DCoder
26.05.2006, 06:16:44
Let me tell you a story about my country, Lithuania. I don't really mind you saying it sucks, after this story that would be a fairly valid opinion 
(As far as I know, this story is not yet covered in any English media, and I doubt it will ever be. You'll just have to take my translations for it, sorry.)
As in most countries, May & June are exam months for teenagers graduating from high school. Those final exams can be taken in two levels - State Exam (equal to A/dvanced Level in English countries) and School Exam (B/Standard Level in English).
Every year, some 50,000 teenagers graduate from high schools nationwide. Most of them are afraid of exams, for a good reason - their grades will directly influence their capabilities to enroll in Universities of their choice and the need to pay for their studies.
This Wednesday (May 24) was the day when they were supposed to take their State exam of Lithuanian (Lithuanian exam is mandatory, you only get to choose whether you want to takle it on State or School level). Usually, the question sheets are safely kept in the Ministry of Education or similar places. However, this year was different.
May 23, 22:00
People start selling those question sheets all over the country some 20 hours before the exam. At first, the prices are ~2,000 € . Then, the people who bought them start a snowball effect by selling them to their friends for like 5% of that price.
May 24, 08:50
With ten minutes left before the exam, the price iss down to ~0.5 € (yes, that's correct, half a euro, same as a pack of cigarettes).
May 24, 11:00
Since the buyers gloated about their "smartness" and even left proof on the internet (asking others the exact same questions from those sheets), the honest students start an uproar.
May 24, 14:00
The news of the exam being sold reach the media, and the anonymous comment pages in the news portals hit 300 comments/hour.
May 24, 16:30
The Secretary of Education (SoE) calls a press conference stating he "will assign [the local equivalent of the FBI] to this matter" and he was "looking for a solution, possibly nullification of the results and delayed re-exam". More fuel to the fire... 500 comments/hour. Most of them contain nothign but completely censored-out whining.
May 24, 19:30
The SoE announces that "the solution will be announced by tomorrow 18:00". 600 comments/hour.
Students both hoping and fearing the re-exam launch their representative web pages with their own forums.
May 25, 08:00
Students from both camps start organising a protest for Friday.
May 25, 15:00
One student openly talks to the media, and says that "the sheets were initially sold by the workers of the printing shop responsible for printing them but when I reported this to the [same local equivalent of the FBI], they discarded it as bullshit". More hum, 700 comments/hour.
May 25, 17:30
The SoE announces that "the exam is hereby nullified, and will be repeated on Jun 08". Media sites crumble under the /.-effect, 1800 comments/hour.
May 26, 07:00 (one hour before the writing of this post)
The SoE says he will "rethink the date, but the re-exam will occur", since Jun 08 is sandwitched between the exams of History (Jun 07) and Physics (Jun 09). 2000 c/h.
If that wasn't fucked up enough... The comments are split pretty evenly with these attitudes:
The amount of people supporting attitudes #2-3 (~52%) is pretty appaling. If you weren't considering Lithuania to be fucked up yet, you may well start now.
(Irony strikes: The Reading Comprehension part of that exam was an article titled "Why do people emmigrate from Lithuania?" talking about how to prevent emmigration. However, it triggered a wave of people who are swearing to emmigrate as soon as their exams are over.)
(Oh, if you were wondering how these cheaters affect the scores of the honest students, the system requires all the results (after discarding the ones with less than 5% score) to be sorted in descending order, and divided into 100 similarly wide (containing approximately the same number of students) parts. Each of those parts is given a different mark - the first, best-scored part gets 100%, the next part gets 99%, etc. You do not have to score exactly the same as the others in that group, you just have to score "close enough".)
Thoughts on the situation?
Who is to blame?
Who is to get their asses kicked?
What would you have done if you were the SoE in question?
How perverted is our mentality (attitudes #2-3)?
Would you have purchased those exams if you were given the chance?
Regardless of that, would you have ratted the sellers out if the police asked you to?
Just for the record, I was not among them, I graduated high school two years ago.
(As far as I know, this story is not yet covered in any English media, and I doubt it will ever be. You'll just have to take my translations for it, sorry.)
