(24 Jan 1998) Russian/Eng/Nat

Examinations are a testing time for any student, especially if they're badly prepared - but in Russia, the cheats have turned to modern technology to help them pass with flying colours.

Now students are rejecting the paper notes in favour of receiving answers on pagers, mobile phones and even personal stereos.

While some teachers claim to be unaware of the craze, others say it is not surprising students would use technology to find new ways to cheat.

Twice a year, Moscow's paging companies are seized by panic when the number of long messages they have to communicate shoots up.

The pressure of work and the unusual length of the messages turns the life of a paging operator into a nightmare.

The reason - colleges and universities in Moscow have started their winter exams and pagers during this period take on a special significance in student life.

Once just used as a means of keeping in touch, pagers are now being used by lazy students to ensure positive test results.

Exams are always an ordeal for students, especially because many of them often don't turn up for classes or lectures.

Apart from bribing the teachers, cribbing is the only option if they want to get good results.

A month before the exam, students usually know the questions they will be asked.

It is considered normal practice among Russians even at top academic institutions like Moscow State University, to copy answers from crib notes which they strenuously prepared days before the exams.

But the development of mobile phones and pagers means many students no longer have to undertake this time consuming task.

One student described how the high-tech cheating system works.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"You're sitting in the classroom and you are trying to answer a question. At this time your friend is standing on the other side of the door and is sending you some messages on the pager. This message is the answer for your question. Usually the teachers don't notice or try not to notice, so actually it's okay."
SUPER CAPTION: Julia Zaitseva, student]

In response to the increase demand during exam period, paging companies have increased their staff two-fold.

The general director of one of Moscow's most popular paging companies is not at all surprised by the development by students trying to find new ways to cheat.

[SOUNDBITE: (English)
"At this period of time, the share of the long messages is much much higher. Normally a message which is longer than 200 -300 characters is very rare. During the exam period we have a lot of these messages and even larger messages like over a thousand characters."
SUPER CAPTION: Anatoly Kopylov, General Director, Vessolink paging company]

Some teachers seem to be unaware of this form of high-tech cheating.

Many students assert that teachers are not keeping up with the pace of progress and do not realise how easily they can be fooled.

Some students have gone further than just using pagers by listening to recorded answers on personal cassette players, while others even use walkie-talkies.

[SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"They use any possible technical innovations and it`s quite natural. It's very good that they've thought about it and they've not just taken the simple way to cheat. The other thing is that it's no longer necessary to write out crib sheets and that's good."
SUPER CAPTION: Irina Prokhorova, Russian Literature teacher, Moscow State University]


Many in the education industry fear that the modern twist on cheating on exams could become a serious obstacle to Russia's youth acquiring real knowledge.

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