A writing about the cheating

Today, after watching the news in TVB, I really feel upset towards the attitudes of those interviewed secondary students. The following writing states some points that I also concern. Anyone who concern the event may have a look.

The Sense of a Moral Wrong

Where examinations are administered under an honor system, say, those in some university, students are allowed to write their answers unmonitored. It is obviously easy for them to cheat, and some in fact do. But when a student is found to have cheated, it is the student who will be condemned, not the system. For the crux of the matter consists in a Moral Wrong: in the student's having abused the Trust which other students have had in him through the system. He might be a clever boy, having beaten the system as some would say; but nothing reduces the fact that he, as a student, has committed a Moral Wrong.

HKCE is not administered under a complete honor system. But any student, who elects to sit in such an examination, must have accepted, however tacitly, a basic notion of fairness, which demands not only that others do not cheat, but also that he himself do not do likewise. The examination authorities have a duty to make sure that students can rely on the fairness of the examinations; but this duty in no way removes the student's own duty not to cheat.

If many students endeavor, whenever they can, to cheat, the examination authorities, for the sake of upholding the integrity of the system, would be justified to increase the penalty for those who are caught to have cheated. Such a move has nothing to do with the glorification of examination - let alone any alleged connection with the so-called Central Values. Where an honor system cannot be upheld in its entirety, there need be penalties; the less the participants are willing to fulfill their own duty (perhaps under the influence of a so-called "beat the system" mentality), the more the system is justified to guard itself through penal means. Cheating students will have no cause to plead.

It is very unhealthy to read the incident while neglecting the basic moral duty of the student. If students believe (wrongly I think) that they have no moral duty whatsoever in writing an examination, the authorities can, in return, have no trust in the students whatsoever, and declare, for instance, that any beeping of a cell phone shall disqualify the student, and that any student who intends to use the washroom, be searched by an examiner of the same sex.

The demonstration scheduled to take place on May 31, 2006, should, if it means to respect the basic notions of Trust and Moral Wrong at all, condemn not only the authorities, but first and foremost those cheating students. Absent such an act, it can lay no claim to the public's sympathy.

Y.T. quoted from http://www.inmediahk.net/public/article?item_id=110357&group_id=11

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