Much Need Education Reforms in US

Education reforms have become a necessary evil. Today, where the world has advanced so much in every field, be that as it may, sciences, technologies and education, still, the education is failing miserably to provide with excellence in itself. Students are the real victims in this case. Many of the universities are trying their level best to deal with the problems at hand.

Problems such as plagiarism and student flawed learning capabilities and inability to focus on their respective courses. Moreover, the inability to present their own ideas and their inability to use their brain to be more precise and to think outside the box and critically think about something.

Addition, students need to come up with their own idea and present it to the world, no matter how silly it sounds, but the ability to have confidence in oneself and one’s research to reach upon a verdict that this idea will mean something, as long as it is original and not stolen from any of the author or person.

All the problems stated above are linked to plagiarism and its clouded meaning. By diminishing plagiarism, solutions to the problems stated require much of the needed attention in education reforms and standards. The theme of this essay will be focused on the plagiarism and contract cheating and how to deal effectively with it.

The need of time is for the teachers to indulge themselves in the student’s life and become familiar with their potential and capabilities and to help them or even appreciate them on speaking their peace of mind, instead of picking others research and study and using them to present their work as their own”

Now, what is really happening in the universities, schools and colleges is that, students are suffering from many of the problems such as, work overload, pressure, inflexibility of the course, giving them written contents to learn and prepare from (i.e. cramming), nothing innovative, dry education (i.e. everything is given to them) and much more as stated by Devlin and Gray’s study (cited in Walker & Townley, 2012, p. 35). This is the first means to know how crucial education reforms are.

Due to these possible reasons, students are bound to get rid of all the pressure and work load and seek an easy escape. Therefore, they tend to be attracted to plagiarism. Realistically, it’s not all their fault, maybe some of it, is. Anyone will see a shortcut way to get the job done given that the proper checking methods of credibility of students’ work don’t qualify in distinguishing between an original work or copied work.

There are number of ways students bypass plagiarism even by paraphrasing. By that, I do not mean to criticize the education system as a whole. Universities are trying their level best to eradicate plagiarism. Many universities have the software and respective sites, such as Turnitin.com to catch the offenders.

Many universities also have strict policies that plagiarism offenders will be expelled from the university. At this point, student does come to know about the harms and dangers followed by plagiarism, but it doesn’t mean, he will stop seeking an easy way out.

In addition to that, Gallant (cited in Walker & Townley, 2012, p. 28) states there are many freelancing sites, where millions of people are working as a freelancer. They are willing to do anything until they are paid well. Students are prone to go to these sites and hire a freelancer to get done with their assignments in the due time at the expense of some dollars.

Freelancer are experts in their respective field and are bound to listen and fulfill their client (in this case, students) needs in which it is written in bold letters that plagiarism is not allowed at all or else you won’t get paid. Embleton & Helfer (cited in Paul et al., 2010, p. 51) state that these assignments that are sold on the internet are practically undetectable.

These freelancers having told everything, start working on their assignments, read, interpret, write and complete their assignments according to client’s requirements. Ed Dante (cited in Walker & Townley, 2012, p. 28) writes about his work as a freelancer and his respected achievements in assisting different students in different education standards and fields. To diminish contract cheating education reforms are a way to go.

The confession of Dante provides evidence that there are freelancers online seeking to assist students regarding their assignments. Those assignments are well accepted and well graded by their respective teachers or instructors. This is alarming for different universities as students graduating using these methods have cheated and their credibility of knowledge is compromised.

Their careers and the jobs they’ll apply, of course, truth will be revealed as they’ll be deemed incompetent for the respective designation and hence will be unemployed or will be working in a local retail store in low wages.

In the light of this situation, it can be said that teachers are failing to prevent students from betraying their education and to reach their full potential. If a teacher is well aware of the capabilities, potential and extent of a student, he might be able to pinpoint the validity of his work as of its own, not that, it is done by another.

Now, we’ve seen the one aspect of students and their shortcut ways to bypass the jurisdictions set by the universities, colleges and schools, let’s shed some light on the other well know issue.

Many universities are overloading students with assignments, quizzes and exams. Every week, they have to give a quiz and submit an assignment. As Lewis & Zhong (2011) states that the pressure on the students and following strict deadline are the two most contributing factors in which students tend to seek easy means to escape the situation they’re bound in by copying from the internet.

The statement is quite agreeable as plagiarism is the only shortcut way to reduce the work load, students tend to have some academic articles and starts paraphrasing them and present them as their own idea without citing different resources and authors’ work. This not only prevents students to polish themselves and presenting their ideas but also teachers to judge them correctly.

The education should be fun and enlightening not to be seen as a burden. The time of need is to ease the students, have certain sessions with them, check and keep their records of performance, judge students based on those records, if some student is declining in his progress, teacher must know the causes of that decline and help him get back to his efficient self.

The point is, teachers are not well aware of their students, which proves to be fatal for both teachers and students at the same time. It would be a great experience for teachers to help themselves polish their skills and ability to teach better than before and also will benefit students to learn better and have confidence in themselves so great, that, they’ll be able to present their ideas openly without any fear.

