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Cheating

Contributed by Radhi Al-Radhi , Yemen

Tuesday, 09 January 2007

Even cheaters condemn cheating simply because of its obvious negative effects on people’s relationships, establishing faith, trust and loyalty. Sadly, cheating in exams is a serious phenomenon that spread in our schools both public and private. Questioning the reasons of this shameful phenomenon is necessary especially during such a crucial interval since the first–term tests are forthcoming.

The absence of religious or moral restraints is the first and foremost reason that facilitates cheating. Students who cheat don't care about the negative effects of cheating as they solely focus on passing or obtaining high scores in tests – even though the cheaters know well that the results are not theirs, and the information that they write in the answer sheets evaluates someone else.

Teachers' ignorance and neglect of educating the students is another reason that encourages bad plants to grow and harm the fields of education as the bad fertilizer does in the farms. By doing so teachers turn to be cheaters as they help and allow the students to advance without the tangible knowledge and information they have themselves and that can negatively affect the students’ self-confidence as well as their competence.

As the teachers do not pay attention to fight that serious disease and uproot such bad plants from the education field they should not imagine their farms to bear any fruit. Students will neglect seeking knowledge and will not pay an iota of attention to studying. Rather they will ‘share knowledge’ with their friends in the exam hall and provide each other with cheat sheets that advances them from one test to the other.

Are school administrations oblivious to this flourishing disease? I asked Mr. Mohammed Abdal-noor, a teacher in Alhuriah School, who answered “You will not believe that some of the school principals are aware about this! ... Some of them may whisper in the teacher’s ears to ‘help’ the students”. Nashwan Maher, who is a school teacher added: "That's really dishonorable but it’s more embarrassing to find some school principals who graduate some students even though they did not pass the tests.”

The absence of a suitable measure to deter cheating helps such rotten habits to spread quickly among students as the strong fire does in the dry stalks. Cheating has no long-term gains for anyone on any level. And the lingering question is: if the administrators will not work to curb cheating, what is to become of Yemen? Does anyone care?

Comments (3)

1 Written by Guest, on 15-01-2007 14:00
u r right and here in Yemen neither the students wanaa study nor the teachers wanaa teach ! More oover the government it self seek for more illetracy !!!

2 LIUS
Written by Guest, on 24-01-2007 17:32
Education is the biggest issue in Yemen. It needs a dramatic reform. Oh well, i wont start talking about this. I might fill pages!. I Agree with Yasmeen

Fares Al-Dhabbi

3 Reader
Written by Guest, on 27-01-2007 11:49
Did not realise things were this bad throughout schols of yemen..
Our input as expatriots unfortuntely remains minimal no matter how hard we try...neverthelesur article pointed out some important issues in need of urgent attention no doubt..