Why do people cheat in exams? The answer is simple. To get good grades. Why didn't they study to do so? There are many reasons. The student was busy elsewhere. The exam he is taking is very tough and he desperately needs to pass. He is lazy and it's much easier to cheat and get away. It's a way to be creative. Some just like to cheat.

Is it worth it? Unless you are caught and punished which is rare, it is very much so. How do we know that? By the fact that students began cheating after the exam system began and are going on. As they say in geometry, QED. Thus is proved.

Who cheats?

Many do but my experience as a "good "student and now as a teacher is that truly good students don't cheat much. It's not a moral issue but top students just don't need to cheat, they know the answers so they don't cheat. Cheating is a need based activity not a moral one. But some do because they want to do better or maybe are just plain greedy. They want more marks.

Does it mean that all not so good students cheat? No, most academically mediocre students never cheat. They are the good guys, caught in the winds of life in a rickety boat with which they try to negotiate the choppy waters of existence without trying to bribe the gods of the watery world.

Let's face it. The cheater in exams is also the slightly daring one who takes a chance, a risk and knows that there are consequences to be paid if caught but still tries to do it. The scale and range of course is wide beginning with the timid risk taker to the desperado but people seeking to be safe rarely cheat.

The creative cheater

I once did a BBC radio programme on exam cheating which has always been pretty wide in Bangladesh. I had interviewed several college teachers on it including author Akhtarzuzaman Iliyas who was then in Dhaka College. He was still recuperating from his cancer operation and moved in a wheelchair. Iliyas bhai was in his usual witty and scathing self, not just making fun of the topic but also observing how creative his students were when it came to cheating in exams.

He mentioned the use of technology in cheating whereby entire answers were copied in small microscopic pages that only young eyes could decipher. He made an insightful remark. "If they had spent the time they devote to finding ways to cheat and applied the same to exams, they wouldn't need to cheat." But that's how it is. Some or many have become addicts of cheating and the straight and the narrow path holds no attraction to them.

They are wise words with which I agree.

DU cheating

Dhaka University leads the country in everything including cheating and as an ex-student I am a witness to that. I will not go into petty cheating like whispering an answer to a friend which happened then, happens now and will do so in the future. I am talking of the efforts that need planning and work just as much as studying to pass an exam type of cheating.

In Dhaka University, exams were held in a big hall especially built to hold them. Tables were set in single rows and there were large pillars to hold the ceiling up as the best of the best, sit down and write out their answers. Or cheat if the need arises.

There were three basic kinds of tools. "Walling": it means writing the answers on the pillars or the walls next to the seat. Tabling: It means writing it down on the table where one sat for the exam. Handing: it means writing the answers on your body parts which can be consulted even as the exam goes on.

A friend of mine once wrote an entire answer on various parts of the body including his thighs. So he had to take regular toilet breaks to go there, undress, read his answer and then return and write them down. It wasn't easy but in the end he did manage to pass.

Beneficiaries?

All the above could make it seem that cheating is a bad thing but there are some instances where it led to positive results. Here is one anecdote that may warm many hearts. Right after the 1971 war, the situation was very chaotic and this applied to holding exams as well. A friend of mine for example arrived at the exam hall, with a dozen FFs who were under him sending a message that nobody should mess with him as he gave his "open book "exam which was basically copying from his books open in front of him.

The story of another friend is more charming. I am talking about. He was in love with this girl but her parents were opposed to the match. But he was very smart. He informed his would-be mother-in-law that he could help her pass her SSC exam, something she could never complete due to her marriage and other ticks on the agenda but wanted to.

So she took the exams and he sat outside in a tea stall nearby, reading out all the answers using a microphone. Not only did the lady benefit but so did everyone else giving the exams. Of course everyone passed and of course he ended up getting his girl.