A false future

Looking back, it seems that 2014 will probably be remembered by many of us as the year that all major central exam questions were leaked. While there have surely been similar incidents in the past, it seems that this year the problem has been more or less accepted as inevitable, and more a standard practice than a heinous crime.

I have even heard some people say that this is the natural progression of past events. This is not to say that people are not protesting. However, it increasingly appears as if the ones speaking out against this injustice are being ostracised and marginalised. Most others are completely ignoring the event, almost as if nothing of the sort has even happened. This makes sense, of course. The surest way to discredit something is not to engage in debate about it, but rather to simply pretend that it does not even exist.

A lot has already been written on this issue. However, I feel that there are still a few points that need to be re-emphasized, which is what motivates me to write this article.

Firstly, let me point out one crucial difference between how exam questions have been leaked in the past, and what we have been witnessing this year. In the past, exam questions were leaked by influential people in exchange for money. Students and their parents had to have both the intention and the ability to spend the money needed to obtain these leaked papers. There is at least some semblance of hope that the proportion of such people would not be very high, and the vast majority of people prepared themselves honestly for the exams. Perhaps more importantly, the people behind this crime had a clear motive – making money.

But the recent incidents are very different, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Question papers are no longer being leaked in exchange for money, nor are they only available to a few both morally corrupt and financially able to purchase them. They are now being circulated on social networks a few nights before the exam, and that too completely free of cost. Obtaining a leaked question paper is no longer an active crime, needing initiative and investment. It has been relegated to a passive event, something that just happens to the examinees regardless of whether or not they wanted it.

Another surprising, and rather ominous, aspect of these incidents is the fact that whoever is behind these leaks is not making any financial gains in the process. Which then begs the question, what is their motive? What do they hope to gain by their actions, if not money?

I strongly urge that all of us who want this absurd culture to stop invest time in answering that question, because that may well give us a lot of information about how to go about stopping these incidents from happening over and over again.

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The first outcome of this widespread circulation is an issue of morality. When it seems likely that all their peers have availed the exam question and are busy memorising the answers, most students will lose the motivation to study textbooks and prepare with honesty. Furthermore, a significant number of parents will actually pressure their children to find the question paper. Some might even arrange to obtain it themselves, and get their children to use it.

Given that a significant number of other examinees will obtain and use the questions, the optimal strategy unfortunately will be to engage in cheating. Thus we will be pushing these children towards an extremely unfair test – having to choose between staying honest and falling behind academically, or give in and adopt dishonest means.

The second outcome is more long-term. These children who are taking exams based on leaked questions are basically stealing good grades without earning an education. In a decade or so, they will be the workforce of the nation. It can be said without any hesitation that they will be far from being intellectually equipped for such a responsibility. There will possibly be no one among them to fill the leadership positions of our business and industries, no one to execute the scholarly activities in our schools, colleges and universities. Things are already bad and will only get even worse over time.

Where will we then turn to meet our need for educated professionals? My guess is that we will turn to foreign citizens, to foreign-educated Bangladeshis, and to graduates of privileged institutions within the country. Since grades in the central exams will mean little and less thanks to the current trend, alumni of the more prestigious schools will get the better opportunities.

By not addressing the question leak issue right away, we are practically setting ourselves up to becoming either an economic colony or at best a country with an acute disparity in standards and opportunities for its citizens. Neither outcome is desirable in the fruition of a sovereign democracy in today's world. However, that is exactly the end towards which we seem to be headed if things do not change for the better anytime soon.

The reasoning is simple. The majority of our high school students will just find out leaked questions and learn the necessary answers. None of them will have developed the necessary language, mathematical or analytical skills, and yet somehow they will all get the same grades – in fact, the highest possible grade.

With such an inflation of standards, more and more of the conscientious students will also lose the motivation for working hard. After all, who wants to pay the utmost farthing when even bare minimum effort will yield the same results? With such a shift in priorities, even the big schools will probably start losing the battle of getting students to learn. Once again, there will simply be no motivation to really apply the effort and learn something.

Thus our own citizens will have to be content with the grunt work, at best with mid-level management, while the top level and leadership duties go to a separate, privileged class, educated abroad or in expensive private schools. Clearly such an apartheid system cannot be a desirable end, and will only cause great social discontent.

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This year, all the major exams have suffered the issue of questions papers being leaked. Even exams like PSC and JSC have suffered from this, which is particularly sad when you consider what mental torment this must be for the really young exam candidates of these exams.

However, I think it is imperative that we see past the short-term moral and emotional trauma, and recognise that failure to solve this problem will jeopardise the very democratic and social fibre of this nation in the long-term. It is very tempting to preach to our children, remind them of the importance of honesty and tell them to resist the temptation to cheat in some of the most important central exams of their lives.

But we need to understand that unless we provide them with a social structure where honesty is at least made a safe if not rewarding trait, we simply do not have any right to preach anything to them.

Their whole lives and careers are at stake with these exams, and it makes perfect sense that they will be under a lot of pressure to excel. The least we can do is take steps to ensure that they can do so in a fair environment, and that the long term future of the country is secure and equitable for everyone.

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Hammad Ali is a teacher of Computer Science and Engineering at BRAC University.