Anthropologists tells us that Western societies are guilt-oriented. As such, the concept of breaking the law is self-evident in these societies. Eastern societies, on the other hand, are shame-based societies where shame is a reaction to other people’s criticism of one’s action.

Applying that principle to the sin of plagiarism, in a Western society proving guilt is usually a strong-enough deterrent. Not so in our Eastern society. There, if the sin is to be eliminated from the society, it is necessary to prove guilt but also shame the guilty .

This leads me to conclude that the most meaningful efforts to rid our academic institutions of plagiarism will involve creating a social stigma attached to cheating. Not an easy thing to do, but do-able nonetheless.

At GIKI there was an effort in this vein, circa 1998-99. A “Pledge of Honor” was made available to students at a main campus meeting place. Students could take that pledge and sign their names on the giant poster, or they could ignore it. If they took the pledge, they would post a sticker on the dorm doors with the statement of the pledge on it.

That one poster, which was posted anonymously, started a great conversation on the subject with a significant number of students (probably not a majority but close) voluntarily taking the pledge. This pledge, in a way, became their shield against having to provide ‘chappas’ as well as a source of shame if/when they had their moment of weakness.

I think that grass-root efforts like these have a better potential of success than anything that simply exposes the guilty parties and hands down tough punishments. Especially, if the efforts are handed down by the university administration or worse, the HEC. I believe that university administrations can complement these types of efforts by enforcing stricter penalties for those engaged in gross misconduct.

Of course, none of this means that there should be no efforts made to catch the guilty students (and now instructors!). Just that the focus should be on using society’s indigenous mechanisms, rather than relying on bureaucratic reforms handed down from Islamabad. HEC can (and must) punish individual and significant cases of plagiarism, but it cannot end the culture of plagiarism.

PS: I tend to agree with all three of you — Omar and Khurram are correct that universities do not exist in a vacuum. But, Yaser is also right, in that universities are a good place to start building a better society for the future.

In any case, universities are supposed to be training grounds for future generations. They preempt what society is going to look like in a generation. If students in schools and universities are taught that plagiarism and dishonesty have consequences early, might the general law and order situation eventually improve as well? I don’t think the current situation should be used as an excuse to concede the future.

Plagiarism is rife in academic institutions *today* at the undergraduate level. The problem seems to persist because of apathy from administrators and chronic denial of the problem, both stemming from an irrational fear of ‘bad exposure’. The fact that professors have been caught plagiarizing research is symptomatic of a culture that lets it slide from early on in an individual’s academic life.

University leadership, primarily, and HEC should take more aggressive steps, not only to study the degree of the problem, but also to severely penalize this sort of behavior.