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What India Is Doing To Stop Cheating At Board Exams

50 points by thewarrior 13y ago

pskittle 13y ago
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
- 1337biz 13y ago
  * Cheating would hypothetically cease to exist if students didn't feel like they have a need to prove themselves on paper by a score* Unfortunately we are moving exactly in the opposite direction: other companies request them {SAT Scores} even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579395220334268350 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230363640...
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  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.
  - xamuel 13y ago
    >"Ultimately all consistent objective decisionmaking processes [1] must come down to a single number" Look up Campbell's law. Here, I'll even do it for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - pizza234 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      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.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/metrics_manifesto.htm...
- mythealias 13y ago
  Cheating would hypothetically cease to exist if students didn't feel like they have a need to prove themselves on paper by a score I can bet that it won't happen. As long as people need to complete, they will try to cheat.
gmays 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.
  - adamwong246 13y ago
    Disagree on the ADD prescription point. ADD meds can boost performance but you still have to at least learn the material. Pills can't put knowledge in your head. But then again, I'm the one that wants to legalize steroids in the Olympics.
    - incision 13y ago
cridenour 13y ago
Why can't I highlight text on that page? I'm not even sure how to read an article without it...
- dasil003 13y ago
  Disabling Javascript didn't work. I tried to use Safari's web inspector and the tab crashed hard...
- klackerz 13y ago
  They disabled it using some javascript. I have seen this in some websites which can usually be fixed by using RighttoClick addon but it doesn't seem to work here.
- whizzkid 13y ago
  http://scroll.in/ajax/get_article_content.php?article_id=658509 http://scroll.in/ajax/get_article_content.php?article_id=658... Here you go, I hate those developers with small brains think that these kind of cheap tricks will prevent the content to be copied!
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    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 13y ago
      I am sorry, you are probably right. Then my words are for the product owners!
- anon4 13y ago
  Selection is not actually disabled, it's just that selected text is styled the same way as unselected text. You can still hold your mouse button, drag your mouse across the page, ctrl-c, ctrl-v and... Flying squads with police protection, surveillance cameras and mobile jammers are deployed to stop the nation's students from cheating. It's examination season across India, a matter of grave security concern. The threat comes from cheating, which has organised itself into an industry. For those who seek to prevent cheating, like flying squads that randomly check exam centres for malpractices, police protection is often necessary. The exam season could well be called cheating season. It began in the middle of February. Here are the headlines. In Bihar, 200 class 12 examinees of the Bihar School Examination Board have already been expelled for cheating. In Assam, 421 have been caught across various centres. Odisha had a slightly better time, with only 367 caught this year, down from 654 last year. The Odisha board attributes this to multiple-choice question papers that give them no time to cheat. Students who want to pass the exam will have to answer 50 questions in 60 minutes.
anuraj 13y ago
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!
- RealGeek 13y ago
  Central Board of Secondary Education is under the Union Government of India.
  - anuraj 13y ago
    CBSE is puny when compared to state boards where majority of Indians study. CBSE is one of the trend setters in rote learning too!
rchiba 13y ago
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 13y ago
  It isn't the educators, it is the employers who pervert the meaning of a degree and a GPA.
  - rchiba 13y ago
    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.
balladeer 13y ago
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 13y ago
  Those are excuses, not reasons.
  - anon4 13y ago
    What's the difference?
    - Pacabel 13y ago
      "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.
coldcode 13y ago
Cheating in tests being widespread is more of a condemnation of the how/what the schools are teaching than the students.

50 points by thewarrior 13y ago

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

1337biz 13y ago
* Cheating would hypothetically cease to exist if students didn't feel like they have a need to prove themselves on paper by a score* Unfortunately we are moving exactly in the opposite direction: other companies request them {SAT Scores} even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579395220334268350 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230363640...
yummyfajitas 13y ago
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.
- xamuel 13y ago
  >"Ultimately all consistent objective decisionmaking processes [1] must come down to a single number" Look up Campbell's law. Here, I'll even do it for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_law
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- pizza234 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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.html http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2013/metrics_manifesto.htm...
mythealias 13y ago
Cheating would hypothetically cease to exist if students didn't feel like they have a need to prove themselves on paper by a score I can bet that it won't happen. As long as people need to complete, they will try to cheat.

gmays 13y ago

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 13y ago
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.
- adamwong246 13y ago
  Disagree on the ADD prescription point. ADD meds can boost performance but you still have to at least learn the material. Pills can't put knowledge in your head. But then again, I'm the one that wants to legalize steroids in the Olympics.
  - incision 13y ago

cridenour 13y ago

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

dasil003 13y ago
Disabling Javascript didn't work. I tried to use Safari's web inspector and the tab crashed hard...
klackerz 13y ago
They disabled it using some javascript. I have seen this in some websites which can usually be fixed by using RighttoClick addon but it doesn't seem to work here.
whizzkid 13y ago
http://scroll.in/ajax/get_article_content.php?article_id=658509 http://scroll.in/ajax/get_article_content.php?article_id=658... Here you go, I hate those developers with small brains think that these kind of cheap tricks will prevent the content to be copied!
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    I am sorry, you are probably right. Then my words are for the product owners!
anon4 13y ago
Selection is not actually disabled, it's just that selected text is styled the same way as unselected text. You can still hold your mouse button, drag your mouse across the page, ctrl-c, ctrl-v and... Flying squads with police protection, surveillance cameras and mobile jammers are deployed to stop the nation's students from cheating. It's examination season across India, a matter of grave security concern. The threat comes from cheating, which has organised itself into an industry. For those who seek to prevent cheating, like flying squads that randomly check exam centres for malpractices, police protection is often necessary. The exam season could well be called cheating season. It began in the middle of February. Here are the headlines. In Bihar, 200 class 12 examinees of the Bihar School Examination Board have already been expelled for cheating. In Assam, 421 have been caught across various centres. Odisha had a slightly better time, with only 367 caught this year, down from 654 last year. The Odisha board attributes this to multiple-choice question papers that give them no time to cheat. Students who want to pass the exam will have to answer 50 questions in 60 minutes.

anuraj 13y ago

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!

RealGeek 13y ago
Central Board of Secondary Education is under the Union Government of India.
- anuraj 13y ago
  CBSE is puny when compared to state boards where majority of Indians study. CBSE is one of the trend setters in rote learning too!

rchiba 13y ago

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 13y ago
It isn't the educators, it is the employers who pervert the meaning of a degree and a GPA.
- rchiba 13y ago
  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.

balladeer 13y ago

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 13y ago
Those are excuses, not reasons.
- anon4 13y ago
  What's the difference?
  - Pacabel 13y ago
    "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.

coldcode 13y ago

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