Academic Dishonesty and Parents Attitude Towards It

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Introduction

“Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.”

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778)

I think the author tried to refer these chains to the chains of norms and values a human being encompasses with in a society. No matter from which region of the world one is from, no matter which culture one belongs to, we all have a general idea of what is considered as being right and what is wrong based on ethical and moral values that are shared across culture and continents. It is universally agreed that lying, stealing, cheating etc. should not be encouraged or allowed in a society as they are considered as being against moral values. On the other hand, kindness and honesty are highly valued by the members of the society because they are considered as forms of morally correct behavior.

Definition of Academic Dishonesty

We all have an intuitive idea of the word “academic dishonesty” and it is commonly referred to as “cheating”. This definition, however, is not sufficient enough and thus requires further elaboration. It is quite understandable that the meaning of academic unethical behavior includes a wide variety of dishonesty. According to the Northwestern University, cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, obtaining an unfair advantage, aiding academic dishonesty, falsification of records/documents and unauthorized access to resources and materials are considered as academic dishonesty (2006).

Importance of Academic Integrity

Thinking about the present social status or scenario of Bangladesh, ethics has become a burning issue. Corruption has crippled or broken down our society. The moral values that have traditional held up high have been attacked rapidly by this corruption. Moral corruption does not occur overnight, but it does slowly arise from lower stage. This erodes the moral values of our society, slowly, poisoning every corner of our society, spreading in our educational...