I guess everyone is already aware of the HSC paper fiasco. Read Carrot Madman‘s blog entry if not.
Cambridge International Examinations is at fault. You simply can’t have the same exam paper in two different countries if the students are not sitting at the same time. I can’t believe how arrogant Cambridge is when its solution to this major problems is simply to punish the “culprits”. How come Cambridge has the audacity to call students who were simply working out past papers culprits? I would call them conscientious instead. Those students did not know that the same set of questions would appear in their own exam paper 12 hours later.
[I’m not saying that practising past papers is the best way to learn. In fact, Cambridge advised us against that in May 2007 and I blogged on that. But in practise, this is how most students learn in Mauritius (and, I would hazard, in India, China, etc.)]
Some of the reactions in Mauritius are also outrageous. I’ve heard that someone important from the Mauritius Examinations Syndicate said that Facebook needs to be blocked. This shows how ignorant people are in this country. Blocking Facebook would not change an iota the fact that Cambridge is at fault.
I love this saying: “Lorsque le sage montre la lune du doigt, l’imbécile regarde le doigt.”
I sincerely think it’s time for us, Mauritians, to consider getting rid of the Cambridge International Examinations. I believe that Mauritius can prepare its own O-level and A-level exams and award its own certificates as this is already being done at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Mauritius for example.
I hope someone intelligent is trying to find a solution to this whole mess.
Â
I fear that we dont have such intelligent people governing our island…
They only talk without thinking “ban facebook!”
Hi, blackpapers.info closed down its downloads. And by the way, Selven, hackers.mu download files contain worms and trojans (ophcrack and keygen for windows forensics) Anyway hackers.mu still have potential to become a good underground site. I got a rar file which i forgotten its password,selven dont you know a tool which will break the password for the rar file instantly(i dont want to use dictionary or brute attack). SELVEN i hope you will reply.
They did block facebook down in the past and now i guess this bad habbit is comming over again! Shooting at the Internet is not going to solve anything, i agree – we should ditch CIE and prepare our own certificates!
That’s a better suggestion… Since practically speaking The SC and HSC result is only recognisable locally… And all the scholarships are given by the local government… so it’s now time for the Secondary education of Mauritius to be “Independent” for preparing their own exam papers… (I must agree they might turn out to be more tough than cambridge papers :P ) And can still be affiliated with Cambridge university…
Enfin dans maurice la ena dimoune couyon… Ban facebook would be a really very stupid steps… It will simply make them a laughing stock… LOL
Cambridge are just concerned with money. They issue the same paper to all countries taking part in their exam so that they avoid the hassle of preparing several different papers. But on the other hand, if they did issue different papers for each country, there would be no such thing like ‘The Cambridge exam top in the world awards’, because each country wouldn’t be taking the same paper.
Nevertheless, i have much admiration for cambridge, for the quality of their examinations. By ‘quality’ i mean, the types of questions they set. It’s really hard to get a good result in the a-level, if you’ve just memorised everything and came to sit for the exam, though you might just pass. The questions can be answered only if there is understanding of concepts.
Giving full control of the SC/HSC exams to a mauritius examining body is not a bad idea, but i really doubt if we have quality, and most importantly ‘experience’ in making our own examinations…such important one like the advanced level examination (though one might argue that we are doing it at tertiary level :P)
As for closing down facebook, then what about hi5, blackpapers,windows live, and millions of other forums on the net…will you ban them all?? And besides there are hundreds of other mauritians out there apart from students, using facebook as a social network not just to ‘leak’ papers but to keep in touch with friends and relatives. What about them?
The best solution may be to examine different papers in all the countries, but i fear this may lead to cambridge increasing the exam fees, a nightmare for many mauritian households !!
that’s the result of employing x or y because A or B knows him/her.
brainless fellows!
anywayz, that’s entirely cambridge fault, even if we can prove that the students knew this is the paper they were going to take and looked at it, while ethically its bad for the student, they are not at fault, it is still a flaw of cambridge, we pay not to get flawed stuffs, so its their mistake.
lol infact i believe its a good thing this was published on facebook itself, if that was simply mailed secretly to only a few, we would never have known and this whole thing would never have found a solution.
Cambridge wants to make 100% profit and hence does illogical thing.
But then, i wouldn’t want the papers to be made in mauritius, i still prefer it to be made at cambridge.. .reason being:
1. I don’t trust the way the mauritian system is [the number of leakage will be outrageous]
2. we are not that much “recognized” worldwide [ sad truth :( ]
anywayz, next time before these guy start talking, they better think well before opening up their mouth.
Ahh yeah i forgot…
me and my friend roushdat were talking about that on msn the other day… then thoguht of that..
imagine the owner of facebook was living in mauritius, hahahahaha the CID would have picked him up right after that and beaten him up for a confession!
