Just Making Sure...

I was dismayed to read the other day that university authorities in the UK are considering fitting CCTV cameras in examination halls to prevent cheating. My goodness, what is this world coming to? Whatever next - security scanners at the entrance to the exam hall to stop students smuggling in exploding pencil cases?

But seriously, folks, exam cheating is serious business. And, if current experience is anything to go by, it seems to be increasingly big business. Of course, it's easy to say "in my day, we never had exam cheating", but from where I'm standing, this would be true. When I started my academic career in British universities in the 1980s and 1990s, cheating was very rare, and made the news when it did happen.

As a result, exam room security was fairly lax - lecturers who acted as invigilators would carry out a desultory tour of the exam hall once or twice, then go back to their desk at the front and carry on marking their papers or reading one.

There was a general feeling that the students could be trusted, and if they did cheat, they would be dealt with extremely seriously anyway. So we never needed CCTVs or any Nazi-style checking or monitoring.

But the world changed for me when I went to work in a university in Poland in the late 1990s. That was when I found out that the Poles are world experts in exam cheating. I was told many war stories by my Polish colleagues, including the famous tale of the student who received the answers to a test via a ham radio link with a friend outside.

In my Polish university, I saw for myself how girl students would wear very short skirts to exams, with a little piece of paper containing the answers stuck in the hem. If you don't look, you would miss the young lady take the piece of paper out from her skirt to see the answers. If you look too closely, you might be accused of sexual harassment. Neat trick.

Then one day, during a final exam, my fellow invigilator caught a student with one such piece of paper hidden up her sleeve. When we ejected her from the exam room, I never forget her explanation for her misdeed. She said she was "just making sure" that she knew the right answers!!

Here in Malaysia, they tell me that Malaysian students, too, are world champion exam cheaters, though I personally have had no first-hand experience. In any case, over here, a lot more care is taken to make sure students don't cheat. For instance, invigilators in my university are not allowed to bring their marking or other reading matter with them into the exam room. So they have to spend the whole exam patrolling around looking for cheats.

Also, students have to fill in a form if they want to go to the toilet - a common place where notes can be hidden for later retrieval. This 'borang tandas' (toilet form) as I call it, allows the administration to pinpoint exactly who goes to the toilet and when, just in case someone does go into the toilet to 'make sure' they know the answers!

Finally, our students have to place their mobile phones on the floor next to them, and programmable calculators are often carefully checked by the invigilators. But so far, here in Malaysia, they haven't installed CCTV cameras!

But, no matter how many precautions you take against exam cheating, the phenomenon still happens. Personally, I cannot understand it. I mean, call me old fashioned if you like, but I cannot see why students can't do what they are supposed to do and STUDY? Why is it that so many students think that education can be obtained the easy way by either cheating in the exams or by other forms of academic dishonesty such as plagiarism?

Are students that stupid? Obviously they are not. Have the stakes got that high? Obviously, yes they have.

Otherwise, students wouldn't cheat, wouldn't expect to get A for every course despite not having the ability, and wouldn't write essays and term papers that are copied word for word from someone else's work.

I happen to believe that the only things worth having in this world are gained through hard work and determination. If you want a higher education, fine, you have to work for it, otherwise it has no value, either to yourself, or to a potential employer.

So why not use your brains, which presumably got you into university in the first place? Don't complain bitterly to the university authorities if you don't get that A you believe you so richly deserve. Don't criticise the lecturer just because you didn't make the grade. Don't write essays in which you pass off other people's hard work as your own. And don't take the easy path to exam success by cheating.

When you cheat in exams, or commit any other academic crime mentioned here, you are showing great disrespect to those who have worked hard and succeeded before you. Also, don't forget that you are spitting on the graves of those who fought and died in the past so that you can have a chance at an education. You are effectively abusing your rights to an education, rights which other people, many long dead, have obtained for you through their struggles.

Perhaps exam cheats and plagiarists would like to step aside to make room for those who really would like to have an education, such as children in some African countries, or in war-torn Afghanistan.

