Contemporary teaching methods have ushered in numerous changes in education, including the abolition of punishments for dishonest test-takers. This has raised concerns about the integrity of education, which must be intact at all costs. This essay aims to uphold the retention of such punishments by exploring their disciplinary effects, especially when compared to other methods.
To commence, repercussions are necessary for cheating students to rectify their behavior. This is because any dishonest ideas in tests are smothered if cheaters face consequences for violating academic integrity, due to the fact that they fear putting a stain on their records. Otherwise, if such actions are not corrected, they are bound to be repeated, which then normalizes such misconduct. This instills in the student a greedy and egotistic mindset—an anathema to workplace and social ethics, thereby blacklisting them from businesses in the future. Therefore, it is vital that such disciplinary actions be retained so that students can become more morally correct.
Moreover, penalties for cheaters are the only form of universal correction for such behavior. While other courses of action, like positive reinforcement, alleviate dishonesty to a certain extent, they are not as universally applicable as physical and verbal ones. This is due to the fact that there are some factors, namely parental and peer pressure, that carry more importance to students than the consequences of cheating. Because of that, such factors override the fear of getting caught, which nullifies the “soft” methods along the lines of positive reinforcement. Therefore, it is only by applying such corrective systems that students are deterred from committing such violations by virtue of the aforementioned reasons. Additionally, the more liberal ones do not instill discipline on a larger scale, particularly with the classroom and beyond. Students, for fear of suffering a similar fate, are more likely to take heed of the warnings and punishments delivered to the perpetrators, thereby discouraging them from performing similar actions. All the arguments above suggest that penalizing cheaters in examinations reigns supreme over more lenient approaches
To conclude, penalties for the infringement of examination integrity must be maintained, for they demonstrate corrective effects beyond those of other methods. However, it is vital that this be implemented judiciously so that the benefits can be wholly reaped.