Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services - following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees. There have been complaints from universities about students being sold customised essays on the internet.

The advert ban from the Google search engine has been “warmly welcomed” by university authorities. But it has angered essay writing firms which say this will unfairly punish legitimate businesses.

From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations - and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy. Google’s forthcoming ban on adverts for “academic paper-writing services and the sale of pre-written essays, theses, and dissertations” means that essay websites join a blacklist of “unacceptable content” including adverts for weapons, prostitution, drugs, tobacco, fake documents and “miracle cures”.

The move has been applauded by universities which have struggled with the problem of students dishonestly submitting material copied from the internet. “Making life harder for these cynical web ‘essay mills’ is a step in the right direction,” says Professor Drummond Bone, president of Universities UK.

“We welcome this move. Essay writing sites claim that students pay hundreds of pounds for model answers - but do not then submit these as their own work. We all know this claim is absurd.” The universities organisation says that in particular there have been difficulties with essays bought by students from companies which sell tailor-made answers, where fees can be up to £5,000 for a single piece of extended work.

There have been reports of up to 12,000 essays being sold to students in a year, says Universities UK. These essays and assignments can be written by freelance academics or other students - and it is less easy for plagiarism software used by universities to detect such work.

Google, commenting on the change, says its advertising policies are “developed and evaluated based on multiple factors, including legal and cultural considerations plus user and customer experience”. And a spokesperson said that the advert ban was expected to be applied across Google’s global network.

But one of the UK companies fearing that it will be prevented from advertising, Essaywriter.co.uk, is angry at the threat to its business - with 80% of its customers coming through Google. Managing director Matthew Wilson says this will punish the legitimate, transparent companies, which sell essays, but which warn students that they must not be used dishonestly.

Mr Wilson says that such a bespoke service, selling tailor-made essays at short notice, with prices around £70 and upwards, can be used as a guide for students wanting extra assistance. Overseas students are frequently customers, he says - but the firm makes clear that essays should not be passed off as being written by the student.

And he says that such a blanket ban will not stop the search engine from generating links to rogue essay selling companies, which have been accused of scamming customers by providing poor quality material. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6680457.stm

‘Digital divide’ may be a term which came under the spotlight quite recently, but what meant by it existed in our societies for centuries, if not millennia. Significant differences between banks of knowledge possessed by different sections of society were visible probably since medieval times.

The ancient Hindu society was an ideal example. In that society, the supreme right not only to protect and nurture the knowledge but also to generate the same, to some extent was solely on the hands of the Brahmins. That was how they, not the Kshathriyas – the rulers – or the Vaishyas – the rich – formed the most important, most powerful and the most honoured layer of the society. Brahmins had neither money nor power, but they could easily control both, as they only had the access to knowledge. They were the traditional teachers, academics, researchers and preachers. The information flow was effectively controlled to prevent the lower strata of community accessing the knowledge. This ‘information divide’ created a situation, in which Brahmins had the hegemony to control the behaviours of the rest, to the level to decide even the days on which they should or not bury the dead.
This knowledge gap has taken a multi dimensional form today. The age-old theories on information or knowledge are no longer valid. The ‘thibu theneka sora sathuran gatha nohena’ aspect of information has long become inappropriate. In the contemporary society, information means money and vice versa. Thus, in a way, the ‘digital divide’ can be interpreted as another dimension of income poverty. If A has money, he buys information; if B does not, he could not. This builds a correlation between information and money though it does not have to be perfect. It also hints a close interdependency between information and money. When you increase one, the other automatically increases usually, though not necessarily proportionately. In simple terms, a sure way to bridge the economic and social differences of the society is to ensure a fair distribution of information and knowledge. Didn’t we know this? Wasn’t it the whole idea behind introducing the free education system in Sri Lanka in nineteen forties?
With the advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) this information gap has taken a more complex form. The ‘digital divide’ not only speaks about the financial issues but also considers the technical and social aspects. The ‘digitally poor’ might not necessarily be the have-nots. Perhaps even some of the financially ‘athi-heki’ in the society might be termed as digitally ‘nethi beri’. This is where the urban rural disparities appear.
In Sri Lanka, there can be no better way of summarising the situation than by the popular call: ‘Kolombata kiri; gamata kekeri’. This might first have been coined to emphasise the income differences between the two communities, but it explains the information differences much better. There exist an enormous information gap – larger than many of us ever think – between Colombo and the rest of the country, with even cities like Kandy and Matara not fully excluded.
This needs little elaboration but this case study deserves a mention. Few months ago, I happened to notice a project report done by the daughter of a friend of mine, for her A/L individual project. It was a thick report on the life of a star from a white dwarf to a red giant until it undergoes a supernova to form a neutron star and then finally converts into a black hole. On the face of it, it appeared to be an excellent endeavour, completed with images and graphs. Obviously, it has been awarded with the maximum marks. I too was quite impressed with this work, which I estimated to be an effort of at least six months and asked her how long it took and how she could manage to do such a comprehensive and presentable report with all the rest of work. She smiled and replied it took her not more than three days. This naturally surprised me, but then she explained that she played some time on Internet searching for all the information (with the help of an elder cousin) and cut and pasted them to the report. At her level, she was expected only to collect information and present them, not to analyse them and build any theories. Therefore, it was perfectly done. No wonder she got the highest marks.
Now imagine what a counterpart of her, studying in a rural area (Let’s call this second girl Niluka.) could do if given the task of completing the same type of a project. Niluka might not have a PC at home and it is difficult to think her school having a computer lab. Even the small town she might infrequently visit to buy textbooks or clothes might not be equipped with a cyber café. Some communication centres do offer Internet surfing facilities, at unbelievably high prices, so even if they are available, she might not be able to surf for long. Again, she herself might not know to use a PC or to surf Internet. She does not have friends who can help her through E-mail. So for her project, Niluka has to solely depend on whatever the information she could gather from the school library. She may have to draw the necessary pictures by hand and will get no help from latest computer graphics in designing the cover of the report. However, both reports will be evaluated for same criteria. It appears unfair, but that’s that.
Let me further elaborate this point taking some hard facts. The following table presents some economic, social and digital indicators with respect to four provinces in the island and all of them come from the Consumer Finances and Socio Economic Survey Central Bank of Sri Lanka conducted in 1996/97.

