Horizon Killing with kindness

Parents should teach their children that it is better to face failure in exams with honour than passing the same by cheating

By Tanveerul Islam

Cheating during exams is perhaps as old as the history of examination itself. Fear of failure often leads a good many learners to go for unfair means in order to avoid disgrace at the hands of fellows, teachers and above all their parents. However, until recent times both parents and teachers would come hard on learners on any of their academic wrongdoings. But perhaps the time has changed now. Today, the teachers are expected not only to tolerate the students but to facilitate them for their wrong activities inside the examination hall. Moreover, the parents, instead of giving red signals to their children, have themselves resorted to unjustifiable activities so that their children are not left behind in life. They make vigorous efforts to approach examiners to help cheat their children in the examinations.

The following narrative aptly throws light on the trend with which I came across some two years ago when the school where I had served, was declared examination centre for annual matriculation examinations.

One day a non-stop buzz on the gate woke me from a sweet session of sleep that comes before daybreak. While yawning lazily and stretching my limbs I walked towards the main gate. Out in twilight, I found an old friend of my deceased father, tooth brushing with an acacia bough that obviously he used to have during his morning walk. I was amazed to see the "uncle" who had stopped coming to our house since long.

While I was still figuring out what it could be that had brought him here, suddenly he embraced me and expressed his heartfelt pleasure over my then started matrimonial life. I seated him in the drawing room and after customary compliments he produced slips from his pocket carrying the names of her two of daughters.

"Your cousins are going to appear in the 9th grade annual exam after few days and I want you to take care of them", the uncle told the purpose of his unexpected visit.

Once being a student myself and then as a teacher I could imagine well how most students feel small, especially during the board exams when they find themselves at a new place supervised by unfamiliar invigilators. Keeping this thing in mind, I could imagine his concern.

"Your sisters must not face any awkward situation", the uncle said gravely looking into my eyes.

"No need to be so worried. I would let them feel confident and easy", I said after a brief pause trying to put him at ease.

"Yes, this is what I wanted. Actually I want to make your cousins feel that somebody would be there for them. Now, it won't look respectable if you help them cheating", he added plainly.

I became relaxed thanking him for his plain speaking. But before I could make out anything else from this otherwise plain conversation, he at once changed the topic and expressed his deep condolence over the death of my grandmother who had died weeks before. He apologised for not attending his funeral. We were silent for a few moments. Then he pulled a hundred rupee bill from his pocket and threw casually in my lap. "This is for my bahoo (daughter-in-law)", he spoke in a low caressing tone. Before I could say something he asked to leave.

It was only the next day when I could understand the jugglery of uncle's attitude. When I reached home, I saw a whole family present in my home. My brother was talking to a man while two young girls and an elderly woman were seated in a rickshaw parked nearby. I at once recognised the mustached man who had been my class fellow years back at the primary school and who later had taken to drum beating as his profession.

"Hello sir! How are you?" "Pretty fine!" I replied cordially.

"Do you recognise me?", the old fellow said respectfully. His face seemed to have eased out when I nodded. With no further prattle he took out a photo copied roll number slip from his side pocket and put before me.

" What this is all about?, I pretended to be unfamiliar with his act.

"You know very well sir!", said the fellow whom I was face to face after a period of more than two decades.

"Be lucid!", I asked him seriously.

"Sir, actually my daughter has to sit at your centre so I ....." with no more spinning he disclosed his purpose and looked quite submissive. Now I was on the rack the way the fellow spoke straight about the request but I tried not to be discourteous to my old class fellow.

Two days later a primary school teacher whom I had given tutelage for some time came with the same intention. Unmindful of his profession he too requested that something should be done for the sister of his brother-in-law who was worried about her Physics paper.

"I was not expecting 'No' from you", said he on finding me thinking otherwise. This lashed me into fury. Upon this he uttered something with an undertone of some kind of threats that I was not expecting at least from him. He narrated his own account that how students had been 'facilitated' well when some time back he himself was invigilating the middle standard examinations for which the examination staff had been given proper 'protocol' by the concerned parents. Before leaving he instructed me to oblige people any way.

The concluding episode came in when the next afternoon I found two unfamiliar women talking to my wife like old friends. After they left, my wife showed me another photocopied roll number slip of a female candidate hoping to get some backing inside the examination hall.

The incidents still startle me as to what made parents to approach me with such a confidence though I had nothing to do inside the examination hall. They must have also approached the invigilators deputed in the examination hall. If this is the microcosm we are living in, then why to blame our educational system, the curriculum and the external forces of which we are becoming disbelieving day by day. Doesn't the real menace lie within us. Aren't we teaching our girls (since boys are supposed to be self-sufficient in this regard) to deviate the right course of the studies? But parents should not forget that failing in exams is not the end of life. The worst things will follow in future. Parents should teach their children that it is better to fail with honour than win by cheating, lest they themselves be cheated by their children when they are grown up