Parents In This Indian State Climbed A School Wall To Help Their Kids Cheat In Exam
The incredible scenes were caught on video. Some 600 students have been expelled for cheating.
By Sadho Ram — 20 Mar 2015, 08:09 PM
On 19 March, this image went viral on social media:
Cheating in India. #Bihar #HTpage11 pic.twitter.com/modaXzQo7C
— Aditya Kalra (@adityakalra) March 19, 2015
The image shows desperate parents of 10th-grade students climbed up on the wall of a school building in a village in Hajipur district, perched precariously from windows of its classrooms as they hand out cheat sheets to their kids appearing for an exam going inside.
It's a shameful proof of just how large-scale and blatant the malpractice of cheating in exams is in Bihar, a state in East India.
This Indian state, with its most varied history in India, was once the centre of power, learning and culture for more than 1000 years, is now a centre of extreme violence, cultural backwardness and to a very extent a powerless state of modern India.
While it has shown great amount of growth in terms of the matters that affects it the most — crime, education, politics, economy, women empowerment and development and infrastructure, it still has a long way to go as Bihar is India's least educated state with a literacy rate of 63% in 2011 (albeit a vast improvement from its 47% figure in 2001).
According to the BBC, many students smuggled in textbooks and notes into the examination centres despite tight security. The exams, held by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), began on Tuesday and are scheduled to go on until 24 March.
Local newspapers have been full of photos of parents and relatives trying to help their children cheat even at considerable risk to their own lives, BBC reported from the state capital.
It further reported that some photos even show cops posted outside the exam centres accepting bribes to look the other way. After the incident, even the State Education Minister P.K. Shahi admitted that stopping malpractices in Board examinations was a huge task!
Speaking on the issue of stopping cheating, Bihar Education Minister PK Shahi said: "What can the government do to stop cheating if parents and relatives are not ready to cooperate? Should the government give orders to shoot them?"
Shahi added that the onus of preventing cheating should not be placed on the government alone. “I also want to ask people if it is not the responsibility of the society as well to stop it?” he asked.
The friends and relatives of examinees often hurl stones at authorities deputed to stop unfair means at the centres. They bribe policemen and teachers to pass on chits to their wards.
“If we try to stop unfair means at a centre, friends and family members of the examinees gang up to intimidate us,” Saroj Sinha, a schoolteacher at Vaishali, told The Hindu. Even on Thursday, people scaled walls to hand over chits to examinees at centres in Sharsha and Khagaria districts.
Dipankar, a photojournalist with BBC, who took the photographs, said when he went into the examination hall and began taking pictures, the students did not seem worried at all.
He said that during a raid at a school on Wednesday, the authorities seized sheets containing answers which filled up nine sacks!
While some 20 parents were detained briefly for trying to help their kids cheat, they were let go after a warning. However, officials say that at least 400 students caught cheating have been expelled.
Those caught cheating can be barred from taking an examination for up to three years, they can also be jailed or ordered to pay a fine, but punishment in such cases has rarely been reported in Bihar.
Education officials say they are committed to holding free, fair and peaceful examinations, and that examination centres are being filmed and special "flying squads" of officials are making surprise visits to the centres.
However, this isn’t the first cheating scandal to hit India
NDTV notes that a few hundred students faced the same punishment for cheating during Class 12 exams last year, and an LA Times story last year detailed nation-wide stories of bribery and high-tech cheating.
qz.com
What's more, earlier this week, a father in the city of Mathura, desperate to get his daughter to sit her exams, lashed her to his motorbike to make sure she got to school, CNN reported
Tied with a multi-strand rope to the back of a bike, onlookers captured images of the trussed girl, her bare feet hanging low, scraping the asphalt.
According to local police officials, the girl's parents offered her several incentives, such as chocolates and toys to entice her, however when the girl was still reluctant, her father decided to take matters in his own hands.
After photos started making the rounds on social media, police officials took the man into custody and charged him with "breach of the peace." He is now out on bail.