It hasn't been a good week for academic honesty. First, it was the future doctors from the University of Sydney's medical school who were sprung fudging the results of an assignment. Then it was high school students who were accused of exploiting a "corrupt and unscrupulous cheating industry" in which essays are bought and sold for hundreds of dollars.
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The Board of Studies announced it would launch an immediate investigation into the burgeoning brains-for-hire market.
An investigation is welcome news but perhaps the bigger question is what is motivating this culture of academic achievement at any cost?
I don't recall my parents ever offering assistance with my homework when I was at school in the 1970s and 80s. If I asked a question, they pointed me in the direction of our collection of reference books and told me to look it up. Tutors were unheard of beyond nagging an older sibling to help unravel the complexities of calculus. Somehow I managed to survive my formative years without an army of educational enablers.
A few decades on, things have changed dramatically, as I observed when I had children of my own.
It would appear that giving children a "competitive edge" starts early. Parents may joke about tiger mothers but they are real and stalking childcare centres and school playgrounds in every middle-class suburb.
Don't have your baby enrolled in gym classes? You're a bad parent because it's good for their gross motor skills. Little darlings not learning French at the age of three? That's scandalous neglect as every good parent knows learning a foreign language is good for their brain development. Haven't mastered a musical instrument by kindy? They'll never get into a selective school.
And when it comes to school work, there are some parents who can't resist giving their little ones a helping hand.
Why glue old shoeboxes and toilet rolls together to make a robot when your child can do a Power Point presentation on artificial intelligence (with a tiny bit of guidance from mum or dad)?
Youngster feeling stressed about an assignment due in tomorrow? Again, it's mum and dad to the rescue. I know of parents who have slaved through the night to complete essays on anything from the causes of World War II to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (despite my friend admitting it had been 30 years since she'd read the book). Parents regularly joke about the marks they got for their child's homework.
Teachers, familiar with a child's class work, can easily spot homework completed with adult help.
Of course, parents do this with the best of intentions but what are they really teaching their children by saying it's okay to take the credit for somebody else's work?
NSW Teachers Federation president Maurie Mulheron suggested that parents are complicit in the cheating which goes on in high school, telling the Herald: "Parents have got to take some responsibility as well, there must be some parental knowledge when students are paying hundreds of dollars to take home assignments."
While kids might be able to sail through high school and university with an army of adults to hold their hand, you have to wonder what happens when they enter work force as young adults. Will they still be depending on mum and dad to help out with their work then?
Have you ever been guilty of taking over a homework assignment? Or do you think parents shouldn't be as hands-on with projects? Share your views in the comments below.
