Vusumuzi Dube
Youth Focus, with Dr Manners Msongelwa
COPYING is the duplication of information. This is a common practice at school.
There are many reasons why students choose to copy. Some of the reasons why students copy include:
— Desire to get a good grade
— Fear of failing
— Lack of interest
— Pressure
— Laziness
When a test is given, students copy each other, especially if it’s written without proper supervision. Students with such a habit of copying, copy everything and don’t have time to change some of the information.
They have sharp eyes to capture what the next person is writing, they fish for answers from their colleagues’ books.
They copy everything, dates, sub-headings, commas, question marks and even full stops.
When a teacher gives them homework, they don’t have time to work on it. During study time, they will be sleeping or talking.
On the next day, they will be busy copying word for word from the books of those who wrote the homework.
They are not worried about understanding the content or researching the work, to them what’s more important is to submit the given work.
When books are back, they don’t revise their work in order to write corrections. They simply copy what the next person wrote word by word.
They don’t have time to research or ask the teacher. So long as they wrote the corrections. Such students don’t prepare for end-of-week, month or term exams.
In most cases, they won’t be having notes and don’t have one exercise book. A new exercise book is used whenever new work is given. They will be having a lot of stories explaining how they lost their books.
However, when it comes to copying, they have mastered the art of capturing information from those who work hard. This is a bad habit. When you are given homework, find time to do it. Research and write your homework on your own.
The same applies to a test or end-of-term examination. Read and prepare for the exams. Use your time wisely and focus on your schoolwork. Remove all the distractors and put more time into your schoolwork.
Dr Manners Msongelwa is an author, teacher and youth coach. He can be contacted on +263771019392.
Bongani Ndlovu