Malé, Maldives – Parliamentary committee on National Development And Heritage has proposed to include hefty fines to students who pay people to do their personal assignments for them in the Higher Education Bill.
Some changes were made to the bill before being sent to the parliament floor, such as making it a crime for a student to ask another person to do their assignment, along with proposing to do the assignment for other students for a price.
The amendments to the bill states that it is a crime for someone else to do the student’s assignment, whether that person is paid or not. The minimum amount of fine proposed is MVR 5,000 for such cases. The bill also states that it is a crime for any person to make a business out of doing other people’s assignments. Amendments to fine such people with MVR 10,000 was also added to the bill at committee stage.
The amendments also note that an appropriate mechanism of finding out such students and assignments, should also be put in place in colleges and universities. It further mentions that along with the fines, the college or university in which such a student studies in, will also take measures against the student.
According to the committee, the reason for this amendment was that students paying for their assignments and such works, have become common in Maldives. Due to this, the student does not benefit at all from the course, resulting in lower value of higher education.
