How often do Singaporean teens see academic dishonesty?
The TL;DR: A Hong Kong teen was recently accused of submitting to academic competitions as her own work an AI app allegedly built by a third party, sparking a debate about dishonesty in the city’s competitive education sector. We asked Singaporean students if they have experienced similar situations here.
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Singaporean students talk about their experiences with classmates cheating to get an unfair edge.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PIXABAY
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SINGAPORE – The Hong Kong education landscape was rocked by scandal in August after a 15-year-old student from one of the city’s top schools was accused of submitting an AI app built by a third party as her own invention to academic competitions.
MediSafe, an AI-powered platform that flags potential prescription errors by cross-checking medications against patient details, won eight awards in international competitions.
However, netizens began questioning how a secondary school student could have created such a complex AI system.
Mr Ahmed Jemaa, co-founder of US firm AI Health Studio, released a statement that his team was paid by the teen’s mother to build the software.
TLDR took to the streets to find out if Singaporean students have faced similar situations where they felt their schoolmates got an unfair edge by submitting work that was not their own.
Mr Jayden Tan (right) and Mr Tristan Alvarez, both 19.
ST PHOTO: DILLON LOH
Mr Tristan Alvarez, 19
SIM student
“We had a lot of work given to us for our course, and we had three projects that were all due in one week. Out of nowhere, (one of my coursemates) was like, it’s all cool, we only need to focus on two.
“It was a bit suspicious when it was time for presentation and it looked like they didn’t really know the material. I think they did have somebody do it for them because they didn’t really understand the material.
“It’s definitely not (common). It’s my first time experiencing or thinking of something like that… I put in a lot of work while they are out there paying someone else to do (the work for them). It makes me kind of sad.”
Mr Jayden Tan, 19
ITE student
“I had a friend who owned up to (cheating). He told me he paid his friend to do his work for him. He ended up scoring very well and he got to skip a year (through the accelerated programme).
“It’s definitely not (easy for teachers to detect). If they’re being smart about it, the person doing the homework would change their answers to make it different from the person who is paying them to do the homework.
“It’s not acceptable. If you’re not even doing your own work, what’s the point of going to school?”
Hanyun Ge, 17, a JC1 student at Raffles Junior College (right) and her schoolmate Julia Jiang, 17, were among the students TLDR spoke to.
ST PHOTO: DILLON LOH
Hanyun Ge, 17
JC1 Student at Raffles Junior College
“I have heard about friends using AI for their graded work before mainly because of time constraints. When there are many projects or different commitments going on, it pushes the students to take the easy path to produce work that is still of “quality” but in reduced time.
“I think (cheating) is unfair. When you pay someone to do the work for you, it’s not fair to the other students… even though they put in less effort, students who cheat get a higher score.
“Usually, you don’t just tell a stranger that you’re using a third party to write your essays or do your projects, you’d only share that with close friends. Because of that, it’s hard for students to report cheating to teachers.”
Mr Muhammad Solehan Muhammad Faizal, an ITE student.
ST PHOTO: DILLON LOH
Mr Muhammad Solehan Muhammad Faizal, 18
ITE student
“I was bullied during secondary school and forced (to do other people’s homework). If I didn’t do what they’d said, they would punch me.
“At the end of the day, it’s the people who do the work who are learning from it. Those who cheat only benefit from having free time to play games or hang out with their friends.
“There’s no such thing as stopping people from cheating permanently. It’s human nature – some people just want to take the easy way out.”
Zi En Cheng, 15, (left) and Eleisha Goh, 15, sec 3 students at CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School.
ST PHOTO: DILLON LOH
Zi En Cheng, 15
Secondary 3 student at CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School
“One of our assignments in class was a written essay. Someone put the question through AI and her entire assignment was written by AI. When the teacher was going through the assignment in class, her essay became the model answer for all of us.
“I just felt like, how are we supposed to learn from this? It was written by ChatGPT. We have literally nothing to learn from her.”
Bhairavi Mahandran, 17, a JC1 student at St Andrew’s Junior College.
ST PHOTO: DILLON LOH
Bhairavi Mahandran, 17
JC1 Student at St. Andrew’s Junior College
“I don’t think our teachers will pinpoint (people who cheat) because they won’t plagiarise word for word or copy the entire thing. They’ll copy the ideas or some keywords and twist it to make their own answers.
“I would be very angry and annoyed if they plagiarised my work because it’s my own creativity. I would definitely take action and encourage my friends to take action if their work has been plagiarised because it is fraud.”
Correction note: This article has been edited for clarity.
