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Creativity in cheating as Thai schools victims of high-tech cheating
3 students were caught copying using high-tech gadgets in medical entrance exams in Thailand. It was discovered that these students had purchased 100% entrance guarantee packages from tutorial institutes who were helping them in cheating.
Technology is a double edged sword, with newer and better ways that harness technology for the good of mankind comes the undesirable ways of using the same technology. Case in point is smartwatches and foreGlasses with embedded cameras. While these devices are used today to monitor a variety of things including health parameters, time and a handsfree smartphone experience, little did anyone imagine the ill-use of these gadgets.
It was recently discovered in Bangkok’s Rangsit University that these gadgets were used by 3 students as cheating devices to get through the medical school entrance tests. In response the University cancelled its examinations on Saturday and Sunday for admission to its medical and dental faculties following the discovery of the unusual modus operandi by three female students.
While cheating is a rampant problem across the world, the use of high-tech gear — the cameras were used to take pictures of the test sheet and the smartwatches to receive answers from someone outside — has taken the practice to a whole new plane.
"We've never found cheating of this level — involving high-technology," said university official Kittisak Tripipatpornchai. "We've had some cases of students copying from one another, which is quite normal. But now we're going to be paying much closer attention," said Kittisak, the director of academic standards office at the private university.
According to educators, the education system which places inordinately high importance on exam scores as a criterion for assessing a student is to be blamed for the rise in cheating. The 3 students caught red-handed have been blacklisted by the university and will not be allowed to take the replacement exams on May 31 and June 1.
The Modus Operandi used was unique and put great efforts to keep the 3 girls out of the line of suspicion. 3 agents posing as students and present in the exam hall photographed the question sheets with tiny cameras embedded in their eye-glasses. They then walked out of the room after the mandatory 45 minute lock-in period and transmitted the images to one or more private tutorial institutes where the 3 students were enrolled. The tutorial institute got to work and quickly started relaying answers electronically to the smartwatches worn by the actual students, still present in the examination room.
Test supervisors across all exam centers were alerted after the first watch was seized during the Saturday morning session, the second was found on the same day in the afternoon session. The third watch and two glasses were seized Sunday.
Kittisak shared that the 3 students had purchased a 100 % guaranteed admittance packages from the private tutorial institutes for 800,000 baht ($23,000).
To further deter any similar incidences from taking place across the nation, Rangsit's president, Dr. Arthit Ourairat, posted pictures of the nabbed electronic devices on his Facebook page, getting nationwide attention from the media and the public.
It is possibly the first time that such a scam has been unearthed, nobody can be sure for how long have such practices been carried on undetected. If a nation is going to be built on the dint of such malpractices, one shivers at the thought of availing services of such professionals in the future.