
What India Is Doing To Stop Cheating At Board Exams - thewarrior
http://scroll.in/article/why-preventing-cheating-in-indias-board-exams-is-a-national-security-crisis?id=658509
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rchiba
Cheating in this case has to do with an education system that has lost touch
with its purpose of sharing valuable knowledge. Students will cheat if they do
not find value or meaning in learning the material. The pressure should be on
the educators bring purpose back into the system and into the minds of
students.

I've been through mind-numbing classes focused on memorization of meaningless
trivia, as have all students, and I personally feel fewer moral qualms about
cheating in that kind of class than a class where I am able to make the
personal connection between the material and its value to me.

~~~
judk
It isn't the educators, it is the employers who pervert the meaning of a
degree and a GPA.

~~~
rchiba
I don't think the blame is mutually exclusive.

However, I've having gone through the public education system in the United
States, I know which classes were the worst (the ones all about memorization)
and it sounds like the public education system in India has a lot of those
classes. Perhaps the educators are only acting on behalf of the system within
they exist (as a preparatory organization for this exam), but I think if the
buck is to stop anywhere, it's with the administrators of the education
system, they need to be held accountable.

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gmays
It's more of a reflection of the society than anything to do specifically with
that particular system (education in this case), just like
counterfeiting/copying in China and corruption/scams in third world countries.

That kind of stuff really pisses me off, but I also have a naive perspective.
For example, in some parts of the world (particularly in low trust societies)
corruption is looked at differently, it's just 'taking care' of the family to
the best of your ability. The more power you have, the more 'ability' you
have. Maybe the goal should be to increase trust instead of trying to 'fix'
the symptom?

It's hard to accept that from an American perspective. In fact, maybe it's
even wrong to call it 'corruption' as if our societal views represent some
sort of moral standard. But maybe they do. _Shrug_

~~~
wsxcde
People cheat because Gain(cheating) * P(not getting caught) > Cost(cheating) *
(1 - P(not getting caught)). I would say this is true for everyone everywhere
regardless of society, culture or race. India is trying to reduce P(not
getting caught) because, from a policy perspective, the other terms in that
equation are close to impossible to change.

The US doesn't have this problem because the gains due to obvious cheating
aren't big enough. People do "cheat" in the sense of "acting unfairly to gain
an advantage." For example using ADD prescriptions to get extra time on exams
is a well-known trick, another is to have college application counsellors
ghostwrite essays and then there are numerous other methods which may not
technically count as cheating but achieve the desired effect. The difference
is that people whose kids do this are also those who control the media
narrative, so you've all been brainwashed into thinking that this is somehow
more acceptable.

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nahname
>Gain(cheating) * P(not getting caught) > Cost(cheating) * (1 - P(not getting
caught))

Western society has a much higher chance of getting caught and a much higher
cost when caught because it views that behaviour as abnormal. India has a
cultural problem where cheating is expected.

~~~
nebulasri
_India has a cultural problem where cheating is expected._

You are condemning an entire country and its "culture" with a single sentence.
What evidence can you provide?

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Pacabel
Even a minority of people engaging in a particular behavior can have a very
significant impact on a culture as a whole. It's perfectly valid to say that
the culture thus suffers from some sort of a problem, even if not everybody
associated with that culture is responsible for the problem.

Going based on the information in the article, and assuming it's correct,
there does seem to be at least some sort of a problem with cheating far beyond
what we see in other cultures, and it does appear to be widespread. The
preventative actions described would be very unexpected in many other
cultures, and totally unthinkable in others.

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pskittle
1.The focus should be on creating a conducive studying environment , where
knowledge retention and skill demonstration via projects is given more
importance than a score on a paper.

Let's face it , every newspaper you open is flooded with an add of the mother
being thankful to a coaching class for a good education. (Not a school or a
teacher) commercialization of a students future and dream is what needs to be
tackled. Cheating would hypothetically cease to exist if students didn't feel
like they have a need to prove themselves on paper by a score

~~~
yummyfajitas
How do you scale that up? Say you implement your system. Now the output of the
system is a Map[Student,List[Project]] rather than a Map[Student,Int]. How do
I compare schools, determine whether a school is doing it's job, or do the
same thing for students?

Ultimately all consistent objective decisionmaking processes [1] must come
down to a single number - that's a simple exercise in undergrad topology.
Anything else will be either subjective or inconsistent (i.e., we prefer A to
B, and B to C, but prefer C to A).

So what are you proposing? A different format/syllabus for standardized tests,
a subjective testing procedure, or an inconsistent one?

[1] On a countable set of choices. Things get weird on uncountable sets.

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pizza234
It's very arguable that every decisionmaking process must come down to a
number, as we're talking about people and not cattle.

In this perspective, having people working on projects would be an
appreciation of the "multidimensional" nature of people.

After all, contemporarily, psychology started to think of multiple
intelligences rather than a single one. If we assume this is true, what's the
sense of assigning a single number to a person? Either it's false that
multiple intelligences exist, or it's useless to single-dimensinally evaluate
them. Then, let's start to assign 10 numbers instead of one.

I don't say that single-dimensional ratings are inherently wrong, but just
that they're too narrow minded. "Scaling up" such procedures would mean scale
up something wrong and inefficient; it's not real scaling up.

I would propose to throw standardized tests in the garbage, and try novel
approaches in the evaluation processes of people; I find hard to believe that
assigning a number to a person is the only possible (and practical)
perspective.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_It 's very arguable that every decisionmaking process must come down to a
number, as we're talking about people and not cattle._

It's not debatable if you believe in the axiom of induction (or the axiom of
choice for countably infinite sets).

Theorem: If there is a total order (a consistent decisionmaking process) on
the set of people (or any countable set), then there exists an order
preserving function f: People->Real numbers.

Sketch of proof: Start with an arbitrary person A. Define the ranking function
f(A)=0. Choose an arbitrary person besides A, call them B. If B > A then
f(B)=1, else if B = a then f(B)=0 else f(B) = -1. Choose a third person C,
different from A and B. If C > max(A,B) define F(C) = f(max(A,B))+1. If A < C
< B or B < C < A define f(C)=0.5x(f(A)+f(B)). If C < min(A,B) then f(C) =
f(min(A,B))-1. Continue ad nauseum.

 _Either it 's false that multiple intelligences exist, or it's useless to
single-dimensinally evaluate them._

Multiple intelligences probably don't exist. But even supposing they do,
claiming that the _domain_ of a function is multidimensional does not disagree
with my claim that the _range_ is one dimensional.

Background:

A total order is a way of saying "person A is at least as good as person B"
which obeys all the obvious laws. Person B can be either a real person or a
standard of achievement (e.g. "passing").

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_order](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_order)

[http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/metrics_manifesto.htm...](http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/metrics_manifesto.html)

