One Way to Stop Cheating: Jail
posted by Miriam Cherry
Chinese educators have been dealing with an outbreak of cheating via cellphones on college entrance examinations. Further, plagiarism of research papers is becoming a problem too. Apparently the Chinese government has now gotten involved:
Earlier this month, three people were arrested for selling fake exam papers over the Internet for 1,000 yuan a subject [.]
The government warned the public not to fall for the scam, noting that exam papers are state secrets and those caught leaking them face three to seven years in prison, it said.
I am generally in favor of harsh punishments against those who cheat or plagiarize their academic work. In the instances where it has happened, I have taken it personally. How dare someone cheat in *my* class?@!??$ However, in this instance, even I will admit that perhaps the punishment may not fit the crime. Aside from hard jail time, what are the best ways to keep students honest?
June 5, 2006 at 3:19 am
Posted in: Current Events
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Responses (3)
bleh - June 5, 2006 at 10:27 am
“those caught leaking them face three to seven years in prison, it said.”
“However, in this instance, even I will admit that perhaps the punishment may not fit the crime. Aside from hard jail time, what are the best ways to keep students honest?”
I believe the authorities above aren’t trying to put people who cheat or plagiarize in jail, they’re trying to put the people who institutionalize cheating in jail – the people who provide the framework for it to happen all the time, and earn from it.
“Last year, some 1,700 students across the country were disciplined for cheating,”
Sounds reasonable. You cheat, and you get caught, you get your due. Not jailtime – your punishment fits your crime.
Miriam Cherry - June 5, 2006 at 4:08 pm
I suppose that this may be true – it seems that the crackdown makes a distinction between those who, as you say, “institutionalize cheating” and those students who cheat.
But personally (and this is entirely IMHO), I’m not sure that there should be any distinction made between then who cheat and those who enable. I can at least understand those who enable – their motive is profit. But an individual student who I know?! That I take personally.
Maybe I’m just idiosyncratic, but I don’t see all that much of a difference in culpability.
bleh - June 6, 2006 at 9:54 am
“But an individual student who I know?! That I take personally.
Maybe I’m just idiosyncratic, but I don’t see all that much of a difference in culpability.”
Thats why you raised the very pertinent point of *how* to punish such a student. Simplest solution, give them a Fail grade in the course. Tougher solution, give them an Incomplete grade (if available where you teach), and make them slog very hard to convert that to a complete grade – to act as a deterrent, and for them to have a way to make up. Don’t spare the rod, but don’t make an act of stupidity of theirs something final.
On the other hand, those who seek to profit from such means are beyond your grasp really, they aren’t necessarily under your tutelage. Whether or not jail time is the answer, they are answerable to society at large. Society at large has to find the best way to not spare the rod, but not make their stupidity a final judgement on them either.
So yes, they are similarly culpable. But their responsibilities vary – the student is responsible to the course/teacher first, then the institution, and the ‘profiteer’ is responsible to society at large, whether or not he/she belongs to the institution. Disciplining them has been forced upon the people to whom they are responsible, but that should be a sensible use of force too, not a display akin to “stoning them to death”.
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