Cheating is rampant in our school system. Not a year goes by without incidents of wrongdoing during the national examinations making headlines.

The case of a Surabaya student and his family being driven from their home because his teachers told him to cheat and he reported it, however, should raise alarm bells at the Ministry of Education.

Alifah Ahmad Maulana was asked by his teachers to provide his classmates answers for the test, and when his parents reported the case, they were hounded out of their home. Such vindictiveness is beyond understanding and raises some deep questions about the values that hold up our society.

We applaud the decision of the authorities to remove the school's principal and the two teachers in question because their actions are deplorable. Cheating should have no place in our education system or in our society. It is not just an issue of gaining an unfair advantage but it destroys our moral fiber.

Students who pass their exams by cheating will think this is an acceptable way to get ahead. They will therefore repeat this in their adult life, in the process damaging the nation's competitiveness.

Whether the offending students from the school should re-sit the exam is a moot point. While it may be heartening to know that many of the students chose not to cheat, the reason they abstained leaves considerable doubt about the integrity of the system. A number of the students said they did not cheat because they knew the answers being distributed were wrong, not because it was immoral and dishonest to cheat.

The incident in Surabaya has shed new light on just how rotten the system is. It should prompt the authorities to replace rote learning with a curriculum that emphasizes critical thinking.

The system has also come under criticism because it places too much emphasis on exams to determine the students' achievement and aptitude. Such pressure forces many to cheat. The time has come to change our approach as to how we educate our youth.