Excruciatingly Painful
2014-01-13
I once naively negated the claim that cheating could be part of Chinese culture in my reply to our fellow blogger Michael. Today, I am absolutely disgusted after watching an investigative report by CCTV on systematically organized ceating in a MBA entrence exam in some northeast well known university. Some shoddy business men set up training joint to prepare their clients for MBA entrence exams with a dubious 100% guaranteed success. Many applicants signed up for a five day training courses cost around 48,000 RMB. The so called intensive training is to: 1. distribute electronic cheating devices such as earphones and radio frequency receivers 2. master turning on-and-off the devices to avoid electronic detectors used by exam monitors 3. fine tune the receivers to selected bandwidth and make sure everyone will hear it loud and clear&amp 4. ask male clients to carry devices behind their belts while female clients can conveniently place those gadgets inside their bras. Taking exam becomes listening to the broadcasting with hosts sitting in a nearby hotel room reading out answers.  I am quite dismayed by the fact that nobody even walked out after they were asked to cheat. These MBA candidates have already failed before they even get started, when they thumb their noses on honesty and integrity.
Oh indeed, my post was just about cheating in general - not specific to the example in your original post, hence the last line stating that this case was somewhat disturbing. Sadly though cheating is quite prevalent. There are some exams you can't really cheat at (Oral English for example) but I'm sure there are plenty of ways to 'butter up' the teacher/examiner to get a favourable score.
Easier exams to gain access is at least a fair play to everyone. In this story, some university officials colluded with outside training joint to cheat. These guys get a cut out of such organized cheating. How about those who did not participated in phony training? Not fair at all. More importantly, these future business leaders will not inspire any confidence towards the companies with them at helm.
Different strokes for different folks. The schools are likely to turn a blind eye for the sake of overall improved average scores, making their institution appear educationally better. The students are also under huge pressure to receive a certain score given the intense competition for places at universities and post graduate courses. Without much understanding of the subject other than other having memorised hundreds of other exam answers, the need for some kind of cheating no doubt becomes much greater. In the west, you just hear complaints of exams getting gradually easier and easier to allow more people to pass, but with a lower tolerance of cheating.
However.. your main post is still somewhat disturbing!
thanks for your support. It is true as you said that employers will find out. Sad part is degrees in china have gradually lost its sanctity and become more and more inflated. Some universities like the one in the news would not hesitate to prostitute their degrees to the power of money.
ultimately, it is employers who will find them out, after some losses and a learning curve. I have seen this kind of thing happen in the 'education industry'... employers soon figure this out and start to have their own tests and distrust recommendations... it is a lifelong struggle to keep up even if they get past the entrance test.
Sad though. It is good that there are still a lot of people like you who feel outraged and express it. Never hire simply on the reputation of an university or strength of recommendation alone. Keep some scope to reject them after your own private test.
I remain curious on "Cheating in exams is popular in campuses nowadays" . Why is that? This seems different from my understanding. I used to teach in a college, and this is not the case at all.
Yes, our teachers never asked us to cheat and rote learning is not related to cheating in exams. I just want to point out some other existing problems in our education systems.
Even if your teachers turned you into an exam machine, they did not ask you to cheat in the exams. At most, it belongs to a teaching philosophy debate. I know the rote learning has been stifling the creative minds of youngsters. To me, there is huge gulf between cheating in exams and rote learning.
Cheating in exams is popular in campuses nowadays. It's a deeply rooted problem in our education system, which is exam-centered. We were trained into exam-machines when we were senior three students.
Physics was once my favorite course in senior high school years, but my Physics teacher did nothing to cultivate our interests. Instead, he taught us how to cope with exams and to those questions that don't have a good chance to appear on exam papers we should pay little attention.
Physics is a science that we should appreciate its beauty. That means we should not treat it as something boring whose meaningness merely lies in exams.
There's a big problem in our education system as many of us have noticed. A reform is badly needed.
Thx my friend!
Cheating in education sector is more toxic than anything else. MBA grads are supposed to be the business leaders of tomorrow. Hope this investigation report will prompt the ministry of education to shut down some of these shitty MBA programs.
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