Skip to footer

600 Indian high school students expelled for cheating on exams

The incident has received widespread attention after Indian television footage showed parents and friends of students scaling the outer walls of school buildings to pass cheat sheets to students inside taking the pressure-packed 10th grade examinations this week.

|
Press Trust of India/AP/File
Indians climb the wall of a building to help students appearing in an examination in Hajipur, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, on Wednesday, March 18, 2014. Education authorities in eastern India say 600 high school students have been expelled after they were found to have cheated on pressure-packed 10th grade examinations
  • By Indrajit Singh Associated Press

| Patna, India

About 600 high school students in eastern India have been expelled for cheating on pressure-packed 10th grade examinations this week, education authorities said Friday.

The incident has received widespread attention after Indian television footage showed parents and friends of students scaling the outer walls of school buildings to pass cheat sheets to students inside taking exams.

More than 1.4 million 10th graders are taking the tests at more than 1,200 high schools across the state. They face tremendous pressure because they must pass the exams to continue their education.

Teachers and state education department officials supervising the examination caught hundreds of students who had smuggled in text books or scraps of paper for cheating.

"It's virtually impossible to conduct fair examinations without the cooperation of parents," said P.K. Shahi, Bihar's education minister. He said it was not possible to monitor the 6 million parents and others who accompany the students to the examination centers.

State authorities posted police at all schools where examinations were being held, "but we can't use force to drive away the parents," he said.

Nearly two dozen parents were detained after they were caught helping their children, but were released after several hours.

On Friday, the high court in the state capital, Patna, ordered the Bihar police chief to ensure that examinations are conducted in a fair manner.

State education authorities have canceled examinations held at four centers after they received reports of large-scale cheating.

Bihar School Examination Board Secretary Sriniwas Tiwari said students caught cheating could be barred from taking the exam for up to three years, ordered to pay a fine or even sent to jail.

Cheating seems to be particularly widespread in Bihar, although there have been no reports of anyone being sent to jail for the offense.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 600 Indian high school students expelled for cheating on exams
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0320/600-Indian-high-school-students-expelled-for-cheating-on-exams
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe