High-tech cheating in Asia's
high-stakes exams
By Simon Montlake | Correspondent of The
Christian Science Monitor
June 09, 2006
Passing notes in the exam
room? It's so passé.
Try this instead: sew a tiny microphone and speaker inside a shirt
cuff, activate on a concealed cellphone, and get your buddy outside to
scan the textbook for answers. It worked this year for two first-year
medical students in Lucknow, India - until a supervisor spotted them in
action.
Or why not sit out the test altogether? In China, professional
exam-takers known as "hired guns" handle the bothersome task of
actually turning up to take a test. For a fee, an agency will send a
look-alike to the exam room, with the promise of a 95 percent success
rate for university entrance tests.
As stressed students across Asia sweat through do-or-die exams for
coveted college spots, educators are struggling with a surge in
high-tech cheats. Pressure to get into good schools is heightened by
the belief that only the best will succeed in a tough job market.
Rapid economic growth in countries like China and India has only added
to the pressure from parents and peers. By some estimates, barely 1
percent of hundreds of thousands of Indian applicants seeking college
spots this year will land a place.
"There's too much pressure on students these days. Competition is
cutthroat," says R.K. Mahapatra, founder of www.studentindia.com, an
education portal. "Desperation to succeed drives the urge to cheat."
In China, authorities this week took the drastic step of scrambling
cellphone signals at test centers where millions of students were
sequestered for two-day college-entrance exams. Test-takers were
required to sign honesty pledges and were warned against buying answers
online in advance or signing up for cellphone message services.
India's Lucknow University, which has long been plagued by cheats,
resorted last year to installing CCTV to watch students during the
April exam period. "But that proved to be ineffective in closely
monitoring the students," says R.P. Singh, the university's vice
chancellor. "And it wasn't well received within the student community,
who found the move derogatory."
In Vietnam, crib sheets in eye-straining fonts called "life buoys" are
sold at tea shops before entrance tests, designed to be consulted
discreetly in the exam room. Thailand is getting wise to high-tech
sneaks: last year, 46 men were caught with cellphones taped to their
body or hidden in underwear at a military academy entrance exam in
Bangkok, Thailand.
Gadget-savvy Japan has long enforced a ban on cellphones and other
electronic devices in exam centers. Most universities disqualify
without warning any students whose phones ring during a test. Baseball
caps are also forbidden to stop students from writing cribs inside.
The consequences of getting caught can be severe. China's Education
Ministry says some 1,700 students spotted cheating on last year's exam
won't be allowed to sit for the test again. Last year, South Korea
jailed members of criminal gangs who infiltrated the national college
entrance test and sent answers by cellphone to exam-takers. Hundreds of
scores were invalidated.
But, morality pledges notwithstanding, the shame attached to cheating
doesn't always stick. In the ultracompetitive environment of Asian
education, the ends can be seen to justify the means.
Just ask Ashish, a telecommunications graduate from India's Pune
University. He was caught cheating on his final-year exam - he
diagrammed an elaborate electronic circuit on the underside of his
calculator - and kicked out. But hereturned and passedthe next term,
and freely admits to cheating on most tests at university.
"Cheating sounds too grave," he says, insisting that his family name
not be printed. "Everyone does it." He has written formulas on his
ruler and smuggled notes up his sleeves and inside his shoes. Women
have it easier, he claims, as modesty affords protection. "If I were a
woman, I'd try smuggling them in my bra," he says.
Ashish's mother takes a dim view of his cheating, which she blames on
the new emphasis by Indian youths on instant gratification. "I though I
had taught him that the only way to succeed in life was through hard
work," she says. "They [young people] want too many things, and
instantly, without struggling for them."
India's educators share the blame for rampant fraud, as exam questions
are often leaked beforehand by insiders. In 2003, a standardized
entrance exam for six elite management schools was cancelled after
scalpers were arrested with the question paper. Students had reportedly
agreed to pay up to $10,000 per question sheet until the scandal broke.
Driving up the price is the desperation to get into these schools, and
the knowledge that, in the case of India's management schools, 130
students are competing for each spot. In China, the numbers also pile
on the pressure. This week, some 9.5 million highschoolers are sitting
for national exams for 2.6 million college spots. That's up from 7
million in 2003, the result of a demographic bulge.
China's tertiary student population has ballooned over the past decade
to 16 million. But as incomes and expectations rise, so do the numbers
of wannabe freshmen. Parents and teachers drive home the message that
the college entrance exam is the key to future career success. Only
those who score in the top percentiles have a chance of admission to
top schools, while those who flunk will need to repeat the grade to
retake the test.
An online student bulletin board in Beijing summed up the mood. "These
two days decide our life, just like a judgment," bewailed one poster.
Reinforcing this searingly competitive environment is Asia's
traditional emphasis on standardized testing and rote learning, rather
than personal skills and potential. China has relied on a centralized
Confucian system to cherry-pick the good and the great for thousands of
years, and the enterprising dropout made good (Bill Gates, anyone?)
isn't a role model that many parents would recognize. While schools
like Harvard or Oxford may draw on interviews and written aptitude to
find the best applicants, there's little appetite in Asia for shifting
away from a centralized test. So the pressure cooker of an
all-or-nothing exam isn't going away.
Even in Japan, where the demographic trend favors college applicants,
the heat is still on to get into elite schools. Only 9 percent of
applicants to the law school at Tokyo's private Waseda University, for
example, made the grade this year.
But elsewhere, Japanese universities are falling over themselves to
attract students. In 2004, the proportion of applicants accepted on
four-year and two-year college programs was 85 percent; by 2007, it
will be 100 percent.
Behind this equalization is an aging population: the number of
18-year-olds peaked in 1992 at just over 2 million and has since fallen
to 1.37 million. Universities are struggling to fill classes and
several have filed for bankruptcy.
"Many schools are at their limit in terms of both financial and
educational viability.... They have to emphasize their uniqueness, and
develop strategies to differentiate themselves in order to survive,"
says Hiroyuki Nitto, an education industry consultant at Nomura
Research Institute.
One survival strategy for Japanese schools is to tap into overseas
demand. Two universities in Osaka have launched a business program
focused on China that will link to Chinese universities. Others are
switching to English-language degree courses and tapping students from
Singapore and other parts of Asia.
• This story was reported by Kathleen McLaughlin in Beijing, Anuj
Chopra in Pune, India, Bennett Richardson in Tokyo, and Simon Montlake
in Bangkok, Thailand.