In the shadow of the pandemic, cheating on home exams has skyrocketed. According to the Joint Complaints Board’s annual reports, the number of cases of cheating in 2021 more than tripled compared to 2019. Now news can tell about one of the student groups that has taken advantage of the opportunities to cheat. The group consists of Arab students who have lived in Norway for only a few years. These students face challenges when it comes to mastering the Norwegian language. Some of them seek help with academic assignments and home exams, but this may conflict with the current regulations. news has gained access to several private Facebook groups where we have found dozens of examples of the purchase of illegal help for exam papers. In the comments section, there is a tip about a man who “works with stuff like that”. A female participant describes him as respected and adds his phone number. It turns out that the man is employed at a Norwegian institution for higher education. We are trying to contact the woman who tipped him off, but can’t get hold of her. The original post is in Arabic. Here is an illustration translated into Norwegian: Offers to write a home exam news calls the academic during his working hours. We pretend to be an Arabic-speaking economics student called “Nadia”. – Can you write a home exam for me? we ask. – I can, he replies. The academic confirms that he will write the home exam for “Nadia” if he has time when the exam is just around the corner. Alternatively, he encourages us to find another professionally skilled person, such as a university teacher, who can undertake the task. – But the best thing would have been if you could pass the exam on your own, he says. We explain that “Nadia” believes this four-hour home exam is too difficult to do on her own, and that she previously paid for illegal help, but failed. Want money – How much did he take others? the academic asks, “4,000 kroner”, we say. – I will take less, don’t worry. And I won’t take anything until you’ve passed the exam, he says. Here you can hear an excerpt of the conversation. We have used an actor’s voice to anonymize which dialect the academic has. We ask how he calculates the price. He explains that it varies according to level of study and subject, and that bachelor’s and master’s students receive different price tags: – Is it a subject I teach or know before, or is it a completely new field for me? Can I take the exam without preparation, or will it take me five days to go through the syllabus? There are various factors that come into play, he says. Soon we will tell the academic that he is talking to a journalist, and not a student. But first we want to talk about those who cheat. No regrets about cheating We call her Mariam. It is not her real name, but news knows her identity. “Mariam”, who had attended primary school in her home country, faced a decisive challenge when she was to apply for higher education in Norway: Passing a compulsory Norwegian test at level B2 (higher intermediate level). The test consists of four parts – written, oral, reading and listening. On three occasions “Mariam” did not reach the written part. She was impatient and eager to start her studies, she says. – It frustrated me that my future hung in the balance, and that a single written assignment should have such a decisive impact – especially since the study was of a practical nature. In desperation, she asked a friend for a “favour”. At the exam that followed, “Mariam” took two phones with her, but left only one to the exam invigilators. The other she hid in her pocket. Hidden under a piece of clothing, she had earplugs in her ears. “Mariam” secretly photographed the task and forwarded the picture to her friend’s phone. The friend in the ears read out the answers. – Every time I coughed, she stopped and read more slowly, then she spelled the difficult words. news has spoken to the friend who confirms the story. – What do you think about the fact that you cheated the system and that the grade you got was undeserved? – I’m not proud of it, but I don’t regret it either, she says and elaborates: – I’m practical and will use my hands in the profession I’ve chosen. So I don’t see the point of proving high academic Norwegian skills when I don’t need it at work. Support, but also skepticism Posts appear regularly on Facebook groups where people ask for illegal help. Most of the posts are about asking for help with cheating, while there are fewer who advertise that they offer cheating for payment. The comments section clearly shows support and appreciation for those who offer illegal help. Several of the comments are decorated with hearts and flowers. At the same time, there are also voices that warn that this form of help can potentially harm the students more than it benefits them. The posts we are aware of are mainly written in Arabic, and these are often left online. However, news has also discovered posts in Norwegian, with Norwegian-sounding names, especially on Finn.no. These posts can be challenging to track down, as they are usually removed quite quickly. Can have major consequences Figures from Statistics Norway show that immigrants more often than others drop out of their studies and do not complete the degree they started on. Kari Mari Jonsmoen is a professor who has conducted research on, among other things, second language students. She explains that these students have a big challenge ahead of them. They come in with what is B2 level. This is sufficient to start a course of study, but if they do not develop the language along the way, it is not sufficient in the long run, according to Jonsmoen. – Misunderstandings can occur, she says. Many of these students are adults with children, jobs and domestic obligations. This may limit the time to develop their language skills, but they must be assessed on the same basis as other students, the professor points out. – I need to know that the students know the subject matter. Among other things, they have to show me that in what they write. If they have misunderstood the subject or communicate poorly in Norwegian and are going out to work as a nurse, for example, this can have unfortunate consequences. – Sometimes I can feel that they know more than what they express, but I cannot know that. That’s why I can’t take that into account, says Jonsmoen. Professor Kari Mari Jonsmoen at Oslo Met – the metropolitan university. Unknown to the authorities, the Joint Complaints Board is the body that deals with complaints regarding cancellation of exams and exclusion as a result of cheating. They are subject to the Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir). Marianne Klausen in the Joint Complaints Board informs news that they have never dealt with a cheating case where an employee and a student are suspected of illegal collaboration. Klausen has chaired the Joint Complaints Board for seven years. She emphasizes that employees in the university and college sector have a duty of loyalty and confidentiality. If they contribute to students cheating, it is extra serious, as they themselves help to undermine trust in their own workplace and an important social institution, she believes. – Employers must be able to trust that the students who leave the study centers actually have the competence they have documentation of. That is why it is so important that the institutions work purposefully to uncover cheating, she says. Leader Marianne Klausen in the Joint Complaints Board. In 2022, the Joint Complaints Board processed 254 complaints about decisions on cheating. The complainants are often students, and they represent different ethnicities in Norway. Of these, 83 cases were of the type of illegal collaboration between two students. The rest was either plagiarism or the use of illegal aids. These are figures for complaints about decisions, not the total number of those who have cheated. The Directorate for Higher Education and Skills (HK-dir) states that they do not have an overview of the cases that were not taken forward to the Joint Complaints Board, as these were concluded locally at the study sites. Cheating cases in 2022, according to the Joint Complaints Board. Says he does not make money from cheating, news chose to end negotiations with the academic before it became relevant to pay what he demanded. When news confronts the academic with the fact that “Nadia” is actually an news journalist, he firmly denies that he is profiting from cheating. – I promised her to write the exam, but didn’t do it. – Why did you promise that? – I felt sorry for her. The man speaks in a calm voice. We have our conversation around a table in a public place. – It is obviously wrong to promise something like this, but I didn’t mean it. It is the intention that matters, he says. – You negotiated money and confirmed to us that you wanted to write the exam for “Nadia”. Do you have a comment on this? – As I have said: I said “yes” to “Nadia”, but did not do it. This is something I have never done, nor will I ever do. He admits that he has previously helped students for payment, but claims that it was only about grammar in ordinary tasks and homework, and that it was only a matter of a few hundreds of pounds. Kept giving up even The academic shares his own experience as a newcomer to Norway. The first year of his bachelor’s degree in particular was the most difficult for him, as he studied up to 14 hours a day to get by. – It took a toll on my psyche, and I was on the verge of giving up. It was a nightmare. Now I see ambitious newly arrived students dropping out of their studies. It hurts Norway on several levels. – Does this justify charging for these students to manage? – Of course not. But I still believe that students with weaker Norwegian skills should be given a different exam scheme, where they can demonstrate academic skills regardless of whether they know perfect grammar or not.
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money at stake with increasing online cheating among students – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