To Selven:
The Mauritian system is trustworthy. As far as I know, UoM has not leaked any paper lately… As for being internationally recognised, this requires some work at the diplomatic level but it’s not a major problem as our BSc, MSc and PhD are already internationally recognised.
Everyone’s looking for a scapegoat in this scandal.. (hear Facebook) but they’ll all missing the big one – Cambridge.
If Cambridge is incompetent & they are taking things too lightly (LOL at being able to identify everyone who “cheated”), it’s time we look elsewhere for organizing these exams. The whole system is in fact flawed. IB (Baccalaureate) I think?
While reading this , i can’t but ask myself :don’t you guys think that this leakage has been going on for some years now?…..i recall when i was doing my HSC 4 yrs back and after some physics paper learnt that, i had friends “kine ggn banes tuyo banker”….!!if i recall , they already knew what the ‘design’ question would be..
Of Course Cambridge is at fault and I do feel really sorry for the students this year for having been disturbed not once, but twice (including Go Slow rubbish). I have some friends doing HSc, having prepared for it since long, and others doing 3rd year (some for scholarship). I can only wish they can still make it through.
However this, yet another blunder from the never erring Cambridge, should not be overlooked, rather must be looked upon as an opportunity to reconsider our options. As for local papers, I am not too fond of the idea, perhaps we should look towards other (foreign) examination bodies like University of London. From their past papers, and what I have heard, their examination and professionalism levels are very high.
As for Cambridge, the one paper for all has been creating several problems for students for quite long, including having to sit for exams on Public Holidays (I know people rushing for rituals in the morning then exams next, how disturbed must they have been!)
@Arun
“Nevertheless, i have much admiration for cambridge, for the quality of their examinations. By ‘quality’ i mean, the types of questions they set. It’s really hard to get a good result in the a-level, if you’ve just memorised everything and came to sit for the exam, though you might just pass. The questions can be answered only if there is understanding of concepts.”
LoL you must be really kidding. As for most exams, much is about memorization and understanding of the technique of answering, and as Avinash said, Past Papers. If you got those right, who cares if you don’t know a thing about the subject, you are gonna get good results. Being myself someone who didn’t learn a thing (no notes, not following classes/doing hwork), and having recently taken HSc exams (with relatively much success), I know what I am saying (and no I am not an exception, same thing happened with my friends, not that I am encouraging anyone to emulate us.).
True.
One can succeed at HSc level without really understanding the fundamental concepts. Personally, I think this is the biggest problem we have in Mauritius: so many young brains being wasted!
Past papers are a curse if they are used, as fluxy pointed out so well, to acquire question-answering skills. Well, as far as i know, PP are used just for that! But, from personal experience, past papers are also a blessing. You may read a thousand times through an A-Level chapter and not understand a thing about what you are reading, and then you just try out a few past exam papers and you are enlightened! This is because, like i said earlier, cambridge set their questions to focus on concept. You are right in saying that one can succeed just by memorisation (i even know people who got distinctions at SC just by learning mark schemes). But it depends on candidates, and most importantly on how they are taught. If you do understand what you are learning, why would you bother learning answers by heart?
I think the basic problem is with the mauritian educational system, but that does not mean i’m taking sides with cambridge.
I sincerely think Cambridge are to blame for the leakage scandal, because they are money-minded people. How can one treat an exam leakage matter so lightly? I bet they would have been more active had that happened in their own country!
@akash:
For practicals (Chemistry, Physics..), the labs are prepared by lab attendants, perhaps this could lead to a form of leakage as well…
At least the ICTA has learned from its previous fiasco regarding the blockade of Facebook because of fake profiles of political figures.
News reports say that the ICTA has been questions as to whether it would consider blocking Facebook temporarily until exams are over. The ICTA responded that its not a planned course of action.
Do we have intelligent people in Mauritius sitting at the right place?
I totally agree that the HSC exams should be done by UOM…The government is investigating of introducing IB in Mauritius..We’ll wait and see if the intelligent someone will find a solution.
i don’t agree with the fact that this is being called “tricherie” and some people are indirectly called cheaters.
This fuss is due only to the media in mauritius had they given time to the MES to look deeply into the matter nothing of that sort would have happened.
This thing of leakage is not something new..thing has been an on going process since years by telephone,fax,msn etc…
So why blame and penalise the HSC batch of 2008? why???
Who knows if there has been leakage in the Sc exams as well??
@ jim
wtf, where does this fit this discussion??
Those are false alarms from your AVs [and that section is a mirrored section]
As far as an instant password cracker for rar, they wouldn’t be putting on that feature if it was so simple to break it, bruteforce would be your best bet [i remember forgetting a 7 alphanum rar password and had to let my pentium2 on for days].