No, of course not, I didn't think so....

Life's Little Ironies..

After I got over my shock at the new baggage handling prices mentioned in my previous post, I have managed to recover enough composure to comment on an amazing piece of irony that teaches us much about the state of the world today.

Well, today is Sunday 20th April 2008. Now, I wonder how many of you can guess which well-known historical figure was born on 20th April? Come on, have a guess...

Winston Churchill? No.

Mahatma Ghandi? Noooo.

Elvis Presley? Nope!

Surely not Napoleon Bonaparte? Close, but no.

Let me tell you who was born the son of a customs official on 20th April 1889, who went on to be pretty big in right-of-centre politics.

The answer is: Adolf Hitler. Yes, Adolf Hitler was born today, 20th April. Now let me assure you that I am not going to write anything nice about Hitler - I may be Prof Madder but I am not Prof Right-wing Fascist Nazi!

No, I am going to share with you one of life's little ironies. Today, 20th April 2008 also happened to be the day that a certain event was held in Kuching. And, this event was called the Ambassadors for Peace Seminar, organised by a Korean organisation called the Universal Peace Federation.

Anyway, the really interesting thing about the seminar for me was the ironic fact that nobody, absolutely nobody realised that this seminar, promoting world peace and understanding, was held on the anniversary of someone who definitely did not contribute anything to world peace whatsoever. In fact, quite the opposite.

It just goes to show what happens when people don't read widely enough... Or was Satan standing there somewhere in the wings and laughing cruelly to himself?

Asian Air(ip off)

Imagine my shock yesterday when, during a visit to Kuching International Airport, I learned that a prominent local low-cost airline is imposing a "baggage handling" charge for every bag checked in for a flight.

I mean come on, play the white man, be fair! What's the world coming to? "Gore blimey luv a duck gawd bless the Queen" as they say in London! Charging a fee for bags that you as a paying customer want to take with you on your holiday? I understand that you have to pay a charge if your bags are too heavy, OK - we know planes can't take off if they have too much excess weight. But paying in addition for each bag you check into the hold? Never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life!!

So I take it that means we are now having to PAY for the privilege of baggage handling. I thought the baggage handlers were paid wages to do their job? So does this now mean that they are to be paid out of the proceeds from the baggage handling fee?

Great thinking, that means that even more of our bags will come out at the other end forced open, with items missing, and wheels and handles broken than is the case now, because the baggage handlers will be so poorly paid and won't give a damn! Perhaps we are going to be asked to check in our own baggage one of these days. I can imagine my 73 year-old mother in law carrying her bags over to the plane and throwing them onto the conveyor belt!

Apart from sheer untrammelled shameful greed, I cannot see any sensible reason why the said airline is charging this fee. Oh I forgot, there is another reason. They are doing it because they can, because they know they have you by the short and curlies and that most of you either can't or won't afford to fly with the national full-service carrier, even though said carrier doesn't charge you for all the bags you check in....

You know, I am aware I am probably spitting in the wind on this, but I think this is all part of some social engineering scam designed to stop us taking our own possessions with us on our holidays and business trips. I mean, let's face it, who needs to take lots of bulky clothes or toiletries when we can buy these things at our destination, then throw them away before we come home?!?!

Ah, I think I've got it now! I know the real reason why this measure has been brought in, apart from greed and selfishness and all the other seven deadly sins. This is part of a new strategy by the airline to squeeze even more dosh from its paying customers and still maintain the appearance of running a safe and cheap airline. And they are going to do it like this:

1. The baggage handling charge will lead to fewer bags being checked in, leaving large empty spaces in the hold which will be fitted with special bed-seats for more passengers. These seats will be the cheapest seats in the airline industry.

2. The passengers will be able to hire nice red Santa Claus suits to protect them from the sub-zero temperatures they will experience at high altitude if they are seated in the hold. Ice cream and oxygen will, for the time being, be free of charge...

3. Passengers will be able to purchase items such as toiletries, clothing, paperback books, toys electronic items, and suitcases from the cabin staff during the flight.

