Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 5; September 03

Cheating in Poland

David Young, Wroclaw, Poland

Not too long ago I read that a headmaster in the UK was serving time for tampering with test papers. The story reminded me of an off-the-cuff remark a previous employer made about a couple of students sitting the Polish Matura ( school leaving exam) . The students in question had failed a section so the school decided to give them a pass 'because it would have reflected badly on the school otherwise'. To back their actions up a little the school authorities pointed to the loss of one of their teachers during the course although the fact that the school had a significant level of general staff absenteeism anyway was not mentioned.

Cheating is a serious issue in Polish schools, both state-run and private. What makes it especially so is that it is condoned at all levels including parents, students, teachers, and school directors. In many countries in this part of Europe it is seen as a uniquely Polish issue. During a summer course in Britain I was helping prepare a class of Hungarian students for their Matura. On mentioning that I had been doing the same in Poland, I was met with jeers of derision. 'Don't compare them to us! ' was what one student said. It didn't take long for me to find out why.

The main reason for cheating is that it is easy to get away with. That coupled with a tradition of getting round monitoring bodies under the previous political regime results in an established tradition that shows no sign of dying out of its own accord. When newcomers find themselves in this subculture, it is easier not to rock the boat and just to go along with it.

The local market forces are another part of the equation. In an increasingly competitive market there is little space to do anything unconventional unless it has an obvious appeal to the customer. If the needs analysis places 'passing the test' higher than any particular learning outcome, there is a financial incentive to use whatever means will bring about that end.

In some people's mind the issue of cheating is none of anybody else's business. The idea is that a service is being provided (the provision of a qualification or the appeasement of a valuable customer) and taking issue with how this is done is mere churlish moralising. This assumes, however, that everything takes place within a vacuum. In reality, qualifications are needed for employment or further education and those competing with each other in these fields include those who cheated, those who bribed and those who worked honestly – and there is nothing to distinguish who did what. This is becoming a wider issue as more national qualifications become accepted, by obligation if not by choice, in the European market.

That is not all. Every form of assessment has some form of backwash. One familiar example is the plethora of pointless 'exam practice' exercises that do nothing but ape the Cambridge ESOL format rather than develop the skills or language being tested. The worst case is if the test practically guarantees a pass with no effort due to the ease with which a person can cheat and the general acceptability of cheating. This can only hinder a teacher's attempts to encourage a positive attitude towards learning and, in the country with the lowest literacy rate in Europe, it shows.

Perhaps one more factor is what it does to the public face of teaching. This was brought home to me during the IATEFL Poland international conference here in Wroclaw a couple of weeks ago. For the second time in two years a representative from the ministry of education was invited to take part in a panel discussion and for the second time dropped out at short notice with a rather lame excuse. I dared to suggest that perhaps the state had no reason to take teachers seriously given the widespread acceptance of cheating at so many levels within the profession.

Ostensibly the easiest solution is not to stand for cheating regardless of where it is encountered. This suggestion usually meets with the objection that it is easier said than done, especially given the difficulty of climbing the promotion ladder without making some concessions to established practice. Nevertheless, teachers are not blindfolded and shot by firing squad for doing so and it is not as if no school of any description will hire an honest teacher in Poland.

Then again, if the profession within Poland does not act, it may be those outside who will do.

I am not saying anything new when I say that all teachers should take a stand. Where I would go further is in supporting the actions of employers and educational institutions who decline to acknowledge the validity of Polish qualifications until something in the equation changes for the better. When a country joins the European Union it no longer has the right to say 'leave these matters to us'.

Admittedly it seems unfair to disallow someone's qualifications on the grounds of the dishonesty of the country they were obtained in. That said, it is blatantly unfair to treat both genuine and fake qualifications equally when what is at stake is a job or a place at a university. As the European Union enlarges over the next year, the question of each member state's attitude towards cheating becomes everybody's business. So long as any single state respects and upholds standards of assessment (which most do), none have the right to disregard them.

David Young
English teacher from Wroclaw, Poland.