AND jim, those are for educational purposes, not for playing crackers.
@Arun
hmm… they were supposed to be doing that already…
@Avinash
Definitely UoM is more or less truthworthy and has never leaked any paper lately [and most of the tutors are ethical], BUT outside of UoM, there’s lot of stuffs that happens, i don’t want to raise anything her,e but infront of my own eyes, i have seen lots of cases [not UoM related], where one can easily just drop in some money [Or know somebody], to enjoy a certain amount of priviledges… which includes a lil ‘too light’ correction for certain people, or a few tid bits of info before j-0 :p.
UoM is one thing, but outside UoM is another thing, wherever politics kid of manage to gets its nose in, the systems gets untrustworthy here. Am sure many here might know the level certain people might get down just to get some favors. [or questions before exams].
Sincerely, i ask myself the question whether this will continue to be the same for the years to come, considering the high intake and the almost invisible rule that says “most of them must go out with a degree else there’ll be chaos” .
myself, i used to value a degree at uom a lot… i feel numb in my stomach when i think of it now… like the feeling of “losing”, its like i place a huge bet and lost… the degree doesn’t taste good anymore.
@akash
:p lots of tuyau i heard, and i kind of always associated that with the fact that its due to the fact that some teachers have great experience in teaching and can do some degree predict what might come out next [probability] [the attendant factor being one more path to focus or increase the probability of something.]
@fluxy
i wonder whether this might give rise to some serial killers of psyco… coz i am pretty sure if i worked for something and other human factors comes in and destroy all that i’ve worked for and leaves me in a state where all future plans have gone to waste, that also without any possible remedial, i possibly would turn into a psyco….. and am SURE there are lots of crazy guys and gals who thinks HSC and SC are the only thing in life and studies day and night to get results, so much that they’ve sacrificed all they can to reach their aim… well i would be much happy if that was the case, coz i feel a great injustice has been done on students already and the culprits needs to be dealt with.. don’t play with other’s life as if they are just figures.
@arun
I really doubt that :p. most of it is based on memorizing formulas rather than understanding. [except option papers for physics]
@avinash
it was a nightmare for me, coz i had to remember formulas … surprisingly the only papers that used to make sense was computing [coz i didn’t have to do anything], Maths [ coz my tuition teacher made me practice a lot in the last minutes (i kind of ran away when we did the basics.. i regret now, coz i have lots of trouble now)], and General Paper [coz i could just write and rant whatever i wanted on whatever topic they gave, just ranting about the topic took a lot of ink].
@at Ajay
:p specially since they got wonderful emails explaining em about their incompetency :p.
@Josh
I dare say the majority isn’t :p… ohh well if you define intelligent as “being able to acquire whatever you want even if you don’t deserve it”, then yes there is lot of such people :p! lol
mais sitemp ki monn trouve dimoune p brillE ar zot incompetence dans boukou place, gagne perr et nepli ena confiance dans bann place kot ena la main gouvernment.
Note: c pas la lafaute de l’icac hein, they do a great job, its just no one dare say anything, i myself i won’t coz i fear i might have to resort to violence against bureaucrats.
:p
@jim
thanks [note its for educational purposes and nothing grey :p
How about boycotting freakin Cambridge altogether and file a lawsuit against them for negligence or some other causes of action. It is time to get the British dominance out of this world. They have done enough harm in the past by dividing and conquering…. lol
I will be glad to be among attorneys taking on both Cambridge and Facebook. Since the headquarters of Facebook is around 40 miles from my house – we might get jurisdiction to take them. We might recommend filing an action against Facebook and let them join Cambridge in the lawsuit and I bet you, Cambridge will have to do something!
Shah Peerally,
http://www.peerallylaw.com
To Selven:
You wrote “the degree doesn’t taste good anymore.” As far as I know, a degree does not have to taste good. I distinctly remember, while studying, that I was sometimes bored with classes and, ahem, my friends. But this is easy to understand. The course content has been designed for the “average” student. This means that if you are really good you feel bored… In that case, you, as a “brighter” student, you should learn and practice more complex things by yourself.
