By Ibidunni Thaabitah
There was a boy called Johnson. Johnson believed that he could get away with any bad behaviour, so he took delight in deceit and falsehood. He had forgotten that “every day is for the thief, one day is for the owner.” Even though he was always cautioned, he continued to live as if he was never going to be judged. He kept on displaying his bad character wherever he went thinking that he would forever escape punishment. Throughout his time in secondary school, he was always involved in cheating, and he never got caught.
He got admission to the university with his false result. One might think that he would stop his bad habit and uphold a good character, instead, he upgraded his cheating technique. Unfortunately for him, the very first time he tried cheating in the university, he got caught and that was the beginning of his downfall. He was expelled from the university and also banned from attending any of the public universities in the country. This was how he became useless throughout his life because his parents could not afford to send him to a private university.
Cheating, they say, is a choice not a mistake. If you choose to live your life as a cheater, be ready to face the adverse effects and consequences attached to it.
To begin with, cheating in school could make one become ignorant. It is inarguably believed that education liberates one from ignorance but if one chooses to be a cheater, one will remain ignorant for life. If a student continues to copy his classmates during examinations, it can never add to his knowledge since it doesn’t belong to him.
Cheating does not allow learners to get better at their studies, thereby drawing them backward on a daily basis. Also, students who cheated during their time in school will find it hard to defend the knowledge they claim to have; therefore, they become utterly ignorant people.
For the fact that a student is used to cheating, he forgets how to pass an examination the right way, which makes any effort to study futile. Cheating does nothing but damage to the brain; hence, every student should stay far away from it.
In addition, cheating in school will make one’s live a useless life. As it can be deduced from the story above, anyone who takes pleasure in cheating will face a demeaning consequence. Not only will he not be useful for himself but also not be useful to his family and the society at large. In the end, such a student won’t be able to do anything on his own; he will always look for a helper to get things done.
Similarly, if a student cheats during an examination and he is caught, that might be the end of his career because no school will welcome a cheater and allow him to influence other students in the school. Education is the best legacy and one of the environments it can be acquired is school. If anyone loses the opportunity to go school due to bad behaviour, he will believe there is no way forward and so become useless eventually. Cheating is the most deceitful and diminishing act and should always be discouraged.
Lastly, cheating in school encourages lies. Anyone guilty of cheating will always find a shortcut to every long process thereby telling lies to cut corners. As the saying goes, “once a cheater, always a cheater,” so it is always difficult to refrain from it. If a child steals for the first time and he is being questioned, he will find a way of covering up so that he will not be caught. Having successfully told lies to cover up his bad act, he would continue to believe that he could always get away with it as long as he could think of a lie to cover up. This, indeed, will be the beginning of his downfall because nobody will find it pleasing to associate with a thief and a liar. This analogy can be likened to the life of a cheater.
In conclusion, cheating in school can cause lots of damage, one of which is making students become dullards. Another one is that it can make students live a meaningless life. It encourages dishonesty. Cheating is a bad habit which prevents self development, so it should be shunned.
