete steps and ensuring a strict checking system so that students get rid of this habit and begin to study with honesty and sincerity.
References
ABCnews. A cheating crisis in America’s schools. Web. April 29. N.pag. 26 April, 2015.
Church, Matt. Cheating in colleges: why students do and what can educators do about it.
NACADA Journal Articles. Web. 2014. N.pag. 26 April, 2015.
Ehrlich, Thomas, Ernestine, Fu. Cheating in schools and colleges: what to do about it. Forbes.
Web. March 22, 2013. N.pag. 26 April, 2015.
Kelly, Melissa. Cheating and Education. Educators.com. Web. 2015. N.pag. 26 April, 2015.
Middle-earth's. Org. Cheating in schools: facts, consequences, and prevention. Wordpress. Web.
February 24, 2014. N.pag. 26 April, 2015.
