Call To Curb Plagiarism In Schools

BY Hana Roslan

Bandar Seri Begawan - Some teachers have called on schools to implement harsher penalties to students who plagiarise, or taking information without referencing from someone else's writing or speech.

A 27-year-old female teacher, who is teaching Years 10 and 11, said that introducing stricter rules for plagiarism would he good, especially with the implementation of the new education system (SPN21).

Plagiarism would be a big issue for Years seven and eight students as there will be a lot of class projects to be done. "If the students are just going to copy from the Internet or encyclopaedias, then they won't be able to learn anything," she said.

Using the importance of recycling or saving habits as a metaphor, the teacher stressed that students should also understand the importance
of respecting another person's work. "I don't think the students would like it when another person copies their work," she said.

With increasing pressure to perform better in the new education system, she said that even parents work together with their children to plagiarise.

"Parents really want their children to score well, so in order to help them, they might surf the Internet for them and their kids just copy and paste," she said.

She added: "Parents can help their kids to the research, but tell them not to copy. Help them learn to get the main ideas and put them in words."

Calling herself a "self-proclaimed Internet freak", she said that she knows when her students are copying.

"Sometimes I give them a description and tell them to draw it for me. But all they do is just get it off the Internet and it's just really obvious," she said.

Another female teacher, who did not want to be named, said that plagiarism occurs regularly in her school.

"It happened last year to one of my colleagues, where a student just cut and pasted everything from the Internet and another case when students were just copying each other's work in front of my eyes," she said.

"Even when I send them to the principal's office, there just isn't any harsh rule about it because they don't think plagiarism is a big issue. The truth is that it actually is," she added.

Having met parents during the parent-teacher meetings, she observed that parents hardly take

a strong stance in the matters of their children duplicating others' work.

"All they say is stop copying and there are no strict punishments given at all," she said.

Sajeedah Rosman, 22, a Year seven teacher, said that plagiarism should be taken as an offence in all schools. "It should be stricter in schools because it's not the students' original work, it's all just blatant copying and that is just wrong. What happened to the ideas of the students?," she questioned.

Placing blame on the parents is not the answer, she said.

Even if schools impose harsher rules, Sajeedah said that there will always be a loophole for students to continue their habits. "The only thing that's left to do is to remind them of the importance of respecting another person's work and for parents to build up on their child's conscience in reminding them that plagiarising is wrong," she said.

She also proposed that teachers encourage their students to use a bibliography. "When they get to university, they will be practicing this anyway so why don't start now? Referencing work can be a surefire way of helping curb this problem of plagiarism," she said. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

Retrieved from : http://www.brudirect.com/DailyInfo/News/Archive/Jan09/19/nite08.htm on 19 January 2009

p/s :- Guys.... this can also be an issue for our presentation on PF1219 Course.. :))