To Shah:
I don’t think Facebook can be blamed. They didn’t do anything bad AFAIK. Personally, I believe that Cambridge has acted unprofessionally by giving the same exam paper (or set of questions) to students from different countries sitting for exams at different times. I would love to have a look at the contract signed between the Government of Mauritius and Cambridge to see if there is any clause on the “uniqueness” of the exam…
To Joe:
I also don’t like the media calling this cheating. As a former lecturer who had to prepare lots of exam papers over the years, I knew that I had the duty to keep everything secret as the future of a lot of young people was at stake. I cannot understand why Cambridge does not have different papers for different countries…
@jum and seven
Hi, i tested the tools on hackers.mu, and it contains trojans, my av isnt a fool, i never trust these PUP. Keygens always contain trojans and these are made just to spread viruses or control ur PC at distance. And i don’t think that cracking a windows password is for educational purposes. simply for the fun, or a a child who wants to break the family pc password. u guys simply say “these downloads are for experimental purposes only”. U only write this just to show that ur not breaking the law in any way. Just like music poster who write “these downloads are for sample purposes only, u should delete them under 24 hours”. Using the utorrent logo is a copyright infringement.
It starts from basic educational reforms. One that works.
We have seen many white papers disappearing and become red files… CIE serves 150 countries and has drill over different education systems and so far all their results have been good. Many countries have been shaped by policy makers who benefited from a UK based education system at tertiary level thanks to CIE.
UK education still ranks the first in the world despite graduate institutions like Yale, Stanford and Harvard.
And UK’s best international education provider still remains the CIE. Mauritian students are lucky to have the mention of an A level from Cambridge to gain entrance at top universities around the world. Even France acknowledges it and many have had a taste of Grandes Ecoles thanks to it. Very few make to to the Grandes Ecoles by being at private or international schools in Mauritius. There are exceptions of brilliant students. The passport holders of a good A level grade from Cambridge surely opens the doors of likes of LSE, Imperial, or Christchurch in the leafy borroughs of Oxford ….
Coming to the recent gaffe of CIE, the process was not well monitored. And surely CIE would figure a way out with minimal damage. But resting on finding a Mauritian solution to this … it will take some work. Policy makers will have to churn the mass of defining what sort of education system fits the Mauritians aspirants first !.
Next comes capacity building, it takes it time and years of testing and evaluating before arriving to a model that ticks all the boxes. Mauritius has not yet embarked on that despite carrying Cambridge for more all these years.
Singapore remains of the CIE most successfully implemented systems of evaluation. If Mauritians could only understand how close they are with Singaporeans, they could work an alliance and based on this gain access to the most highly rated universities in the world. But no, for a Mauritius the standard of quality is only marked by its past colonial masters. In this case, UK is being one. Adopting the IB would be disastrous as the whole population of teachers would have to scraped off. They are simply not going to emerge well. The IB demands a different culture of pedagogical framework and culture which our poor local teachers simply do not have. It can be built, of course. The teacher training institutions will also have to re-shape their training and culture. And thinking patterns.
Recognition – Mauritius is not a major player on the international scene. Other countries will tally the benefits before allocating any approval as to recognize and rank it among the best before accepting it altogether. Russia in spite of churning the best scientific brains still cannot get their education valued at par with UK or France. No CIS countries have a recognized certification for entrance at undergraduate level in EU or the USA. Mauritius has a formidable asset of being bilingual and that too of a good entrance level. Who cares to make this better ?
Wiping off Cambridge …. yes it can work, but not just now.
@avinash
:p don’t put me in such an uneasy situation, am an average person seeking self perfection, so what i meant to say is that, its of no use to make efforts in wasting time and play the game of the system [all that fake educational game invented by a virtual thing called society] when in the end it doesn’t matter whatever you get [note that i don’t believe in marking people all the way], you will end up with a degree [in most cases], while in all that time [i don’t deny that i have learn great things in the system (univ,school etc..)] I could have learnt things from the system and ALSO learn things that I’ve ALWAYS wanted to [from the wild] instead of needing to save my head to concentrate in getting marks to satisfy a system that in the end doesn’t mean anything.
Sounds like many human take birth, starts going to school, college, univ [in average 23-25 years being in an educational system of some sort], spends around 2 to 3 years getting a stable job and getting ‘known’ in whatever field he is, gets settled down around 27-33, ends up having kids pretty much around that time and now has to live a life where he has to concentrate on ways to get his kids to in turn satisfy the criteria of that same educational system again, until he grows very old and has lost most of his neurons and most of his creativity and lives without any hope of creating anything better anymore and his children are by that time again slave to that system and probably are fighting their way to get their own children to satisfy the system over and over again…. man this sounds like a bloody
void be_slave_to_system()
{
be_slave_to_system();
think_that_one_day_you_will_be_no_slave();
}
in a system with an infinite stack.. and well, keep the thing is that, people just believe that “yes tommorrow i’ll be freed”.
@shah:
Definitely, facebook can’t be blamed.
Its like you are blaming earth when you walked and hurt your leg with a rock.
@avinash
I know why, its because those are not student that are taking part in the exams.. but just figures and IDs, who cares about that, as long as the money comes in.. no worries.
+$3|v3n
“As for being internationally recognised, this requires some work at the diplomatic level but it’s not a major problem as our BSc, MSc and PhD are already internationally recognised.”
