Originally Published in Hindustan Times Education Supplement
There have been a few stories in the news
recently about the rampant cheating and forgery of international college
applications by Chinese students. According to reports, China’s single child system
produces highly competitve, anxious parents with rising incomes, who are preyed
upon by aggressive agents that promise to take care of all the requirements for
the college application. These agents practically guarantee success and all the
parents have to do is pay the fee for service. Furthermore, it is argued, that
while the US percieves the falsification of credentials an egregious violation
of the honor system, Chinese families see nothing wrong with it because it has
always been culturally acceptable/required to cheat. Of course all of these
explanations reduce the problem to simple cause and effect and misaligned cultural
value systems, which if eliminated, would make the problem go away.