This clearly shows the socio economic differences among provinces are not as noticeable as the so-called digital differences. The income per spending unit and the percentage of electrically furnished households in Uva, North Central and North Western provinces are in the range of half of what the same are in Western province. On the other hand, when it comes to the use of telephone and computers, the differences are stunning. This could have been more evident if the figures for the Colombo district are compared against the same for the provinces.

When it comes to Internet, this difference is even wider. Unfortunately, still no comprehensive surveys or studies have been done to compare the Internet penetration in rural areas versus that in urban areas of Sri Lanka. One way of doing this is to analyse the number of Internet accounts given for each district, and check what percentage of that falls within rural areas. This figure, for one reason or the other, has not yet been made available by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission. It only furnishes the aggregate number of Internet subscribers (not users, as one subscription might be used by a large number of users), which fell somewhere around 70,000 by the end of last year. On a fair ‘guesstimation’, I do not think there cannot be more than 5,000 connections given to subscribers out of Colombo.
With the absence of any indicators to evaluate the rural Internet penetration, Sri Lanka Telecom has checked the Internet traffic on different exchanges throughout the country for a given period. The outcome was a useful revelation. As presented by an SLT official at the Annual Sessions of Computer Society of Sri Lanka, few weeks back, 87% Internet traffic was attributed to exchanges within Colombo district! Next came Kandy, with a pathetic 2%! All the rest of the country contribution was summed up to 11%. There can be several limitations to this study itself, but this gives the picture. Out of all Internet users in Sri Lanka about 87%, reside in Colombo district! Talk about ‘Kolombata kiri; gamata kekeri’!
The rural Internet penetration is low due to several key reasons. Some of them can be summarised as:

1. High cost of Internet usage (In a survey conducted by the author among 244 Internet users in Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Puttalam, Matale and Hambantota districts, 25% found the surfing charges very high while 66% called them high.)
   

2. The low computer literacy levels
   

3. Difficulties in using in English – the de facto language of the net (Unlike in India, where vernacular languages constitute a large percentage of local web content, in Sri Lanka, still English rules. Not even many of our local government organisations have bothered to present their content in Sinhala and Tamil. This makes an unbridgeable communication gap between the technology and the users.)
   

4. Attitude problems (Most belong to the older generation still feel that Internet is not for them. The above survey also revealed that out of the respondents, only 15% is above 45 years of age. Most of the users belonged to the lower age categories.)
   

5. Technical issues such as the difficulties in obtaining computer maintenance services, user support services etc., at the village level
   

Another interesting point is that a rural user has to pay more than his urban counterpart does, to use Internet facilities. This is because in many cases an outstation user has to dial a server in Colombo paying national telecommunication charges, while the Colombo users pay only the local charges. Some telecommunication service providers have taken steps to address this situation by specifying local charges for Internet users irrespective of the location from where they dial-in, but that solution has still failed to overcome the issue completely.
An estimation of Internet usage costs, at the rural and urban levels respectively, by the author, with reasonable assumptions, has revealed the following:

1. Compared to what an urban user pays, a rural user always pays a higher charge. The amounts rural and urban users pay for an hour of Internet usage decreases with time, but the two curves always maintain a gap roughly equal to Rs. 60 per hour. (Interestingly, this different is shown even in the charges applicable at urban and rural cyber cafes. While a cyber café in Colombo charges around Rs. 60 per an hour of Internet usage, a public library in a rural area, was observed to charge Rs. 125.)
   
