Parents admit to bribing children to pass exams


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Leading market research company, ICM, has recently been commissioned by BBC Education to poll parents on their attitudes and approaches to helping their children get through exams. Interviewees included mothers and fathers with offspring in both the state and private sector and represented a range of income brackets.

Some 70% parents in the northern England stated that they always offer some sort of material incentive for gaining a good result, as did some 49% of southern based respondents. It would seem that cash is the preferred motivation, with anything up to a thousand pounds being shelled out by parents of 10 -14 year olds each year.

When asked why they were going along with their offspring’s expectations of ‘cash for passes’, 25% of parents blamed peer pressure, saying they were only falling in line with what they heard other parents were doing.

BBC Education put the trend down to the increased pressure being generated by the higher frequency of national examinations. A spokesman, Karen Johnson, was quoted in the Daily Express as saying, ‘Tests are now set for pupils at the age of seven, 11 and 14 as part of the Government’s four key stage curriculum. The schools themselves also have tests at the end of every year. The Government might not like to call them exams but that is how they are seen. Parents want their children to do well in them because they know they will be judged by the results. People are also aware that the employment situation in this country is a difficult one so there is pressure on them and their children to get the most out of their education.’ She concludes, ‘It is this over-anxiousness which leads to the results we have seen in this poll.’

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