Cheating helps students learn
The examination has a significant role in assessing the students’ knowledge on what they have learned in a given period e.g. semester, term, year, etc. Students view exams as the only platform they can show their academic abilities. This view forces students to want to excel in the examination with all their might. The idea of excelling in studies pushes some students to always be in the library particularly as the exams time nears. Some students wait to shine with crooked means like exam cheating.
Cheating has been, especially in institutions of higher levels, since the schools were introduced. Students cheat for various reasons; these include: firstly is unpreparedness, some students are unprepared and don’t know what to expect in institutions of higher learning and secondly is poor time management, some students know little about time management, they do not know when to start adequate preparations for their exams. Cheating has different definitions in various learning institutions and also dependent on the teachers, for example, open books are allowed by some schools and some teachers, group cooperation in homework is also allowed in some institutions and some teachers. Cheating has advantages and disadvantages to the students.
Some students see cheating as an easy way of passing difficult papers. Since examination is to evaluate academic potential of an individual, some students will want to do everything possible to pass each and every exam. Though they have cheated, they will gain a little knowledge about the course. This can be viewed as learning though in a wrong way. With good grades from cheating students raises their academic achievements. The joy of passing and getting academic qualification without studying may push a student to learn a little of what he cheated on. In institutions where group discussions are allowed in exams or homework, the students learn the art of cooperation with others. Cooperation can be relevant to the student after school. Some students cheat to compete for the little excellent recourses we have around. A student will cheat to get an admission in the top colleges. Once at the top colleges the student can now study and excel academically. Cheating in some cases helps the learner have a mind in the direction of what was to be learned; this results in partial learning. Surely cheating make students learn.
The consequences of cheating are not easy to bear. Cheating lowers the quality of academic achievements. Cheating makes people lose trust to the valuable value of higher education. The mission of colleges or universities is to train an ethically upright individual, but with cheating this purpose is perverted. People will start viewing students as morally decayed and eventually loose respect of colleges. Cheating cultivates bad influence to the smart academic students; they start seeing learning as a temporary acquisition of facts. The bright students will not see anything good in academics. This can be dangerous as students will never think of solving problems affecting the society but passing exams. Also, if a student is cheating he/she might not know what he/she can explain. Therefore, cheating results in an inadequate quality of education and graduates. The future society depends on the current student, and therefore quality must be upheld.
Cheating is bad, but school administrators can do a lot to curb the menace. Exams must not be used solely to judge academic fitness. In test rooms, the teachers can set exams which do not promote cheating, like, essays. School administrators to eliminate rules treating tests as the only way of qualifications in the academic field, this will help prevent fraud.
