More fraud, bribery charges in Vietnam high school exam
Another scandal has erupted in Vietnam after officials supervising high school graduation exams and their superiors were accused of allowing students to cheat for a price.
After similar events recently in the north, 536 students in the southern Tien Giang province were found to have written the same answers in the exam.
Though the deputy director of the province’s education department denied all corruption allegations, he said supervisors took money from examinees and their parents.
But one supervisor said, “After an inspector from the education ministry found an examinee had brought crib sheets into the exam room, he merely asked us to confiscate the sheets and said nothing about punishing the offender.”
“When even inspectors from the central government are not resolute, to whom can we supervisors turn to?”
Thirty minutes after the test, a supervisor at another venue said he had found a hole in the wall possibly used to pass across crib sheets.
He had then discovered that all 24 students in the room carried crib sheets. After confiscating them, he had reported to an official but in vain.
Earlier, a supervisor who asked to remain anonymous said two people had approached him, asking him to “help the examinees pass the exam”.
Subsequently, he had found all the examinees in his room cheating and reported it. He was asked to “Take it easy”.
“Let the students cheat as top officials have unanimously permitted it,” he had been told.
In Ha Tay province in the north the press caught people climbing up a school wall to throw crib sheets to candidates just before the exam.
The exam is crucial as only successful candidates can enter universities.
By Hoang Phuong – Thanh Nien - June 30, 2006
|