The Ministry of Education and Training has just issued a decision to cancel the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Competition for high school students in the 2024-2025 school year.
That is the project "Smart waste classification system integrated with artificial intelligence and sound sensors" by two students of Nguyen Sieu High School (Hung Yen).
This project was once highly appreciated for its application and start-up capability. But just a few weeks after being honored, social media and a foreign engineer simultaneously pointed out that this project showed signs of copying almost all of the ideas and images from a previously publicly announced product.
A project that was awarded the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Competition is ultimately a copy of "all lines", causing public outrage and disappointment among experts, forcing the Ministry of Education and Training to get involved, and finally deciding to withdraw is inevitable and necessary.
However, after the decision to revoke this award, there are a series of painful questions: How can a plagiarized product pass all selection rounds, from the school level, provincial level to national level, to be honored the highest?
We cannot blame the two students. Because a topic with such complex technical elements certainly cannot be only done by students. Behind it is the guidance of the teacher, the confirmation of the school, the approval of the Department of Education and Training, eventually the new stage of the judges of the national judges.
That is, the mistake has gone through many layers of responsibility, without being detected. Has anyone ever questioned whether high school students could do the entire complex model by themselves? Does anyone verify the origin of knowledge? Does anyone know how much content there is overlapping?
The recovery of the award is an essential action, but not enough. The Ministry of Education and Training needs to publicize the entire process of approval, clearly identifying the responsibilities of each individual, each stage, from the instructor, the school management board, the Hung Yen Department of Education and Training, to the National Judges Council.
At the same time, it is necessary to review all national award-winning topics, especially topics that are "exceeding popularity", showing signs of being "squeezed" by adults excessively or showing signs of plagiarism. In particular, it is necessary to build a mechanism for public criticism, allowing the scientific community and the public to supervise the process of judging and awarding.
We are talking a lot about innovation in education, teaching for capacity building, education for ethics... But what if in the school environment, students learn lessons that they can cheat to get rewarded and just need to bypass the system to be able to step up to the throne of glory?
When fraud is "protected", rewarded and leaks through the screening system, it not only ruins a competition, but also poisones the integrity of an entire generation.
Education cannot be a place to condone lying. Because if there are still fake teachings in the place of teaching, what can be used to make the roots of personality and the future?
