Probably one of the most dreaded experiences to endure, apart from maybe waterboard torture, is sitting exams. Okay, there are those candidates who cruise through their paper and strut out of the examination room an hour before the rest. Having sweated through a fair few exams in my lifetime, I can say that almost without exception I was one of - "the rest".
Thankfully, though, most exams allow ample time for well-prepared students to unload their knowledge on to their paper. However, if you're the sort who skips lightly over your study material, you can find yourself in deep treacle. Clasping your hands in despair as you gaze at the ceiling in the hope that the answers will come raining down will offer little consolation. The last resort, taken by a sorry few, is of course to cheat. Smuggling scripts into the examination room has been done for centuries, and will continue, with every trick in the book being tried many times over.
The Bihar state in India is no exception, where students are known to openly cheat in exams - big time. Last week revealed just how rife and blatant the practice is. Despite so-called "tight" security, secondary school students smuggled textbooks and notes into a number of examination centres, while parents and friends scaled the walls outside the buildings, to pass answers through the windows. The exams, held by the Bihar School Examination Board, involved more than 1.4 million students. Local newspapers showed numerous photos of parents and relatives trying to help their children cheat even at considerable risk to their own lives. Photos even show policemen posted outside the centres accepting bribes to look the other way.
Despite the damming reports, the authorities seem uninterested in doing much about it. But during a raid at just one school they did seize sheets containing answers which filled up nine sacks. Parents who were detained briefly for helping their children to cheat were let go after a warning. Bihar law says that those caught cheating can be barred from taking an examination for up to three years and can also be jailed or ordered to pay a fine, although punishment has barely been reported. It is a scene common to many parts of the region during any big exam and the authorities have all but surrendered to the circumstances.
No wonder the exasperated education minister has put up his hands, admitting that cheating-free examinations were not possible without the co-operation of students' parents. It is of no help either that the standard of education - the basis for examination success - is well below par. What a farce, and until a degree of honesty can be brought back into the process, they'd be better off dumping the examinations altogether. And if that's not bad enough, many of the school-leaving exams are reputed to be marked by violence, with parents and friends writing answers for examinees, often guarded by armed men. One can understand why so many students, given the chance, will pack their bags, choosing to study and graduate in a country such as ours.