~~~
xamuel
Holy circular reasoning, Batman! The premise of your theorem, that there is
such a total order, is _equivalent_ to the existence of such a numbering
function. You're saying "A must be true because B is true", where B is just an
identical version of A, disingenuously obfuscated by a thin veneer of
mathematics!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense)

This all ignoring the fact any such "total order" is going to be highly
variable through time (today's top engineer is tomorrow's dementia patient is
yesterday's toddler)!

~~~
yummyfajitas
A total order is a consistent objective decisionmaking function.

I'm assuming that consistency and objectivity are obvious properties that any
reasonable process must have. If you want to argue against consistency and/or
objectivity, go ahead and do so. It'll certainly be interesting.

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balladeer
I hated Chemistry. I still do. I loved Math and Physics, also Geography. So,
there was no way I was going to pass my 10+2 (last school year) without
cheating and I am lucky that I somehow managed to cheat. I wish I could have
cheated better so that the meagre Chemistry score couldn't bring my total % to
around 75. Anyway, bygone is bygone.

The matters were made worse by the uninterested, unintuitive and unqualified
teachers (no exception), outdated and idiotic curricula, arcane books written
in an ad-hoc manner, uninteresting tests. Everything was showing just one
solution - rote, which I am pathologically allergic too (though sometimes I
wish I had just done it like everybody else and this what I told my younger
brother).

The result is I didn't study Math, didn't study Physics either and certainly
didn't study Geography. I took up Computer Science - just because it has the
jobs. All along knowing fully well that you end up being a clerk or a daily
wage worker (or a teacher which has a similar pay; professorship is rare) in
this country if you try to follow your passion in studies and study anything
other than a course that gives you a professional degree. Another path was to
have rich parents who can send you to The Fancy University of UK/USA/West to
study psychology/political science/geography and what not. This was certainly
not under my control. Well, that's my reason.

~~~
mwfunk
Those are excuses, not reasons.

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anon4
What's the difference?

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Pacabel
"Reasons" are merely statements of why something is as it is. Justification
isn't used.

"Excuses" try to put an unjustifiably positive (or perhaps a less-negative)
slant on the explanation of why something is as it is.

balladeer wrote things like, "So, there was no way I was going to pass my 10+2
(last school year) without cheating and I am lucky that I somehow managed to
cheat." and, "I wish I could have cheated better so that the meagre Chemistry
score couldn't bring my total % to around 75."

To me, those appear to try to make it sound like the cheating was somehow
okay, or even a good thing, even though this cheating was apparently covering
up a lack of ability. They aren't merely saying why cheating was used; they
try to make it sound acceptable, when it clearly isn't.

~~~
balladeer
You have completely misread it.

The only thing I wanted to convey was: "I didn't have an option". You want to
debate why and how I didn't have an option? Well, you are welcome to do it but
my answer would be simple and I've typed most in my original comment.

> covering up a lack of ability

I hope you were not simply trying to be mean.

> they try to make it sound acceptable

I am not sure whether I am right replying to your highly judgemental comment
but anyway I did. And yes, you are almost entirely off the mark and wrong.

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cridenour
Why can't I highlight text on that page? I'm not even sure how to read an
article without it...

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whizzkid
[http://scroll.in/ajax/get_article_content.php?article_id=658...](http://scroll.in/ajax/get_article_content.php?article_id=658509)

Here you go, I hate those developers with small brains think that these kind
of cheap tricks will prevent the content to be copied!

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yummyfajitas
Why do you assume it was the developers who wanted the cheap tricks?

(I know the founders and developers of scroll.in, and I'm 99% sure that the
developers just did what they were told.)

~~~
whizzkid
I am sorry, you are probably right. Then my words are for the product owners!

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coldcode
Cheating in tests being widespread is more of a condemnation of the how/what
the schools are teaching than the students.

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anuraj
There is nothing called India Board Exams - Each ethnic state has a board
which conducts exams - and the surveillance is different for each.

But all boards agree and exist for the rote learning model which leaves no
scope for creativity. kid in, zombie out!

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RealGeek
Central Board of Secondary Education is under the Union Government of India.

~~~
anuraj
CBSE is puny when compared to state boards where majority of Indians study.
CBSE is one of the trend setters in rote learning too!

