Is your kid struggling at that private school you pay a fortune for every month?

Is homework getting in the way of their Xbox time, or maybe the teacher is just being unreasonable by suggesting that your kid should actually push themselves to succeed and learn something?

Well, for a small fee, you can pay people to do your kid’s homework for them. They’ll get great marks at school and spend the rest of their lives failing as people.

Here’s TimesLIVE:

Experts have slammed the practice of parents “outsourcing” their children’s school assignments, saying it is counterproductive and encourages children to cheat their way to success.

Social media sites are awash with small businesses offering various writing services – including essays and speeches for school children.

Gauteng university student Andrea Davel, who advertises on Gumtree, will knock out a beautiful, original piece of writing for between 60c and 80c a word. She’ll even ensure the standard of writing is at a plausible level for the relevant grade so that the teacher will not suspect that it is written by an adult…

For R200, Yusuf Paruk of Durban will build [a circuit board for a school science project] that a teacher will “generally award a percentage mark of 85% or above”.

One woman admitted that she often got “help” writing her children’s prepared speeches – one of the school-based assessment (SBA) tasks – because she was worried they would get low marks if they did it on their own.

“Their marks have improved after using private people,” she said.

One problem – if they didn’t do the work, can they really claim the marks?

Other parents have admitted their disgust at the practice of outsourcing homework.

“These kids are buying their way through school and that’s not right. My daughter spends hours writing her prepared speech and sometimes has to redo it if the teacher is not happy.” She said the outsourcing of assignments flourished in most of Johannesburg’s wealthy suburbs.

Basic education department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga had the following to say:

“This basically means parents are encouraging their children to cheat their way to success, and this may catch up with them later, at university or in the workplace.

“It does nothing to help the child’s learning and development and is actually counterproductive.

“We must all discourage it.”

Universities apply a zero-tolerance attitude to plagiarism. By encouraging your children to cheat in this way, you’re sending the message that using other people’s work and passing it off as your own is acceptable.

As a parent, you aren’t doing your kid any favours. It’s not a good look.

[source:timeslive]