Nurturing integrity among students
The arrest of a Delhi Police sub inspector by the CBI for alleged cheating in Civil Services Examinations held in December last, is as shameful as it is repulsive. The cop had rehearsed the entire exercise with his woman accomplice among others, well in advance and effected the plan to perfection with a bluetooth device, especially designed vest and shirt to hide the wires. Codes such as coughing were rehearsed to convey pause in dictation of the answer. The accused have been arrested under Section 420 of IPC and investigations are on.
Often youngsters fall into this trap of taking the short cut to success, sometimes oblivious of the consequences. Parental/peer pressures, lack of motivation/ interest in studies, laziness or simply the desire to stay on top without doing the hard work may be some causes of cheating in examinations.
With the competition to get into higher education courses/jobs getting more cut throat, the motivations for cheating are even higher. It is exigent on parents and teachers to cultivate desire for hard/smart work and diligence in students. Parents should motivate students to start early by engaging with next year’s syllabus during vacations by dedicating a few hours daily, as presently done ahead of public examinations.
Holiday timetables are essential for proper time management, learning new hobbies/skills and schools work in anticipation. This trains students for tougher schedules as they make the transition to adulthood and careers and deters them from taking short cuts. Pareto’s principle or the 80-20 rule could be helpful for prioritizing by taking up things which consume 20% of time and give 80% benefits, compared to the reverse. Kids should be trained to learn speed reading and mind mapping to do well in scholastic endeavours. Spending quality time on holidays to motivate kids, does tonnes for their confidence to face life. All these skills should be cultivated to develop values of integrity and nurture good citizens.
Besides parents, teachers are duty bound to instill hard work, integrity and professionalism in students. For this they themselves should have integrity and competence. But quality of faculty in higher education leaves much to be desired. The ‘B’ grade awarded by NAAC to the highest institution is ample evidence of the morass. The dizzy salaries for higher education faculty have attracted mediocre talent from outside, who dig in their heels here till retirement, buy up properties and bring in their relatives, to milk the honey. The education and welfare of Goan students is often low priority and their performances are fudged, churning out poor products. ‘Photocopy education,’ throwing broad hints of examination question paper and even copying is overlooked to prop up the overall performance of educational institutions. Cheating by educators itself to benefit their wards is not absent, as seen in the GMC’s ‘alteration of marks’ scandal of 2009.
The UGC had admitted that 80 percent graduates coming out of colleges are unemployable. Colleges and university departments face stagnation with faculty dropping anchor here for ages, unlike American Universities which have maximum faculty tenures of seven years even for the best professors. Mediocre faculty produce mediocre students as has been the case in Goa. Fudging publications of research for the sake of promotions by faculty, trickles down to students fudging in examinations and the Goan public is silent on the quality of education, even as politicians’ children go abroad for education.
The system should create awareness of the copying menace and deter cheaters with severe punishment to avoid short cuts in education. The Delhi sub inspector is a caricature of the educational system including the IAS, IPS examination formats which promote rote, rather than learning, critical thinking and falls way short of producing educated class, administrators or citizens of a high calibre. A radical purging of the educational system of its outdated baggage, antiquated teaching methods and de-motivated faculty is exigent. Question is will the State government stem the rot?
