Cheating at exams

In Bihar, 300 people were recently arrested for cheating in exams.  Many of them are parents of the students sitting the exams.

The Hindustan Times has a picture of people scaling up a 4-storey wall to throw paper-airplanes carrying answers to exam papers.  However, the chairman of the Bihar School Examination Board said that cheating has not happened within the exam halls.  He claims that it happens from the outside.  Fines have been imposed, students have been failed or expelled and exams have been cancelled as a result of the publicity around such cheating experiences.

People live in a society where passing exams is seen to be the make-or-break point to their need to live in poverty.  After all, these are the leaving school exams, and consequently, the last chance the students have to show that they have gained some value out of their schooling.

Cheating has apparently become more rampant since the state government offered cash rewards to lower-caste students who were able to answer about half the questions on their tests.  Attempts to chase away family members lurking outside test centres failed, as mobs threw stones at the law-enforcement agents.

What do you think of such a culture?  Has something gone wrong?  Or is this fine?  How can it be made right if it has gone wrong?

The Education Board has tried to counsel parents and students against cheating, while many parents blame the government and the teachers for being indifferent and uncaring.

Can such a culture change for the better?  How?

Food distribution

I found it shocking to read that people were arrested when they tried to feed the hungry.  Apparently, the city find the poor and homeless to be an eye-sore, and do not wish to help them in this way.  How uncaring?

(Perhaps the city doles out welfare and assumes that to be enough.  I do not know.)  Meanwhile, equally shocking in the other extreme, is the cost that food distributors pay to put the "halal" label on their brands.  They claim that they do not pass on this cost to the consumer, but in the interest of having some profit and staying in business, it is hard to imagine how this is possible.

This sounds as bad as food distributors dumping their excess stock so to keep their prices high, rather than to use it to feed the poor.  What is our world coming to?

Having said this, I also see that some hotels and bakeries do feed the poor.  Supermarkets discount their day-old bread, while some other businesses donate the left over stock to charities and not-for-profit organisations rather than dumping.  I cheer this behaviour.

How about you?  Can you see the sense in this?  Do you think God would be pleased with the way we handle money and our attitudes towards the poor in our society?

Wealth discrimination

Often, people admire the rich, and shun the poor.  This is a form of discrimination that happens in society.  To avoid this discrimination, most appear middle-class.

Even so, there are struggles.  Some of the poor end up poorer as they take up debts to act middle class.

Barbara Ehrenreich wrote that "it is expensive to be poor".  She notes that in the USA, President Johnson started a war against poverty 50 years ago.  “Better schools, and better health, and better homes, and better training, and better job opportunities” would be the ways the nation accomplishes this.

However, the ideal was not easy to accomplish.  A war in Vietnam took the USA's attention away from this project.  People were prone to addiction.  People have children, and single mothers were an economic drain.  People who stayed home and collecting benefits for their children made the poverty cycle worse, when their children lacked the motivation to work from seeing the examples of their parents.  That caused society to label these people negatively.  But, as Ehrenreich points out, "poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.".

Ehrenreich points out that some entry level jobs that women in poverty find are really a trap.  They cannot advance from these jobs, the pay is abysmal, and the jobs do not allow you the freedom to run your schedule.  I know some garment factory workers in Cambodia who can attest to this.

Another one from Ehrenreich relates to accommodation. One needs to live somewhere where one can access one's workplace within a reasonable amount of time.  Many move to the city for this reason.  This makes rent in the city expensive.  Those who do not earn enough to rent in the city are forced to stay in motels, which cost more money.  It doesn't make sense.

So generally, unless some help is given, the poor end up getting poorer, while the rich live on, unaware of their circumstances.  Do you think so?

A recent discussion on Australian radio relates to the present unemployment situation.  Apparently, the government needs to review the budget, as the trend is towards higher unemployment.  As people demand higher wages, employers find it hard to pay.  Inflation pushes up the wages.  But as business looks for off-shore resources to outsource to, and because of an aging population, this causes fewer employed people to support an increasing number of retirees and unsuccessful job seekers.  How will the economy survive?

What do you think?  Is there a way out of this problem?  How does one escape poverty?  Can the rich help?  How?  Do they want to?  How are governments to create sustainable employment?

Feeling poor

It is possible to feel poor without actually being poor.  The feeling is just a mindset that is not really consistent with reality, and also kind of dependent on your definition of what being poor means.

Rachel Hill wrote of this mindset - where "complaining about money (or our lack thereof) has become a national sport" in Australia, even though salaries and standards of living has soared.  People can catch a cab home when they don't want to bear with the conditions of the train, even though they feel poor.  Masters degree, recent overseas trip, etc. makes one feel poor, but that one has been able to take on these things means that one is not as poor as what one thinks.

She says it is not just the notion of self-pity.  It is also living up to the way one thinks that the society expects.  "Dishing out $60 for a dinner with friends, $200 for a buck's weekend away, $50 for a baby shower, and $25 for a Kickstarter campaign isn't just a matter of keeping up with the Joneses – it's a matter of not offending them."

There are those who are genuinely poor - who cannot afford to turn on the heater during the winter.  There are also those who have money in the bank, but are living beyond what they are currently receiving.  And there are those who feel poor even though they are not.

Which group do you belong to?  What is your definition of "poor"?  Are you keeping up to your expectation or that of society?

How about God's expectations?

Are your needs met?  Are you able to help others as well?

What should you do with your extra resources?  Help someone in need?  Locally or overseas?  Save it up for a rainy day or for your retirement?

What do you think?