Job Discussion Forums

[basiltherat]

just curious. have any of you ever been offered and/or accepted a bribe (subtle or otherwise) in return for passing a weak/failed student/trainee after a test ?

Deviating just slightly, I got this - in very broken English - from a female trainee just a couple of weeks back:


"How could you fail me ? Don't you remember I treated you and the other trainees to 3 meals out during the term. You should return my favour by not failing me. I am very disappointed in you. Oh Oh Oh"

After I said I cudnt do anything for her, she, not long after, tried accusing me of sexual harrassment - wrongly, of course.

Wooooah !



basil

[Slim Pickens]

X

[Snoopy]

In a certain Kingdom in the Middle East, several students passed their exams because bribery is a fact of life. The best ones I had were a posh briefcase, a watch and a free return ticket to London for the Hajj holiday. Those were the days!

[laodeng]

Slim Pickens: An interesting take on the subject . . . and absolutely correct.

If I do give a student a failing grade, it's going to be "administratively adjusted" anyway. Why draw fire?

[Stephen Jones]

If you are going to take bribes make sure that you check out the student's family first. A colleague is doing six month's jail because the student asked his policeman brother for the money to pay the bribe. Instead of lending him the money his brother set up a sting operation.

And I suspect, this is in the same Kingdom Snoopy is talking about.

Incidentally I have been offered bribes, from an American of all people among others, in return for offering a job. A pretty pathetic $2,000 by the way. I did toy with forwarding the email to the FBI, since the bribe offer would almost certainly have broken federal laws about wire fraud, but laziness prevailed.

[dmb]

I once had a class where the students said they would all give me a thousand dollars to tell them all the answers. This was a fourth time repeat class at elementary. About 1000 hors of study and they still couldn't pass. I declined. They all failed. So did they lose their jobs(as they should have done?) No they promised they would all work hard next time. Gladly I was given another class and so I don't know what happened to them. My guess is they are all still there.

[Roger]

We laowais in China don't get bribes offered - our pass grades are taken for granted!
I once had a pretty hard time with a normal school boy student who just couldn't accept a fail grade; he visited me late in the evenning for two weeks, coming at 10 p.m. and repeating his mantra: "I cannot fail... you must give me a better grade... it's unfair..."
I didn't oblige, but he passed anyway - the school saw to it!

[Ben Round de Bloc]

Teaching for about 9 years in the land of la mordida (the "bite," the bribe,) of course I've been offered a few bribes in my time. I've never accepted, however, although I am aware of some grades that were failing when I turned them in to my boss but magically became passing grades by the time they were officially recorded by upper-level administration. I can recall being offered direct cash, expensive gifts, and even one time a favor to be returned whenever I needed it from a government official whose neice needed to pass an exam. (Fortunately, she managed to pass on her own, so I wasn't put in a political situation on that one.)

[leeroy]

Students offering me bribes?

I wish!

My school is mostly late-teens early twenties students, and level is decided solely by the teacher's opinion ("You're good enough to go up, you're not..."). You'd think that this situation is rife with opportunity, but no...

No prestige per se is awarded by going up to "Upper-Intermediate" - if the students don't belong there then they'll simply find it too hard. Sometimes a student might say "Teacher, this is all getting a bit too easy, could I try a higher level?". I usually say yes, on the grounds that if the next level is too hard then they can simply come back down again (either by their own request, or by the respective teacher's).

I like this (relatively) relaxed attitude to levels. If students' jobs depended on passing a certain test (for example) then I imagine such an atmosphere would be less easy to foster.

[guty]

In Snoopys magic kingdon, where students can be failed for non attendance or lateness, I am happy to take cigarettes, coffees and small arms as payment for a tick in the present box.
After all as in China the results are all fixed anyway, so what does it matter?