These days at Royal College, the atmosphere feels less like exam season and more like a formality before the real show, the grand SAGA event in December. While most schools across the country will hold their final term exams in December as per the Ministry schedule, Royal has moved theirs forward. The reason is no secret: the December 11th SAGA takes priority. It seems the school calendar, the sports schedule, and even academic focus have been reshuffled to make room for the event that brings in income, prestige, and fanfare. Education, for now, appears to have quietly stepped aside.
But behind the early exams lies a more troubling truth. Copying has become a routine part of exam life. It is not subtle or isolated anymore, it is widespread, systematic, and almost accepted. Students copy answers openly, and teachers, aware of it, seem unwilling to intervene. The logic is simple and sad: the higher the class average, the better it reflects on the teacher. Some classes even boast averages above 80 marks, a figure that would be impressive if it were not built on dishonesty. Yet this is not the full picture. In most other classes, the averages still tilt heavily to the right of the normal bell curve, showing unusually high marks across the board. When almost everyone scores above average, it is not academic success. It is statistical distortion.
In education, the bell curve carries deep meaning. It shows the natural distribution of performance, most students around the middle, a few excelling, and a few struggling. That balance reflects reality and effort. But at Royal, the curve has lost its shape. It is no longer a measure of learning but a symptom of inflated results. When cheating is normalized and the system rewards those who ignore it, even data becomes deceitful. What was once a measure of merit has turned into a chart of collective compromise.
The stories students share are equally unsettling. Some tear pages out of their textbooks and bring them into the exam hall, hidden between sheets or under desks. It is an open secret, one that thrives because no one really checks. If someone were to collect the torn pages from these textbooks, they might uncover more than scraps of paper. They would uncover a culture that quietly condones shortcuts. It is a mirror reflecting what education at one of the country’s most respected schools has become, performance without learning, grades without growth.
This raises a difficult question, what are we truly teaching our children? When the focus shifts from honesty to averages, from learning to event management, we risk raising a generation that believes appearance is more important than integrity. The administration’s priorities do not help either. Even as auditors have clearly stated that financial statements “do not reflect a true and fair view,” the focus remains on collecting money and organizing grand events rather than addressing systemic educational decay.
Royal College has long been a symbol of excellence, a school that shaped leaders, thinkers, and achievers. But the strength of an institution is measured not by its events or income, but by its ethics. When exams are treated as rituals, copying becomes culture, and truth is replaced by convenience, the real loss is not just academic. It is moral. And that is a price no school, not even Royal, can afford to pay.
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