Students use translation program to cheat with Nynorsk

Students use data translation to cheat with NynorskOslo. Translator from nynorsk.Photo: Berit Roald / Scanpix

Teachers worry about their students using a translation program for Nynorsk. They ask the government to put a stop to mandatory grades in the subject. Nynorsk is one of the two forms of Norwegian( along with bokmål), which is most widespread in the western part of Norway and in many of the mountain areas in the eastern part of Norway and is one of the official languages in Norway

Teachers bring up the issue in a letter to Education Association, writes Aftenposten.
– These are good programs, you can get quite good Nynorsk from using them. We are unable to prove that students have cheated, and we find it difficult to know what kind of expertise we will evaluate when we assign grades that are of great importantce to everyone, Henriette Langli, who is Head of the language subjects, says. In an effort to combat the problem, the school has required  students to write by hand, but Langli thinks this is a bad solution when the examination takes place on the PC.
Hamar Cathedral School is part of a pilot scheme with each student only being assigned one grade in Norwegian VG1 and VG2 and writes in the letter that they think that is ” not appropriate with a grade assigned especially for this language” in addition to the other grades assigned i Norwegian
Examination Coordinator Mari Bjugstad Wiken is aware that translation programs may cause challenges for schools and teachers during the exam.
– We are already working on an experiment in which schools participating, may assign one or two grades in Norwegian for each student instead of the three grades that are in use today today. But  making changes to the expertise and knowledge that is required of the students  and to how the subjects are taught is out of the question.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today