As in most countries, May & June are exam months for teenagers graduating from high school. Those final exams can be taken in two levels - State Exam (equal to A/dvanced Level in English countries) and School Exam (B/Standard Level in English).
Every year, some 50,000 teenagers graduate from high schools nationwide. Most of them are afraid of exams, for a good reason - their grades will directly influence their capabilities to enroll in Universities of their choice and the need to pay for their studies.
This Wednesday (May 24) was the day when they were supposed to take their State exam of Lithuanian (Lithuanian exam is mandatory, you only get to choose whether you want to takle it on State or School level). Usually, the question sheets are safely kept in the Ministry of Education or similar places. However, this year was different.
May 23, 22:00
People start selling those question sheets all over the country some 20 hours before the exam. At first, the prices are ~2,000 € . Then, the people who bought them start a snowball effect by selling them to their friends for like 5% of that price.
May 24, 08:50
With ten minutes left before the exam, the price iss down to ~0.5 € (yes, that's correct, half a euro, same as a pack of cigarettes).
May 24, 11:00
Since the buyers gloated about their "smartness" and even left proof on the internet (asking others the exact same questions from those sheets), the honest students start an uproar.
May 24, 14:00
The news of the exam being sold reach the media, and the anonymous comment pages in the news portals hit 300 comments/hour.
May 24, 16:30
The Secretary of Education (SoE) calls a press conference stating he "will assign [the local equivalent of the FBI] to this matter" and he was "looking for a solution, possibly nullification of the results and delayed re-exam". More fuel to the fire... 500 comments/hour. Most of them contain nothign but completely censored-out whining.
May 24, 19:30
The SoE announces that "the solution will be announced by tomorrow 18:00". 600 comments/hour.
Students both hoping and fearing the re-exam launch their representative web pages with their own forums.
May 25, 08:00
Students from both camps start organising a protest for Friday.
May 25, 15:00
One student openly talks to the media, and says that "the sheets were initially sold by the workers of the printing shop responsible for printing them but when I reported this to the [same local equivalent of the FBI], they discarded it as bullshit". More hum, 700 comments/hour.
May 25, 17:30
The SoE announces that "the exam is hereby nullified, and will be repeated on Jun 08". Media sites crumble under the /.-effect, 1800 comments/hour.
May 26, 07:00 (one hour before the writing of this post)
The SoE says he will "rethink the date, but the re-exam will occur", since Jun 08 is sandwitched between the exams of History (Jun 07) and Physics (Jun 09). 2000 c/h.
If that wasn't fucked up enough... The comments are split pretty evenly with these attitudes:
- "The re-exam is the best thing ever, why the hell should we, honest students, befucked over by the cheaters?"
- "Hahahaha nerds, serves you right for wasting your time on learning."
- "squealerz must die u fags ***** *** ***** what r u fukin jelos of us"
- "Dublin, here I come!" (Dublin, Ireland, is the most popular location for these teenagers' summer jobs. Here, though, it is a reference to people staying there permanently, see "Irony Strikes" below.)
- "Welcome to the real world. Al the shit in this world works that way."
The amount of people supporting attitudes #2-3 (~52%) is pretty appaling. If you weren't considering Lithuania to be fucked up yet, you may well start now.
(Irony strikes: The Reading Comprehension part of that exam was an article titled "Why do people emmigrate from Lithuania?" talking about how to prevent emmigration. However, it triggered a wave of people who are swearing to emmigrate as soon as their exams are over.)
(Oh, if you were wondering how these cheaters affect the scores of the honest students, the system requires all the results (after discarding the ones with less than 5% score) to be sorted in descending order, and divided into 100 similarly wide (containing approximately the same number of students) parts. Each of those parts is given a different mark - the first, best-scored part gets 100%, the next part gets 99%, etc. You do not have to score exactly the same as the others in that group, you just have to score "close enough".)
Thoughts on the situation?
Who is to blame?
Who is to get their asses kicked?
What would you have done if you were the SoE in question?
How perverted is our mentality (attitudes #2-3)?
Would you have purchased those exams if you were given the chance?
Regardless of that, would you have ratted the sellers out if the police asked you to?
Just for the record, I was not among them, I graduated high school two years ago.