I only wished our undergraduate Comp Science & Eng course were a four-year degree one instead of three. That’s what the vast majority of US universities would ask you if you were to apply for a Masters degree.
One thing I would like to know. Is this really a case of cheating or simply a lack of organization and coordination between Cambridge exam centers that led to questions being “leaked”.
I mean if I am an Singaporean student, went through the exams and memorized some questions that came out, then posted them on the internet and/or discussed answers with other students (who may or may not have taken the exams yet). Is this cheating/illegal? Was anyone caught “smuggling” papers out of the exam room or hacking into Cambridge servers or “stealing/selling” these papers?….No? So???
I mean it may be “unethical” or “morally incorrect”, but those are subjective issues, and it’s not like students are meant to take any moral oath whatsoever prior to the exams…
@selven
No need to be crazy to think that “HSC and SC are the only thing in life”, specially when your parents expect you to go to school, take tuition, learn notes and do homework 7/7, 16h a day (8h for sleep). I noticed the difference when going to uni – simply not having to attend tuition enables me to aspire to having a “life”. (I say “attend” because I was not interested in following, I went there only for my parents’ sake)
If the same papers are to be given to students from different countries, they all have to sit for the exams at the same time. If I’m mistaken, this is why the BTS exams start late in the afternoon. One of my exam for BTS started at 15:00 and finished at 20:00.
To carriad:
Excellent comment. I also believe that we should try to copy the (extremely successful) Singaporean model instead of wasting time and money coming up with something substandard (and making some people extremely rich in the process.) Of course, the Singaporean model is not perfect but, as the saying goes, perfection is not of this world.
To Selven:
I love:
void be_slave_to_system()
{
be_slave_to_system();
think_that_one_day_you_will_be_no_slave();
}
With infinite stack space (pity that this function is not tail-recursive or else you could have used a tail-recursion elimination programming language like Scheme…), I feel sorry for that human being.
To fluxy (and others):
Education is about becoming educated… and not having a collection of certificates.
To Patrick:
Exactly. To be precise, there are two versions of the BTS exams every year, one for students from Nouvelle Calédonie (in the middle of Pacific Ocean) and one different paper for the rest of the world. Now, as you said, every student sat at the same time i.e. some very early in the morning and some very late in the afternoon… I wonder why CIE didn’t come up with something similar?
watch ‘Into the Wild’ ….
who can do this ?
Bottle necked Mauritians – time to break free.
Cambridge passport to life ? get a life !
To Avi :
‘I would love to have a look at the contract signed between the Government of Mauritius and Cambridge to see if there is any clause on the “uniqueness†of the exam…’
Go to MES next door.
Uniqueness in international assessment and evaluation for the national curriculum of a country depends on the ‘particularity’ of the educational needs present when signing the MoU. Who knows what Mauritius presented in its MoU years ago ?
In this case, CIE and MES should make an official apology and then offer the solutions. But unfortunately, the media professionals in Mauritius just get clouded in their own rhetoric and miss pragmatic solutions to a crisis when it happens. They could trigger a media blaze to hold the corporate image of the offender and in most cases – it works.
Zoning international assessment procedures are fundamental. Why didn’t it happen in the rest of the 149 countries where CIE was holding the same assessment ? They surely know a hell about it. But one has to take into account the recent crisis crunch affecting the UK. There must have been a lot of job cuts which were vital, and the impact could have been felt in Mauritius when somebody did not do their job correctly.
Listen to ‘Loser’ by Beck Hansen on last.fm
Feel it adds to the current theme going on …
Beck Hansen (born Bek David Campbell, July 8, 1970) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Beck’s music is known for its pop-junk culture collage of musical styles, ironic lyrics, samples, drum machines, live instrumentation and heady sound effects.
pretty bad judgement Shah …
I am listening to Radio One and there is currently an interesting program on this whole subject.
Everyone is pretty much saying that Cambridge is at fault (except one guy they interviewed named Gopee who was completely clueless about everything and who said that Cambridge did nothing wrong and should penalise those who went on those websites… as if this was technically possible!)
[One thing I would like to mention is that the RCC head boy (a guy called Yanish) make me shameful of my RCC past. His command of Créole, English and French is laughable and he is very inarticulate when he speaks. I don’t want to sound “old-fashioned” but I have to say that head-boys were better 15 years ago when I was a student there. Enfin, maybe he is impressed to be at Radio One.]
“I sincerely think it’s time for us, Mauritians, to consider getting rid of the Cambridge International Examinations. I believe that Mauritius can prepare its own O-level and A-level exams and award its own certificates as this is already being done at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Mauritius for example.”
