Cheating in school has become rampant in the recent years. This can be attributed to several factors that lead student to engage in such unethical and skewed behavior of cheating. Cheating in schools can be because the institutions’ negligence when dealing with cases of cheating hence, students finds cheating an easy way of passing exams. On the other hand, it could be that students are misled by each other into engaging in academically unproductive activities and later on finding ways of cheating in order to achieve good grades. The reasons why student cheat vary from one setting to another. There are those who copy from others, others carry resource materials into the exam rooms and copy while others ask their colleagues who have sat the exam earlier in the day about the exam questions then go prepare. All these cheating methods by students have different explanations. Personally, I have witnessed my fellow student engage in cheating activities in exams and home works. This is a bad activity which makes the genuinely hardworking students to be discouraged since their hard work is never recognized since they are often outshined by the cheating students who earn top marks that they do not deserve.
Based on Colleen Wenke’s book, Too Much Pressure, there are different reasons why students cheat. The author gives various perspectives on what could be the reason for cheating in schools and colleges. She gives her personal opinion on what the students could have been engaging in when they were actually supposed to be studying for exams. Such activities include spending too much time watching television, playing games or on the phone. These students spend their time doing academically irrelevant activities while their colleagues are busy preparing for exams. This leaves them very much unprepared for the exams and when the time for the exams comes, they find themselves staring at failure. The author suggests that this is the reason why some of the students contemplate cheating in order to avoid what they really deserve, failure. According to Colleen Wenke, some of these students approach their friends who had earlier on sat for the exams and copying the material that is in the exam. She defines cheating as an act of taking someone else’s work, friend or stranger, then cheating that it is yours by writing your name on it then presenting it. The author of the book seems to have witnessed cheating in schools during her time as a student. She saw fellow students engage in cheating activities very often. The author writes, “Any time I walked through my high school cafeteria or the hallways, I saw people cheating. It came in many forms, from copying homework to giving out copies of the exam. Students even wrote answers to.their friends.”
The author is right when she says that cases of cheating have increased rapidly over the recent past. Way back, the students used to work hard and their results were on merit. However, recently, students seem to be engaging in cheating in order to get what they do not deserve. Cheating is fueled by many reasons. There are those students who are after good grades even though they did not have sufficient preparations. Some are just academically poor hence they resort to cheating in order to improve their grades.
Another reason why students cheat is that the education institutions do not place strict measures to curb cases of cheating. Initially, students caught cheating were subjected to serious penalties, for instance, the student would be suspended and asked to come to school with their parents. In other institutions, the students examination would be nullified and they would have to re-sit for the whole set of examination. However, over time the institutions have loosened their touch on examination cheating. Students are caught cheating and nothing is done about it. This has encouraged students to cheat in examinations because they know there is mild or no punishment against them. Student will do all within their means to succeed, and now that cheating is also an easy and sure option of passing, more and more students are engaging in cheating.
Students engage in cheating because they are goal oriented individuals. The society culture has led young people to believe that all that matters is to attain the set objectives. This mentality has led to students engaging in all means possible to achieve their goals. To them, the means of achieving their goals does not matter at all since society only cares about the achievement. The desire to be the best and out do fellow students makes students to cheat. However, cheating is being done more by students because the manner in which they achieve the performance is not always of concern to teachers and parents.
Engaging in so many activities that leave students with little or no time to read and prepare for exams is another reason why students cheat. Such students can hardly manage their time because they have many activities to juggle around hence end up unprepared for exams. Therefore, when exam time comes, the students resort to cheating in order to rescue their academic life. Students should not be given many responsibilities that distract them from their academic preparations.
Finally, according to Colleen Wenke, students engage in activities of cheating because they are led to believe that it is the only way they can succeed academically. This inserts a bad mentality in students who then stop working hard with the hope that they will just cheat their way through the education system and still emerge with good grades. Furthermore, there are those students who work hard and get average marks and see their friends cheat and emerge the best. This discourages the genuine students from working and start cheating because they believe it is the better to cheat and be the best rather than work hard and end up a second fiddle.
It is also the students’ fault that cases of cheating have become very frequent. Students mislead each other by engaging in academically useless activities like too much leisure activities which deprives them of the time to study. There are those students who also engage in unfair means in order to defeat their colleagues in exams. Such students copy so that they can get higher marks. The other blame on students is that some develop wrong mentalities and believe that in order to pass exams, they have to copy. These student related activities are very much misleading and should be discouraged and stopped. Only then will the education institutions produce genuinely top achievers. Parents should take the responsibility of nurturing their children to become honest and hard working individuals by instilling in them good values. Only then will the problem of cheating in schools be tackled effectively.
Therefore, cheating in schools is a problem that is caused by both the education institutions, teachers, parents and students. All these stake holders should play an important role in eliminating cheating because it is an unethical vice that leads to educational injustices where people who do not deserve to pass turn out to be the top achievers while the genuine students are not recognized at all. The various reasons why students cheat in school are wrong approaches and should be treated as indiscipline cases and the students given harsh punishments. Students should also not be put under so much pressure to produce exceptional performances at school because every student has their own capability.
Works Cited
Cizek, Gregory J. Cheating on Tests: How To Do It, Detect It, and Prevent It. illustrated. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999.
Davis, Stephen F, Patrick F Drinan and Tricia Bertra. Cheating in School: What We Know and What We Can Do. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Wenke, Colleen. "Too much Pressure." 1998. Buffalo Public Schools. 15 June 2012