In addition to that, education shouldn’t be confined to the quizzes, assignments and exams, but there is the need of innovation. Some different and new exercises should be introduced to each and every course, for students to get the grip of the course and be practical about it, not to confined within walls of written context and among all, education should be flexible for every student.

The true essence of education lies within the ability to learn something significant. Soto et al. (2004) suggests that there is a need to improve and change teaching strategies to diminish plagiarism and those strategies are early exposure to plagiarism rules, making students understand the importance of writing and by making plagiarism difficult for the students.

I quite agree to this statement that what’s the point in learning something that’s already been there and practiced the same for ages? By that, I don’t intend to criticize the learning of previous knowledge, but what I mean is to exercise that knowledge, shifting from theoretical knowledge to practical one, giving student a friendly and competitive environment to learn better and polish their skills, gain additional knowledge according to every task they are given, inducing entertainment in education through different exercises and practices just like open debates in classes, freedom of expression of their thoughts and making them participate in the class activities, even use force, if necessary and it only requires teachers to indulge themselves in students and their lives in campus or in the premises of the university, giving them counsel, lending them an ear to listen and be friendly with them as much as possible. This the first step towards the education reforms.

Only then, they’ll be able to express their mind and only in this way, teachers can encourage or motivate students to go beyond their potentials and capabilities.

First, we’ve gone through the problem and flaws of education system, in which, students are hiring freelancers to get their job done and how to technically deal with that. Second, we’ve discussed about the problems of students which they face in the context of pressure and work load and their respective solutions. What is the third important factor which forces student to seek others work and tamper with it to make their own?

The third most important factor/s is that the students are not well aware of the definition of plagiarism and only know a part of the definition, through which they deem it right to copy the work of other authors and present them as their own as it is stated by Lewis & Zhong (2011) that, “However, “no single standard definition” emerged in an examination of nearly seventy writing instruction textbooks and journalism instructors disagree on what constitutes plagiarism”.

Now, that being said, it is important for teachers to educate students of the harms of the plagiarism and the respective harms followed by the plagiarism. By this, I don’t intend to say that to never use the resources or material or research done by others, but I’d recommend to do so, to gain additional knowledge about the respective common fields, the latest advancements and researches, and what ways, the innovations are heading towards, but if the use of those sources and research is deemed necessary for a student, then he must be taught in such a way that he should be able to give proper credit to the work of different authors.

This is what we call the Referencing System. There are many referencing systems introduced to pursue research and quote different quotation of authors in the way, that, proper credits are given to those authors, by stating their name whether in-text citation or in bibliography, giving the author’s scripture title and date of publication etc.

Addition to that, it should be deemed important to teach the morale and ethics of education to the students. Teaching them the importance of giving proper credits and teaching them, how to avoid plagiarism in that context. Whether a student is paraphrasing or copy pasting a line from a written content, teacher should teach them the way to cite those references or sources in his paper.

That should be done by teaching them all about plagiarism, giving them options to explore different articles of their own choice, using them in their assignment with proper references and citation in different formats i.e. MLA and APA etc. and provide those articles attached with their assignment submission.

This will prove to be mutual beneficial for both the instructors and the students in gaining additional knowledge about the new researches or previous ones. These sorts of exercises should be introduced and must be implemented and deemed compulsory, so that, the students will be forced to use his brain for creative purposes, to think critically about the course and the respective topic he has to choose and write accordingly presenting a new idea.

Then again, teachers must have to improvise ways to encourage students to indulge more into their education or respective courses so that they’ll be able to flourish in their respective fields. A sincere way towards education reforms.

All things stated above when considered, it is very important that the education system should go through some education reforms and produce excellent students, in which, their minds are not at all confined to the walls of written context but discover ways to and even go beyond their limitations and provides new and innovative ideas to make advancements in their fields and for that purpose, teachers or instructors also need to change themselves a bit.

After all, the true essence of education reforms lies within a teacher or an instructor, so, teachers should be concerned with their students and try to indulge in their lives a bit. Give them criticism when needed, not destructive but constructive for that purpose, encourage them to become better, write better, think better and critically analyze everything they are given. Only then, the true reform can be implemented and education system and education reforms itself can break this dead lock and rise above all the problems that are in hand.

For more researched based op-ed articles, keep us following here

Work Cited

• Walker, M. & Townley, C. (2012). Contract cheating: a new challenge for academic honesty? J Acad Ethics, 10(1), 27–44. doi 10.1007/s10805-012-9150-y.
• Lewis, N. P. & Zhong, B. (2011). The Personality of Plagiarism. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 66(4), 325-339. doi: 10.1177/107769581106600403.
• Craig, P. A., Federici, E. & Buehler, M. A. (2010) Instructing Students in Academic Integrity. Journal of College Science Teaching, 40(2), 50-55.
• Soto, J. G., Sulekha, A. & Elizabeth, M. (2004) Plagiarism Avoidance. Journal of College Science Teaching, 33(7), 42-48.