A teacher in China was arrested for selling some electronic gadgets designed specifically for cheating in the highly competitive university extrance exam.  She testified that she sold 29 sets of those gadgets in order to make some profits to cover her investment in the firt set which she bought for the use of her own daughter who was also sitting in for the exam that year. 

The gadget with LCD display enable the user to send the content of the test question to answering center where experienced staff would stand ready to provide the solutions to those tests and send the answer back to the student.

There have been many systems of similar cheating communication systems being sold and used as reported by the local news media in China.  Those caught would face very stiff punishment.  The students might face a 2-5 years banning for the future entrance exams. 

Obviously, the debates that are going on is how much punishment is suitable for the student and how to punish those making and selling these gadgets.  Also, there is always an age old question of how to deal with these examination cheaters.

I visited a historical academy near Shanghai not so long ago.  Inside was the collection and exhibits of how the 2000 years old examiniation systems in China were organized and the name of those that gained the highest honor plus their subsequent achievements, mostly as government officials.  A few rooms in that academy were filled with many many kinds of tools being used for cheatings by the candidates.  The moral from this is when something, examination in this case, would lead to great benefits.  There would be honest and dishonest people all wanting the resulting benefits from this.  The question is how the society should act so that those examinations would retain its value as the tool to identify the best or the most desirable persons for certain purpose.

In Thailand, we have had people who has literally paid a sum of money to get the drivers' licenses without getting through the normal written or driving tests.  What would happen, if these tests were for commercial airliner pilots?

Of course, there are also those who need not cheat in the exams at all, because their simply pay some universities, mostly outside the country for their degree certificates.  There are also those who simply bought the degree certificates from the certificate counterfeiting people.

Things has gotten so bad that, at job interviews, I always tell the candidates to put away all the certificates their intended to show to me.   Once, I interviewed a candidate with a CPA certificate who did even know the FIFO or LIFO costing.

So, back to the old question of this blog.