4. When this baggage handling charge is in place, it will contribute to air safety, because how can terrorists blow up the plane if there are no bags in the hold for them to hide their bombs in?!

Oops! I forgot about the poor Santa Clauses huddled together in the hold!! Some of them might be terrorists!!

Or unemployed baggage handlers!!!

Everyone's a Winner...

Well, somebody must have read my previous blog entry! The bridge over the River Quap has now been fixed, and you can zoom over the bridge like James Bond if you want to. Well, maybe not as fast as Bond. But you get the idea....

Anyway, I had the privilege of judging a drama contest at a neighbouring university this week. This competition was a showcase of short plays and stories performed by students who had taken a course in "English for Self-Expression".

And I must say that I was blown over by the sheer quality and creativity in what I saw. It was a breath of fresh air to see young Malaysians actually enjoying themselves doing something academic!

This course in "English for Self-Expression" gives students the opportunity to create something original to be performed on stage. The course is co-ordinated by Patrick Yeoh, a highly accomplished Malaysian writer, movie maker and former broadcaster. So there must be something good there...

Now, a lot of wags in this country say disparaging things about young people. They particularly bemoan the communication abilities of young people, both in the national language, Malay, and in English. There seems to be a regular, ongoing national discourse centred on the reasons why so many young Malaysian university graduates are unemployed. The reasons cited usually spring from a lack of communication skills, especially in English.

It seems that the youth of this youthful nation cannot communicate, and find it hard to express themselves out loud, so they fail at job interviews, and cannot get on with their workmates. Many of my Malaysian friends and colleagues tell me this is because Malaysians, especially Malays, are afraid of what other people might say, so it's better not to say anything unless you are asked to.

I must say, from my observations, I can see a ring of truth in this. As an English lecturer, I am eternally appalled and slightly irritated by the yawning silences I face every time I teach my classes. It seems that I am unable to get my students to say anything in class, unless of course they are being assessed!

But, it doesn't have to be this way, as I saw when I was judging the "Night of Self Expression" at our neighbour university. Essentially, the students had to put on a play which they had written and produced themselves. Some students read out their own short stories, too.

I was profoundly moved, often to the point of tears, by the effort, passion and creativity that went into so many of the productions I saw. They varied widely, from Malaysian morality tales about the importance of hard work, or looking after your parents, to amusing stories of contemporary corporate life.

Two pieces that stood out for me were "Coffee at the Office" and "Coma". "Coffee at the Office" was a cutely absurdist piece that concerned a stuttering businessman who was obsessed by coffee and by the office girl who made it for him during a highly Pythonesque business meeting with a manager who had a violent tick.

"Coma", which won the contest, was a magnificently dark, genuinely frightening horror piece in which a man, hovering between life and death after a car crash, is taunted by the Hell-bound spirits of all the people he destroyed. Whether or not he ended up in Hell is not completely clear at the end.

I have to mention also one particular young lady who, playing a young wife driven mad by a jealous rival, performs one of the most authentic and spine-tingling screamathons that I have ever seen on the stage. I thought at one point that she was possessed by demons, and I have seen people possessed by demons, but that's another story....

At the end of the two evening contest, the organiser, Patrick Yeoh, summed it up for everyone by telling the students "you are all winners!" And he's absolutely right because by overcoming their personal and cultural barriers to self-expression, all of the students who performed their work were winning an important battle. It is a battle for confidence, a battle for self-realisation, and ultimately a battle for a better and brighter life.

I have said this kind of thing before in connection with debating and public speaking. Developing the ability to express yourself, in whatever manner or shape or form, is the best thing that you can achieve in your whole life. It will lead to so many rewards, some tangible, some not so obvious.

Some people think that the ultimate achievement is to become a millionaire, a Prime Minister or President, or a great business leader with lots of houses and Mercedes Benzes. Yes, but if you look at nearly all successful people, they were successful because they were good communicators. If they couldn't communicate effectively, persuade others, or inspire them, nobody would want to do have anything to do with them. Just think, would Bill Gates have been so successful if he couldn't communicate his vision to others? Would we have remembered Winston Churchill or John F Kennedy if they were unable to give inspiring speeches?

