Exam fraud symptomatic of corrupt mentality

Exam fraud symptomatic of corrupt mentality

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): One small news item slipped by amid the barrage of daily news on the hunt for alleged communist "provocateurs" following the recent riots here.

This was the news about 1,405 students who were caught cheating in the recent entrance tests for state universities.

Those caught cheating constitute just a tiny fraction, 0.39 percent, of the total number of 357,452 students. To me, however, the problem is not merely quantitative, but qualitative, a problem of character and morality.

Cheating happens not only in school exams. It is committed in other, more serious spheres of life. Corruption and collusion are other forms of cheating. Lying is also cheating. And abuse of power, especially the power of the state, is a very serious and dangerous form of cheating.

What is cheating?

The general meaning of cheating is "to act dishonestly" or "to commit fraud". Cheating in an exam and committing corruption or disseminating false information are all dishonest acts. It is no coincidence to me that during a time when corruption is rampant in society, and lying is considered "in the line of duty"-- that exams are also affected.

There was a time when cheating in school was considered such a shameful act that those caught were immediately expelled. But that time seems to be gone.

Cheating is considered by many students an art, and a sport. Cheating is seen as the art of beating the system. The smarter you are, the more daring your fraud, and the bigger the system that you are trying to beat. Thus Eddy Tansil is considered much smarter and more daring than those who just steal millions of rupiah from their offices. The latter are just corrupt officials.

The question is how to deal with the problem. To turn a blind eye on such practices is certainly wrong; it is illegal, and unethical. Yet to fight such practices is hard. Just look at those crusaders against corruption in Italy, Mexico, Columbia, and Bolivia. They became martyrs. Only in South Korea have attempts to fight corruption achieved a degree of success.

Does that mean, then, that the fight against cheating is hopeless?

I don't think so. The trick is, I think, that we should not treat cheating only as a general moral issue. Every type of cheating is an institutionalized act of dishonesty. Each has its own institutional base and context. Cheating in school is different to cheating in domestic affairs or cheating in business. Thus if we want to wage a serious fight against cheating, corruption, and abuse of power, we have to take each of these dishonest acts separately, and devise a separate strategy for combating each one of them.

Cheating in entrance exams by hiring jockeys is based on the assumption that everything can be bought in Indonesia. Those who commit the same crime without the help of jockeys think -- this is just what I suspect -- that cheating is harmless, and does not constitute a transgression against anything.

It is different from stealing money. If you get caught while cheating in an exam, well, it is just bad luck! If you get away with it, and pass the exam, it is good luck! Life is a matter of luck. Life is a gamble anyway. Such is the view of those who cheat in exams.

How can we prevent our children from thinking like this?

In addition to those classical prescriptions about implanting morality in our children's minds, additional measures are necessary.

We must make our children learn the following things: -- studying can be fun. -- studying is rewarding. -- the purpose of studying is not to pass an exam, but to acquire knowledge which is then tested. Thus passing an exam should be considered a byproduct of learning, not its main aim.

This looks simple, but is not. Especially if we have to deal with children whose family life is not conducive to learning or studying.

Inculcating such views about school life and developing attitudes based on such views requires a big dose of educational innovation. The tradition in almost all schools has been to study for grades, to study for diplomas, to study for academic degrees. Changing from these traditional views to new views where grades, diplomas, and degrees are treated as byproducts means revolutionizing traditional practices in schools.

This will be very difficult, but it is not impossible. It can be done. And even if we only partially succeed, the reward will be big enough. The reward will be the gradual shift from studying based on nominal motives to studying based on intrinsic motives, on the need to satisfy a thirst for new knowledge.

Seen within the context of existing educational paradigms this is a revolutionary change. It is this kind of motivation that makes people keep studying even after the period of formal education is over. It is this kind of motivation that makes people demand new information, new knowledge, and new wisdom. This mentality is the antidote to the corrupt mentality at the base of every form of cheating.

The big question is whether we have enough educators in our schools who can still see clearly the historical assignment they have to shoulder: helping their students become a new generation of Indonesians who love learning and abhor cheats.

The writer is an observer of social and cultural affairs.