WHY DO CHILDREN COPY

Shocked to read in news - Students made to wear cardboard boxes over heads during exams in a bid to discourage cheating ?

WHY DO CHILDREN COPY?

To understand this better, we conducted a survey to identify: Why do children copy?

The top answer was parents will scold if we get fewer marks.

Other responses were

- I feel ashamed to get fewer marks than my friends.

- It’s a lot of fun.

- Had problems in the family didn’t get time to study etc.

What I am sharing may sound UTOPIAN however we did this.

· We had identified INTEGRITY as the 21 at century employability skills.

· Had a series of focused discussions with parents, teachers, and students.

Questions to Parents - What would you accept? Your child scoring a few marks more by copying or what they score on their own?

Questions to Students- How many marks can you manage by copying?

Since there is a lot of pressure during exam time they replied - a few marks.

Teachers introspected- We scold students for low marks which has to be stopped by us.

We also conducted brainstorming on

1. Marks for society or for me / my child/ my student

2. My performance from yesterday to today and today to tomorrow

3. No comparison with boss’s child, neighbour’s child, siblings child’s marks

Outcome- INVIGILATOR FREE EXAMS at Mahindra World School.

While answering a question from a colleague as a speaker at IIT MADRAS - I asked, ‘with invigilators what’s the percentage of copying in your schools?’

Honest Reply ranged from 8 to 22%

I again asked, ‘without invigilators if copying is 8 to 10% in my school due to moving population each year who take time to adjust to a new system I feel it’s worth a try’

My students, parents, and teachers would love to speak at length about this experience of invigilator free exams at the school.

We tried and succeeded and that’s history.

I WOULD LIKE TO SUPPORT IN REPLICATING THIS FOR ANY SCHOOLS WHO WOULD LIKE TO TRY INVIGILATOR FREE EXAMS FOR THEIR SCHOOL.