Should student who caught cheating go to jail?

On the 26^th of March 2014 the Anti-Corruption Unit  (ACU) threatened a serious punishment to student and teacher who caught doing corruption in national exam. Teacher and students caught cheating would be send to court, said Mr. Om Yentieng, the chairman of ACU.

This punishment is very inappropriate and it is a very haste decision from ACU without any concrete consultation and discussion with other governmental institutions.

Mr. Ros Salin, cabinet chief at the Ministry of Education also against this punishment that “jailing students and teachers, who caught cheating, as threatened by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Tuesday, was the wrong approach to cleaning up the national high school exam.”

Of course, there are other solutions for eliminating corruption in national exam besides putting students and teachers in jail. But before going to the solutions, the factors causing teachers to accept bribe in national exam need to be known first. Teachers take bribe because he or she does not have enough money to support themselves and their family. Currently Cambodian teachers only receive salaries of about $100 per month. With this amount of money, most of Cambodian teacher find it very difficult to support their family.

According to The Cambodia Daily newspaper, On January 10th, a group representing public-sector workers Urged country’s civil servants to go on strike for higher payment with the statement of the Cambodian Independent Civil Servants Association (CICA) stated that “the current salaries of government workers are not sufficient in the face of rising prices, and called on the government to introduce a minimum monthly wage of 1 million riel, or $250, with a promise to raise salaries, in due course, to 2 million riel, or $500.”

However, no action was taken for this demand for higher payment. Therefore, they (teachers) take these national exam days as the opportunity for earning some alternative money.

Mr. Salin, also said, “the best way to ensure legitimate national exams was to take away the need for teachers to take bribes.”

So far, there were also actions taken from Education Ministry to eliminate corruption in national exam as well. At the Education Ministry’s annual meeting on 24^th March 2014, Mr. Chuon Naron said that end-of-term grades for graduating seniors would no longer be combined with national exam scores.

From the previous years, the end-of-term grades was always included as part of the grade of national exam and there has always been the adjustment of the end-of-term grade between students and teachers. So now the end-of-term grade will not be included; therefore, parts of corruption between students and teachers for the national exam’s result will somehow be eliminated.

To put somebody in jail is a very serious thing that need to be considered and especially in this case for students who mostly are under-aged (below 18). As one of the governmental agent, ACU really need to reconsider about this punishment to students and to teachers. Moreover, other related institutions should also think about using appropriate actions to eliminate corruption in national exam as well.