Home work with the works
Just the other day I found out how homework is being done by rich Indian students studying abroad. Well, a bulk of their work is being done back in India only — by their erstwhile tutors!
So we have this Indian girl who is a High School student in the US. She had to write an essay on art. All she had to do was call up her mom in Delhi and ask her to arrange for the piece. The mom went to the tutor, paid her Rs 1.75 a word, and sent the piece back on email. The girl’s teacher was mighty impressed by her insight into art!
Apparently, more and more students are getting their homework done online and they are paying for it at premium rates. Whether it is an essay, or math or algebra or even English home-work, if you have the money and parents who really don’t mind you not studying, life is a smooth-sail.
One such home-work doer told me that this particular field is actually a huge industry and that there are BPOs who take on school homework assignments in bulk.
Really, times have moved and so have our children and parents for whom scruples are something like honesty — values of another era. What else will explain why a parent would allow his/her ward to actually indulge in such foulplay, especially when their child’s future may be at stake. But again, many would tell you how this is an old-fashioned, out-of-date view of how the modern world works.
You have the degree, you have the money and you have the job. To keep it is also easy — for mediocrity is the norm and such well-kept students get lost on the rolls to actually stick out like a hurt thumb.
Talking of mediocrity, it have become all pervasive and, at least in my area of work, all too stark because of technology, especially Internet.
In earlier days, reporters had to slog it out trying to get information out of sources, data banks and outfits dealing with their respective story. Days used to pass in news gathering. Today, it is a quickie — long in and there is everything for you to pick up your backgrounder from — statistics float around like fish frolicking in calm waters, quotes are like a deluge, there are umpteen sites which give you the entire story and there are others with names, addresses and contact info.
Quite another matter though that there is no veracity to these quotes, statistics and claims. A lot of information on the net is not only unverified but also wrong. However, no one is really bothered to check out and this gives many an erroneous story a platform in print.
But what do you do with technology except mould your moorings to its ceaseless advance. Had this outsourcing not become the biggest money-spinner of the shrunk world, there would never have been that complacent student having fun with her friends as her tutor overseas slogs it out. There never would have been a parent who would actually solicit such a grave misdemeanour as to teach his own ward how to shirk responsibility and school duty, telling him/her that he has enough money to buy the homework service!
Apparently, this trend is true not only of students studying abroad but also students very much in India. So Delhi has a tutor who does homework and holiday projects of students in Udaipur and Gorakhpur at a rate that gives him Rs 25k and more per month. All he has to do is study a bit himself and finish the work given to the student.
All this activity apparently picks up during exam time when students have no time to finish pending work. It’s then that a tutor, say in Delhi, starts e-chat classes with the student elsewhere in the world.
Really, it’s an interesting age we live in, and how!
So we have this Indian girl who is a High School student in the US. She had to write an essay on art. All she had to do was call up her mom in Delhi and ask her to arrange for the piece. The mom went to the tutor, paid her Rs 1.75 a word, and sent the piece back on email. The girl’s teacher was mighty impressed by her insight into art!
Apparently, more and more students are getting their homework done online and they are paying for it at premium rates. Whether it is an essay, or math or algebra or even English home-work, if you have the money and parents who really don’t mind you not studying, life is a smooth-sail.
One such home-work doer told me that this particular field is actually a huge industry and that there are BPOs who take on school homework assignments in bulk.
Really, times have moved and so have our children and parents for whom scruples are something like honesty — values of another era. What else will explain why a parent would allow his/her ward to actually indulge in such foulplay, especially when their child’s future may be at stake. But again, many would tell you how this is an old-fashioned, out-of-date view of how the modern world works.
You have the degree, you have the money and you have the job. To keep it is also easy — for mediocrity is the norm and such well-kept students get lost on the rolls to actually stick out like a hurt thumb.
Talking of mediocrity, it have become all pervasive and, at least in my area of work, all too stark because of technology, especially Internet.
In earlier days, reporters had to slog it out trying to get information out of sources, data banks and outfits dealing with their respective story. Days used to pass in news gathering. Today, it is a quickie — long in and there is everything for you to pick up your backgrounder from — statistics float around like fish frolicking in calm waters, quotes are like a deluge, there are umpteen sites which give you the entire story and there are others with names, addresses and contact info.
Quite another matter though that there is no veracity to these quotes, statistics and claims. A lot of information on the net is not only unverified but also wrong. However, no one is really bothered to check out and this gives many an erroneous story a platform in print.
But what do you do with technology except mould your moorings to its ceaseless advance. Had this outsourcing not become the biggest money-spinner of the shrunk world, there would never have been that complacent student having fun with her friends as her tutor overseas slogs it out. There never would have been a parent who would actually solicit such a grave misdemeanour as to teach his own ward how to shirk responsibility and school duty, telling him/her that he has enough money to buy the homework service!
Apparently, this trend is true not only of students studying abroad but also students very much in India. So Delhi has a tutor who does homework and holiday projects of students in Udaipur and Gorakhpur at a rate that gives him Rs 25k and more per month. All he has to do is study a bit himself and finish the work given to the student.
All this activity apparently picks up during exam time when students have no time to finish pending work. It’s then that a tutor, say in Delhi, starts e-chat classes with the student elsewhere in the world.
Really, it’s an interesting age we live in, and how!
Published on February 14, 2010, Sunday Pioneer; http://www.dailypioneer.com/235849/Home-work-with-the-works.html
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