Cheating and Plagiarism: Ticking Time-Bombs

Cheating, although repeatedly discouraged in assemblies at my school, has become an inescapable evil. 

The cheaters practice their unfair means covertly as well as openly: verbally exchanging answers, showing solutions by lifting answer-sheets, peeking, opening windows in freezing cold weather and multiple elusive and well-camouflaged sign languages are so expertly used that the victims of these thefts do not realize when and how their answers are being stolen and reproduced, as rapidly and as repulsively as the breeding of rabbits.

Cheating is not limited to tests or exams - excruciatingly boring assignments, project reports and homework are also tainted by the menace of plagiarism. 

Cheating and plagiarism are an easy way out. They are addictive, destructive forms of escapism, as tragic as drug abuse; as difficult to quit, until it is too late and the damage has been done. They cripple students, making them rely on the benevolence of their hard-working peers. They allow students to stop doing their own work and using their own brains, which proceed happily to rot.

At my school, the ticking time-bomb of habitual laziness and incompetence is almost always unnoticed, or worse, unchecked. The absence of punishment for what is known to be an offense, and the awe cheaters get for 'tricking the system' is misconstrued by their half-baked minds as a reward. Cheating goes from disgraceful to cool -COOL- in a matter of minutes.

The solutions are obvious:

1. Increased vigil and surveillance - two teachers per class and close scrutiny of blacklisted students during exams

2. Careful correction of assignments, notebooks, projects etc. with special attention to detail

3. Detention after school, discontinuation of sports, library, art lessons etc. or notes to parents and counseling, as applicable

In addition, the concepts of hard work, integrity, competence and excellence - all that distinguishes the extraordinary from the mundane - as the highest virtues of man, need to be introduced to middle-school students.

More than three-quarters of the students of my school cheat. We are the sons and daughters of industrialists, businessmen, doctors and lawyers. If WE were to understand that there is an easy way out, that fair competition and honesty were idealistic, impractical notions... Well, that would be tragic.