In similar vein, I got to watch Prof. Juggessur interview by an Associate Professor at MIE on TV. The pro-vice chancellor also believes that Mauritius can prepare its own O-level and A-level exams.
Well lets hope for the best.
Euhh, how do you people digest the idea of introducing International Bacclaureate (http://www.ibo.org/facts/21things/index.cfm) and the laureate/or ranked at national level students be given the opportunity to be students in exchange to foreign uni after having done their first year at UoM/UTM?
:p i guess it is, i wonder in what mess a simple tech would be if he can’t reset the password of his customers who yet again forgot his password .. the thing is that… a knife can be used to kill, but it can also be used to cut a bread. Should we ban knives?
If you say so, btw, if you found keygens there and/or believe something is infected, you are welcome to report it [ god [AT] hackers [dot] mu ]
You should learn to use your eyes a bit…
uttorrent: http://nivmedia.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/utorrent.png
hackers.mu :http://hackers.mu/favicon.ico
[see the ring is different and broken]
secondly, the symbol μ comes from the greek alphabet… read http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BC
so???
[Btw, this is offtopic, if you have any suggestion/complaints about hackers.mu, do it there, mail god [at] hackers [dot] mu ]
@avinash
aie!
Most people don’t seem to understand what exactly happened [even those who just did their HSC …pffft].
@cariad:
hmm, your style of writing seems almost the same as avinash!
@avinash
As much as I, and almost everyone else may agree with you, it must be said that this is in theory only. In the beginning we had education, then came certificates as a proof of being educated and then is now, a time where education’s sole aim seems to have become getting certified. As goes the old rhetoric, the system is bad, we need to change it.
I cannot agree more with you, and the irony is, I was myself the headboy of my school last year. I think the problem is the actual context has made the concept of prefects and headboys obsolete – they are like the president, symbolism without power. The other characteristics (articulation, command of language…etc) of course do vary – I do speak well and all, but the responsibilities that the headboy and body of prefects have been traditionally expected to fulfill have not evolved while society has… (as they say, don’t blame me, blame society lol)
Entre parentheses : It is not the first time that I have heard RCC and RCPLA students having a bad command of languages. Even scholarship holders, who are to become the next class of intellectuals are still z-ding the ths and mentally translating Creole into English or French I have 85 % of teachers in Mauritius with the same handicap. Very few Mauritians can write and speak a credible English and French. You just have to hear them in the UK or France. One can easily spot a Mauritian from a mile.
Almost everyone said what I had to say.Just wanted to add something more.
It’s disgusting to find out that some HSC students{I would classify them as IDIOTS} are trying hard to have a re seat because just that they have badly worked in their exam papers and they’re making a big mess around saying that they want a re seat because such things are totally unacceptable whereas the truth is that they have badly worked.
Note that I did not refer to all the HSC students who want a re seat.I used the word SOME HSC students.I had to make myself clear in case some foolish people don’t know the difference because all and some.I got flamed in another blog just for saying SOME HSC WANTS A RE SEAT JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE BADLY WORKED and there were some students who took it as if I was referring to all of them..LoL.
How do I know that some of those who want a re seat are those who have badly worked?
I got some message on facebook from “friends” who took part in the HSC exams and they told me clearly that they want a re seat because they have badly worked and they would like to get a better results.
“friends” between inverted commas as they know me only when they need to get something done.
Concerning those who went on the website.
Many people are classifying them as “cheaters”.But I would really like to know what should they be called “cheaters”
Primo, they were not aware that they would sat for the same paper.
Secondo,don’t you people discuss your exam papers when you get out of the exam room?I still do that.So, should I be called a cheater?Many are calling for suing those guys.Yes you idiots.Sue those guys.But wait.Under what grounds you will sue them?For discussing questions?Then, prepare yourself to sue the whole community of students since I don’t know anyone who don’t discuss exam papers and secondly, it’s not even the law.
To ban Facebook for those issues.Well, I’m sure that the person who said that should be awarded the Joker Award 2008.
Cambridge should had noted the time difference among those countries who had to sat for the same paper.
@Avinash—>I did not listen to that program but I would be really grateful if you could write what that guy said.
I read something in a forum but I don’t know to what extent the statement is true since he did not reveal his source.
“An internal investigation has been launched by Cambridge and MES. They are making a very tiny work to track down all those IPs from Mauritius who viewed these pages.
-If it comes to a cybercafé ip, then those guys will be saved. Else if they get a home ip and if someone sat for the xams, then for sure they will be ‘ungraded’. They will be disqualified from the exams.”
/rant over.Have a nice day.
Cheers,
Tushal.
