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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...o-half-a-million-students-just-skipped-exams/
India tried to stop cheating in school — so half a million students just skipped exams
By Vidhi Doshi February 9
In this March 2014 photo, Indians climb the wall of a building to help out students taking exams in Hajipur, Bihar. (AP Photo/Press Trust of India, File)
NEW DELHI — It’s only the fourth day of annual examinations in India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh and already the government says 661,643 students — around 10 percent of the total number enrolled — have failed to show up.
A government official said it’s because this year they've upped their anti-cheating efforts, and clamped down on the state’s notorious education mafia by installing CCTV cameras and deploying a police task force to catch the cheaters.
India’s hugely competitive examination system coupled with poor teaching standards in schools has seen the growth of a massive cheating industry in recent decades. Students need top marks — sometimes over 99 percent — to get into the country’s highly oversubscribed universities and so examiners are bribed, answer sheets leaked and exam rooms infiltrated.
No more, said Neena Srivastava, secretary of the Uttar Pradesh board of education, who described the “cheating mafia” as part of organized crime. “We are fighting against this evil. We have to cleanse the state of this menace.”
To curb cheating, Uttar Pradesh’s education minister, Dinesh Sharma told Times of India that the government’s new measures this year included clamping down on suspicious exam centers and firing lax district inspectors. Top scorers would have their exam sheets published, he said, so everyone could see how they performed. “In the cheating racket, genuine students are worst sufferers,” he said.
Without the option of cheating, thousands of students are simply not showing up. Others are taking their chances. In one school, a teacher was caught dictating answers to students, despite CCTV cameras being turned on, according to Scroll. In another, Times of India reported, five people including a school principal were arrested for facilitating mass cheating.
India tried to stop cheating in school — so half a million students just skipped exams
By Vidhi Doshi February 9
In this March 2014 photo, Indians climb the wall of a building to help out students taking exams in Hajipur, Bihar. (AP Photo/Press Trust of India, File)
NEW DELHI — It’s only the fourth day of annual examinations in India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh and already the government says 661,643 students — around 10 percent of the total number enrolled — have failed to show up.
A government official said it’s because this year they've upped their anti-cheating efforts, and clamped down on the state’s notorious education mafia by installing CCTV cameras and deploying a police task force to catch the cheaters.
India’s hugely competitive examination system coupled with poor teaching standards in schools has seen the growth of a massive cheating industry in recent decades. Students need top marks — sometimes over 99 percent — to get into the country’s highly oversubscribed universities and so examiners are bribed, answer sheets leaked and exam rooms infiltrated.
No more, said Neena Srivastava, secretary of the Uttar Pradesh board of education, who described the “cheating mafia” as part of organized crime. “We are fighting against this evil. We have to cleanse the state of this menace.”
To curb cheating, Uttar Pradesh’s education minister, Dinesh Sharma told Times of India that the government’s new measures this year included clamping down on suspicious exam centers and firing lax district inspectors. Top scorers would have their exam sheets published, he said, so everyone could see how they performed. “In the cheating racket, genuine students are worst sufferers,” he said.
Without the option of cheating, thousands of students are simply not showing up. Others are taking their chances. In one school, a teacher was caught dictating answers to students, despite CCTV cameras being turned on, according to Scroll. In another, Times of India reported, five people including a school principal were arrested for facilitating mass cheating.
