原文标题：
Education in India
Testing situation
Widespread cheating is yet another symptom of a poor education system
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As india’s exam season kicked off earlier this year , Facebook groups dedicated to helping with preparations were inundated with offers of guaranteed academic success. “Get leaked questions and answers before your upcoming exam, 100% guaranteed and secured,” read one. “Get certificate without sitting exams 100% legal,” promised another.
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India’s education system is brutal. The bar for entry to university is extraordinarily high. There is a near-unlimited pool of applicants for the top institutions. Until it changed its policies this year, Delhi University, among the best, required prospective students to have scored at least 99% in their school-leaving exams. Stratospheric parental expectations only add to the pressure. Getting into university is not the end of it, either. High marks are necessary there, too, so that graduates can go on to foreign universities or find jobs at home. Plenty of canny (if dubious) entrepreneurs are only too happy to offer shortcuts to success—for a hefty price.
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Cheating is thus widespread. It is also organised and elaborate. In a survey in 2021 by Learning Spiral, a big provider of online-exam software, 73% of university students admitted to cheating in online tests. Neha, who teaches at an engineering college in Maharashtra, a western state, reckons that 90% of her students cheat in some form.
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At its simplest, cheating involves smuggling notes into the exam hall or buying stolen test papers. Students are routinely frisked as they enter the hall. Question papers are often kept under lock and key in police stations or government buildings. They are nonetheless commonly leaked on social media. Sarita Sinha, a former schoolteacher who now runs a prep centre, says she does not find this surprising. “Even if you lock it in police stations, you think the policemen do not have children?” she says. Yet it works both ways. Once a paper is out online, it quickly goes viral. This means everyone—including the authorities—discovers the leak and questions can be changed.
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Officials are turning to ever more sophisticated and stringent measures. This year, the state of West Bengal installed internet jammers near schools in many districts. It also put cctv cameras in exam halls and insisted students trade in their face masks for fresh ones provided by the school. More basic methods are also used: in 2019, a school in Karnataka, in the south, forced students to wear cardboard boxes over their heads—cut open on one side—to foil cheating.
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Yet even as officials come up with novel ideas, so do the cheats. In February, a medical student at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in Indore, a small city, was caught with a skin-coloured Bluetooth device surgically implanted in his ear. A phone linked to the device was sewn into a secret trouser pocket. Last year, ten students taking a trainee-teacher exam were arrested for attempting to use Bluetooth gadgets concealed in the soles of their flip-flops. At least 25 students had bought such footwear from a gang for 600,000 rupees ($7,700) a pair. It is often mandatory for students to remove shoes and socks before exams.
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Parents, too, sometimes help with the cheating. In 2015 dozens of them scaled the outside of a five-storey building to pass answers to their schoolchildren taking crucial year-end exams inside. Hundreds, including parents, were arrested and at least 750 students expelled.
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The problem may be with the education system itself, rather than any innate dishonesty among students. Teachers receive low salaries and can be bribed to help or turn a blind eye. Schools care about pass rates. Learning revolves around memorisation rather than understanding or reasoning. Outcomes are poor. Exams requiring thought rather than regurgitation would be harder to memorise, says Ms Sinha. The quality of education would improve, too. The Indian government is mulling changes to the way it assesses students at higher levels. Until then, the cat-and-mouse game between students and invigilators is doomed to continue.
（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量685左右）
原文出自：2022年5月28日《经济学人》Asia版块
精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路
本文翻译整理：Irene
本文编辑校对: Irene
仅供个人英语学习交流使用。
【补充资料】（来自于网络）
印度学生作弊事件，据英国广播公司3月19日报道，仅比哈尔邦就有约140万学生正在参加他们的学校毕业考试，这被视为对他们能否有个成功的职业生涯至关重要。学生作弊的猖狂程度令人咂舌，诸多家长铤而走险扮演“蜘蛛人”，攀爬考试中心给孩子们传递小抄。至少750名学生被取消考试资格，当局还一度拘留了协助作弊的近20名家长。比哈尔邦的教育部长夏希说，因为作弊人数太多，没有家长支持，很难举行公平的考试。“平均3到4个人在帮一个学生作弊，这就意味着总共有6百万到7百万人在帮助学生作弊。”在印度，学生作弊猖獗，印度学生作弊事件是其中被外媒广泛关注的一个学生、老师、家长甚至还有警方的共同作弊案件，影响较大。
印度教育体制：印度其实没有全国统一的高考。印度实行“10 2 3”的统一学制，即小学5年、初中5年、高中2年（或被称为“大学预科”），再加大学本科3年。读完初中，印度学生要参加全国统一的毕业会考，这个考试成绩会决定这名初中毕业生将升入普通高中还是职业高中。进入高中后，学生完成整个读书生涯第12年的学习时，便要参加“12年级全国统一考试”。因为这个考试是所有高中毕业生都要参加的，所以可大致将其理解为高考。考完这场试，考生还要视自身需求，去参加接下来的考试。
德里大学：地处印度首都新德里。在印度的高等学府中，是地位最高、影响最大的大学。德里大学始建于1922年，德里大学有14个学部，86个系，79个学院，分布在整个德里市，在校学生大约4万，教师6千多名，职工3千余名，是一所在国内外享有盛名的综合性大学。主要学科领域有IT、理学、艺术、社会科学、法学、音乐与美术、工学、商业与金融、管理学、医学、教育学等。德里大学在印度名誉相当于中国的北京大学。2021QS世界大学排名，位列501-510区间。
【重点句子】（5个）
India’s education system is brutal. The bar for entry to university is extraordinarily high.
印度的教育体制竞争残酷。进入大学的门槛极高。
Stratospheric parental expectations only add to the pressure.
父母过高的期望徒增了压力。
Cheating is thus widespread. It is also organised and elaborate.
因此，作弊行为十分普遍，且经过周密组织，精心策划。
Yet even as officials come up with novel ideas, so do the cheats.
然而，上有政策，下有对策。
The problem may be with the education system itself, rather than any innate dishonesty among students.
问题可能出在教育体制本身，而不是学生们天生的不诚实。
自由英语之路
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