How old are you? Six? Are you still counting sleeps until Father Christmas arrives and finding it difficult because you don't have enough fingers? A year is not a long time.
What planet are you from? Are things free on your world?
Three-hundred and sixty-five days of almost completely meaningless sacrifice. At the end of that term, this girl will have done almost nothing to burnish her practical skill sets. That's what repetition of an entire academic year, already completed satisfactorily, amounts to.
If she takes a year repeating year 12 because she got caught cheating, nobody will care that she's one year older in university, and no employers will care when she gets out of university.
Very good. Except this discussion is not about age. It is about opportunity costs.
The idea of universities accepting you based on farting around Europe seems ridiculous to someone who comes from a country where your university entrance is based purely on your exam results. (I.e. your argument is like a sieve: it holds no water.)
I'll be sure to let universities know your stance on the issue. Seriously, are you going to address reality, or did you just want to engage in some wishful thinking? In the United States, colleges and employers may look favorably on individuals who have spent several continuous months in a foreign country, particularly if they have developed language skills during that time.
... And yet it's still not a long time now, is it?
Once again, with the emphasis on duration. The problem isn't that she's going to have too few days in her life - it's that, optimally, they will all be well-spent. You have to have a better argument than, "Well, it's not a long time,, so why are you complaining?"
She not only needs to learn the value of honesty, but she needs to prove to everybody that she has learnt it as well, since she proved that she doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. She can't earn anyone's trust working at a shit-packing plant - at least, not when it comes to academic areas.
Obviously, the correct thing to do would have been to resit the exam. That course of action proves that she can swallow the bitter pill of owning up to her mistakes, and perform competently even without unfair advantage. Retaking a year of courses already completed to satisfaction? Going through motions proves honesty? Achieving passing marks on assignments with which one is already familiar - this is a new challenge? How do you even know that a future employer or university will look at a repeated year and think, "This was a courageous stab at self-improvement"? Because she's going to tell them that? Frankly, my reply would be, "You could have done better things with your time. Now, why didn't you retake the exam when you had a chance?"
Retaking a whole set of courses which she has already completed, on the other hand, will do little to impress anyone.
With plenty of qualified people out there who don't have this kind of albatross for a necklace, why roll the dice on her?
It's an albatross she'll never get rid of. And that's exactly why I feel that there needn't be elaborate punishments. She may be paying for this mistake for much of the next ten years.