So the youngsters who entertained us all on Wednesday and Thursday inspired me as a lecturer to carry on trying to bring out the self-expression genie in my students. Because Malaysia, if it is to develop its full potential, really needs to have young people who can stand up, make themselves heard, and not wallow in the oblivion of silence and fear.

The Bridge Over The River Quap

There, that's better! I can see again. My new glasses came last week and they are exceptionally cool and funky, just like their owner....

Anyway, I thought I would regale you with some thoughts about bridges today. One particular bridge in fact. If you fly over Sarawak for more than a few seconds, one thing you will notice is that its broccoli-forested surface is shot through with hundreds of tea-brown rivers, winding their way crazily all over the State. One particular river is the River Quap, a stretch of which has a bridge that carries me to work and back every day.

I did some amazing maths concerning this bridge. With the aid of a perpetual calendar on the Internet, I estimated roughly how many times I have travelled across that bridge since I started working in my present university back in September 2002.

Assuming that we remove Sundays and holidays, and only count the working days, the figure comes to something like 1,332 days. Multiply that by 2 to account for the daily outward and return journeys and you get 2,664. That means that I have been over that bridge approximately 2,664 times since September 2002, when I started driving out that way to work regularly.

And for the money-minded ones among you, if you have ten Ringgit Malaysia for every trip, that comes to the princely sum of RM 26,640! Not bad, especially as I have certainly been across that bridge many more times than 2,664, in the two years before when I worked at a private college in town. So I would have a nice little sum if I could convert my daily trips across the river Quap into money.

But that won't happen, of course. Instead, I am left to ponder just how vital that bridge is to all of us who use it every day. If that bridge were to be blown up by terrorists, God forbid, Kuching would be completely cut off from its important agricultural hinterland around Kota Samarahan, and it would be extremely difficult to get from Kuching to the main universities, as well as the rest of the State and the Indonesian border, because the alternative routes are somewhat awkward.

But I found out last week that you don't need evil terrorists to make the Bridge over the River Quap inoperable. All you need is a couple of pieces of metal. Allow me to explain...

At the moment, the Bridge over the River Quap is undergoing a major upgrading programme which involves enormous cranes and gangs of workers and makeshift railways. In fact they are building a second bridge, right next to the current one, so that eventually, we assume, there can be two lane traffic going both ways across the river.

The resulting increase in the number of heavy lorries has apparently caused the metal joints between the existing bridge decks to sink. This is not dangerous at all, but it does mean that the joins between the bridge decks need to be covered over, because cars have to slow down so that they can pass over the joints without breaking their suspension.

And the resulting traffic jams are absolutely Biblical!

The other day, some bright spark decided to place two metal plates over the worst of the joins, presumably with the aim of allowing cars to drive over safely. However, these plates had been placed one on top of the other in such a way that the 'bump' was too high for cars to drive over at a normal speed. And of course that meant that everyone was going at a snail's pace.

It makes me wonder why they didn't just simply fill the gaping joins with concrete and tarmac, or maybe that would be too simple. They have to complicate things with huge plates of metal which cause busy and tired people to drive like sleepy tortoises, when they should have been able to move like hares.

Maybe this is a carefully-designed plot to force us to slow down and appreciate the wonders of nature, such as the lovely river and its rapidly disappearing mangrove banks, or the misty and mystical presence of Mount Santubbong and Mount Serapi, or even the heartbreaking splendour of the Kuching Sunset.

I mean, where else can you sit and savour the endearing social realism of men fishing from the bridge, or the gangs of brown-skinned workers toiling like ants over the deck sections of the slowly-evolving new bridge on the other side?

It might even be an attempt by the Sarawak Association of Plane-Spotters (SAPS) to get us to marvel at the might of human technological prowess as the planes come roaring overhead on their way into Kuching International Airport.

Or it might just be a traffic jam caused by someone placing two metal plates on top of one another in a surreal fashion!

God only knows!!!