To Tushal:
This IP thing is complete bullshit. It’s technically possible to know that a certain computer has accessed a specific site using the logs at MT. But it is impossible to prove who used that computer even at home but even more so in a cybercafé! I also wonder if Mauritian law allows this log mining to be done. I’m sceptical.
To Ashesh who wrote:
(1) The major difference between International Baccalaureate and HSc is the fact that (I quote) “assessment includes both final examinations and internal assessment undertaken by the teacher to IB criteria and then externally moderated.” This will cause a major revolution in the way education is carried out in this country. This will require teachers to be much better as they’ll have to do continuous assessment. The authorities should ensure that no corruption takes place (especially in the very unhealthy atmosphere we have here with lucrative tuition fees…)
This will require a lot of work in training teachers and changing their mindset towards their role. Can it work? Yes. How soon? I don’t know.
(2) France, which is a country with a good education system, considers the University of Mauritius to be of a high-level standard (i.e. no scholarships for undergraduates / medical students in collaboration with Bordeaux.)
I would say that if France considers the UoM to be good then we better, as Mauritians, believe the same thing :-)
Therefore, I’m ok with the idea of sending our “laureates” to the UoM for one year then put them on an exchange programme.
In fact, this whole concept of “laureates” is completely outdated. Laureates are not really more intelligent. And they cost a lot of money with very little benefit for the country (how many have returned?) In fact, the whole concept of scholarships is outdated. I remember, 15 years ago, that everyone thought my parents were poor when I was in France because, there, only needy students get scholarships!
AGREED!!!
@ Tushal
Hell if such a thing happens, i’ll be prepared to go and participate in a protest against such a decision. Its like cambridge doesn’t want to accept the mistake was on its side.
What an irony while this leak’s debate is heating on this tiny island, Cambridge on the other hand is busy populating and updating its website with success stories. Countries which recently adopted the Cambridge IGCSE and International A / AS Level examination are celebrating their awards of reaping the best results worldwide. I believe that Mauritians should have been ahead of Dubai and others in securing high scores.
But hey ! what do we see instead ? a little moron who is trying to be the smarter ‘tracere’ like Mauritians excel at being and create havoc amidst poor students who have really worked hard to sit for these exams. Not to forget the sacrifices parents have made …
Typical to our insular mentality we are stirring a storm out of a cup of tea ….
instead of handling the situation intelligently. And keeping a diplomatic silence about it, get the facts and culprits fast using the best resources one can find. Sure there’s much intelligence work out there to ape if not the heel of MI6. Then hold the talk that Cambridge understands. Not petty remarks and poor media handlings.
Where are law makers ? what happened to their pledge to work for the benefit of the country, can’t they sort this out in a diplomatic way and get the wrong doers to assume their responsibilities?
I agree with Avinash about the concept of scholarships, even I was considered as being in need of financial assistance as the concept of having a scholraship for being the best is an American concept. In Europe it is about finacial help. And surely many ‘laureates’ never come back to the country, what happens to bonds or ethics ? don’t know ….. Mauriciens tracere comme d’habitude.
UoM should be able to have its own awards now and internationally recognised. Unfortunately, for those not in the knowledge, universities abroad who approve of UoM’s recognition …. is only thanks to the reputation of Mauritian certification …. which is from Cambridge !
Should we count our blessings or destroy la poule aux oeufs d’or ?
Should we continue the same social syndrome of ‘pas moi, li sa ! ‘ and not finding true solutions ?
@Tushal
My opinion is the same as Selven’s, as both you and I pointed earlier, on what grounds should these students be disqualifed? Did they break into Cambridge’s servers? “Smuggle” papers out of the examination rooms? Stealing/Purchasing Exam Papers? There is no proof of any of those so far, as far as I know, and discussing questions is not unlawful (yet), so wtf?
What if there was no “leakage” ?What if they saw the questions after they sat for exams?
The concept of laureates should not be limited to the laureates themselves. I mean many people see it as, “There are thousands of people sitting for HSc and only a handful of laureates, and these never return, so why should we waste our scholarships on them?”
Another way of looking at it would be, there are many people competing for scholarship, and although only a handful become laureates, there are many who get excellent results, hence the competition itself motivates students to work harder and obtain great results. Out of these, many go to uom, others go study abroad, some of whom return as highly skilled professionals. (doctors..)
Admittedly there are students who, despite having obtained 5A’s, choose to repeat their HSc, simply because of the scholarship. I find this sad rather than stupid, because these students, have exceptional abilities, and have proven it time and again through their hard work, results and determinations, and as such deserve exceptional destinies, which only scholarships can bring. This may sound abstract, but I have seen laureates and potential laureates work – many of those don’t return because their expectations are too high to be met by local opportunities. Unless we improve our local offers (which is not really possible – dependent on local economy..etc), scholarships is the only way out.