2. The cost of Internet access to a rural user varies from Rs. 295 (for 10 hour usage per month) to Rs. 225 (for 60 hour usage per month) per hour. This includes the cost of the computer equipment also. This amount is too high for a population of which 45% has to live by less than US$ 2 per day.
   
3. For a rural user, the highest cost component is telecommunication charges, which varies from 40% to 50%, depending upon the usage. In comparison, the telecommunication cost component for an urban user varies only within the range of 25% to 35%.
   

To be fair, it should be mentioned that at least some initiatives to address this situation are already on the way. These include the steps to be taken under the recently introduced e-Sri Lanka programme as well as the attempts by the Ministry of Human Resources, Education Cultural Affairs to establish computer laboratories at 800 schools, including many in the rural areas. Under the e-Sri Lanka programme it is expected to establish multi-purpose Internet kiosks at village level, which will be used to address different needs of the rural community. However, this is more an exercise of introducing e-Government concept than an attempt to proliferate Internet at the rural level. On the other hand, the programme of installing computer laboratories aims at developing the Internet usage at school level, among other things.
Another commendable attempt towards meeting the same objective is taken by Sarvodaoya. Multi purpose experimental tele-centres have already been installed at several locations including Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Ratnapura. Sarvodaya intends to establish an information network consisting similar tele-centres throughout the island, at village level and to use these tele-centres to make Internet access available to the rural population at an affordable price. The theme of this programme has been declared as “Information Technology for community development”.

It is too early to comment on any of these programmes, as all of them are still at their infancy. Nevertheless, there is no doubt, that they should be given the maximum priority at every level, because the so-called ‘digital divide’ is now becoming increasingly wider. If this divide is not successfully bridged, as done in most of the developed countries, that will only be the beginning of a modified version of the above mentioned call as : ‘Kolombata Internet, gamata kekirinet’.

 Startling Figures of the GCE O/L 2006 results ·

 52500 candidates sit for GCE O/L. ·

48.7% pass ·

 51% fail · 21813 candidates fail all subjects

(4128 from Colombo District), (3564 from Central province), 3404 (from Southern province) (2668 from Sabaragamuwa) (2277 from Uva) (2056 from North Central) (2039 from North Western) (773 from Eastern) and 704 from Northern province. ·

47 schools and 40 pirivena institutes did not have a single student qualifying for the GCE A/L

(9 schools in Colombo), (3 schools in Homagama), (3 schools in Jayawardenapura), (12 schools in Galle, (7 schools in Ambalangoda), (13 schools in Ratnapura) ·

Of the 258,975 who sat the English language paper 63.18% failed ·

Of the 259,263 who sat the Mathematics paper 57.37% failed.

90% failed the (compulsory) geometry question ·

Of the 258,948 who sat the Science paper 51.65% had failed to secure even a simple pass.

What & who created this mess?

While there is no single source to the mess that has resulted the initial responsibility does lie with the Government’s education policy which has become a hobby horse of the Minister in charge and his Secretary. New syllabuses are introduced, structure and text books are changed, subjects that the teachers are clueless to teach, recruiting teachers who are not competent or even passionate about teaching & giving them jobs just to satisfy a political constituency – these are only some of the ills that have prevailed. These ill-considered decisions have over the years piled to create the drastic 2006 results with more surprises likely. Changes come suddenly that by the time the outstation schools are sent circulars on it a completely new policy has been once again introduced. Can we then blame these children for the mistakes that the adults have made? A thought that prevails amongst most is that the policy makers themselves are too old to see the needs of the younger generation or not concerned as they have alternate avenues for their children to pursue. We can well perceive that despite the startling figures those from the Colombo district who are rich enough will immediately afford another avenue for their child to pursue. That leaves the bulk of these failed children in the lurch. Mind you most of these children come from parents who juggle through the rising cost of living just to educate their children hopeful that they will at least have a better future. A country’s education system must meet the ultimate needs of the society that we live in. Age-old learning practices have no place in a realistic world. Educations forget that ultimately these children either enter university or secure jobs. In either case, combined with theory of education plenty of practical and common sense thinking needs to be nurtured during the early years of education. This is very much lacking in Sri Lanka. Our students are only taught to memorize notes, reproduce them in exams and aim to score top grades. Today people are not judged by the results on their educational papers. Therefore, we need to see that while the school syllabus is covered an equal amount of time and energy needs to be utilized by schools into programs that encourage children to think for themselves. It may be well and fine to always leave the blame with the politicians but when it comes to education, those in the education ministry as well as all the Principals, teachers and most of all the infamous consultants of education must shoulder equal blame. It is their inability to correctly present the mistakes of certain policy decisions for pure political mileage that have created the mess we are in today. To safeguard their position & perks they continuously “nod” in affirmative to all the wrongs that eventually become introduced to the education system of Sri Lanka. But then, in Sri Lanka is education important after all?

A joke often circulated is why study when one can easily become a politician today even having failed all 10 subjects in the GCE O/L and then preach to the public the importance of studies! But can all 21,813 students who failed the GCE O/L get cabinet portfolios? While taking the 2006 results as a wake up call, the Ministry of Education is earnestly requested to look at the figures in a realistic framework. Questions need to be realistically looked at and solutions need to be worked out.

 It is now time for damage-control but please not another Minister for Disaster in Education! ·

True Sri Lanka needs teachers – but it does not need teachers looking for jobs and neither does Sri Lanka need teachers to fulfill promises made by politicians to win votes. · Competencies in Students & Teachers – if the 2006 results reveal that children are not competent it is because the teachers are not competent either. Not only are some teachers not competent to teach there are also many others who don’t know the very subject they have been given to teach and neither do they show an interest in learning. So what can you expect from teachers who simply teach what is in the syllabus gives without even finding out anything more on the subject? ·

Innovation and creativity – rarely can one teach such subjects but the western education systems introduce certain crafts and simple exercises that bring out a child’s creativity. Has the Ministry of Education ever thought of looking into this and finding out ways to nurture the creativity of a child through the different grades of study? Fancy syllabuses are useless and only subject to paper appeal. · Tuition classes spring like mushrooms throughout Sri Lanka. One would then expect excellent results. But then if the results reveal the poor state of affairs in the Education Ministry it also portrays the façade behind the tuition craze too. Ignorant parents today spend a bulk of their income on these classes. Some parents even send their children to tuition teachers for every sub-topic as well. Then there are also tuition teacher to cover homework given by schools. I suggested a while back that if the parent and the child cannot let go of the emotional attachment to tuition to counter the time/money spent on the road by introducing a separate tv channel, to get the best teacher for each subject (per different grade) and have them run through the syllabus on tv as though teaching a class. These could even be turned into CDs/Videos etc so that children could replay it when in doubt. The tv channel could even open an email system where feedback and questions could be diverted to the teachers. The private sector and banks can take a part in this as part of their social responsibility. · Let us now take the children; they too need to take accountability for their results. A syllabus for any grade is designed to be completed within a stipulated time. Provision has been given for all the extra curricular activities that schools are often involved with. While there are textbooks, there is also ample more avenues to learn something extra about what is in the textbooks. Today unlike during the yesteryear times of education, all one needs to do is search for information and it is available. But do children explore all possible avenues of learning? · Then there is the craze to run off for tuition. Quite often one sees that the tuition craze is really a means to show off ones latest fashionable attire, to meet and mingle with ones friends from both sexes, to sometimes play truant and occasionally see a film while one’s parents think that their children are glued to the books and listening intently to their tuition teacher. Many will have solutions and as a Ministry we can understand that everyone’s solution to the crisis cannot be answered. But, there is reason enough to realize that the Ministry needs to urgently sit down and address each point seriously. We are after all dealing with the future generation of Sri Lanka. As a nation it is our duty to see that all children should not only have a right to education but good education that would make him/her a good human being. Bringing in storming solutions is not the answer. Phase out the exercise so that children throughout the country will not be too affected by adverse changes in systems. Involve people, obtain their thoughts too. But please don’t wait for years to implement. The end need is not to gain political mileage but to ensure that Sri Lanka has a younger generation of “thinking people’ and not those who will get others to think for them.

Shenali Waduge

A news item in Lankadeepa last week says that Grade 1-5 would be removed from National schools and set up as separate neighborhood schools for which admissions would be solely based on proximity to the school. At this point these are only recommendations made in response to a supreme court decision  making current system of admissions unconstitutional.
At the seminar on “Year 1 Admissions” that the Education Forum held sometime back we indeed posed that option as a solution to the year-1 admissions problem.
Should all government-run popular schools get out of primary education, reserving all class spaces, including those freed up by the closure of elementary schools, to those who pass the 5th grade scholarship exam?

And we received support for the argument from those who gathered.

It took a supreme court decision to get the education department to rethink, but it is gratifying to see them move in the right direction.