Give the devil his/her due and the laureate his/her scholarship.
I just read in a group on facebook that students have been traced by ip addresses obtained from facebook.
Well WTF?..i think, i will delete my account on facebook
another thing, disqualifying these students will be destroying their future.
Did they break any laws in viewing those posts on facebook?
Hi,
I go along the lines of the “IP tracking being full of shit” Cambridge can’t find IP addresses. Cambridge probably just saw the list of all users who were members on the famous blackbooks.info facebook group, crosschecked each one of them to see who is from Mauritius, and attempted to get their name from their public profile. I don’t buy the “have been traced by IP” just like Avinash.
I would LOVE to see the Ministry try to sanction the wrong kid because someone bearing his name has a facebook account and was on that group. I would LOVE to see that kid’s dad open a can of lawyers on the Ministry, asking full disclosure of any warrants/procedures/evidence/chain of custody of evidence and challenging that in court. CIE is trying to find distract us from the real issue: Its their fault.
Check this article from l’Express. It seems Cambridge has managed to “find out” who the “cheaters” were. There is no indication which method was used though – intriguing and very disturbing (Cambridge still failing to accept its mistake).
May I know how CIE will get IP Address of those having used proxy servers to get access to those forum?? And what about those having used email, phone, fax, etc…..?
“Give the devil his/her due and the laureate his/her scholarship.”
Do you know how much money EACH laureate cost to MAURITIANS in taxes?? 2-3 MILLIONS rupees if not more. Yes, out of every mauritians’ pockets. What message to people get of the UOM when the govt says to our best candidates ‘You know what, UOM is crap, don’t go there, go abroad’? These laureates don’t pay one cents for their universities and expect to get big salaries when they come back. What about those students that have paid the 2-3 million rupees out of THEIR OWN pocket? They should ask the moon, shouldn’t they?
“Cambridge probably just saw the list of all users who were members on the famous blackbooks.info facebook group, crosschecked each one of them to see who is from Mauritius, and attempted to get their name from their public profile”.
I don’t agree with this, someone can freely view all the posts on a group without being a member.
If they track those who went on the group, then they should also track those who got the real tips/leakage through phone, fax and msn.
@Zee:
See:
this post.
cambridge…u r da only 1 responsible 4 dis!!
we pay huge sum of money 4 ur exams..n u? u dnt care! u jst give us da papers n das all!
Dunno if you already read this, but here’s what on today’s Le Matinal…
ROFL!!!! :P
I’m not sure I find this very funny…
Yet another journalist who gets his job done by selectively quoting what he needs to create a sensational news. A great day for democracy lol.
Come on Avinash, you can afford a smile, any publicity is good publicity, so they say ;-)
I hope that one and all will agree to my previous posts after reading l’Express today. CIE will ( and has ) made an apology and will ‘sort’ out the matter in the most diplomatic way without wasting precious time in idle talks. The Minister has certainly made a mistake to advance the notion of IB just now, but it is not impossible that Mauritius might soom be embarked on this venture. Afetr all, no one can deny the validity of IB on the world stage. Mr Bunwaree is a far sighted man and he will take some good decisions following this furor. And as M Atchia remarked, the capacity building, the culture, the budget and commitment would have to be forged for it to work. Whether Mauritians leave Cmabridge for IB, it is still one of the past colonisers …. Isn’t it ?
Where is the taste of freedom and self creativity in our pariotic fibres?
One has to come to terms that we are still in the infancy of our strength to fight against these giants.
The ‘frauderes’ and ‘traceres’ are certainly not the role models to show that Mauritians have ”arrived’ in the IT sphere! with their limited brains, judgement and prowness in cracking or hacking …
No Avinash, this is not good publicity for you. I would avise you to vet the postings before you allow them to be published. Not to disrupt the major objective of this blog. A friendly advice. Just in case some ‘rogue’ immoral ones get here and do not deserve your openness in exchange of ideas.
Take care,
I agree that Cambridge should have different question for each country and knowning that there is a lot of people and friend, family, and siblings so anyways leaking is possible in any form. For me the students are more genius than Cambridge.
CAMBRIDGE SILLY AND STUDENT GENIUS.. YES OR NOT
(Sorry Yoni but I had to delete a few lines from your comment as they were not explicit enough. Feel free to comment again but be more explicit. Avinash.)
anyone taking part in the a-level examination of October/ November 2010 here?
I know I’m really late on this one, but I’m sitting for the 2011 A-level exams and stumbled on this, and frankly, with the people at the head of the country right now… I wouldn’t want my paper to be corrected locally.
Scholarships are given on this basis.
And I don’t trust correction to be done impartially.
But Bachelor, Masters and PhD papers are routinely corrected locally. So correcting certificate papers should really be trivial…