Vietnam cracks down on rampant exam cheating
HANOI - Vietnam's leaders have pledged to crack down on widespread cheating in academic exams after some 900 fraud cases were uncovered in university entrance tests this month.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung condemned the "disease of chasing academic achievement" through cheating, days after police broke up a ring that fed students answers via mobile phone earpieces hidden under long wigs.
Dung's education minister, Nguyen Thien Nhan, this week ordered provincial education authorities to combat the worsening trend, which was also affecting schools, calling it "a crushing calamity for the nation as a whole."
Students are typically under intense pressure to memorise vast amounts of information for the exams in a Confucian society that places a high value on education.
A growing number, however, have developed methods of cheating that are increasingly creative and high-tech.
In the just-ended annual season of national university and college entrance exams, officials and police uncovered some 900 cases of exam fraud and arrested several people involved, state media has reported.
In the ring broken up last week in Hanoi, with at least four arrests, a network equipped dozens of students with bluetooth wireless mobile phone headsets concealed under wigs to feed them answers to a banking institute exam.
In the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, several students were disqualified after being caught with answers written on their hands or on paper using an ink that is only visible at a certain angle to the light.
In central Binh Dinh province, students apparantly relied on more traditional cheating methods, police discovered after finding 300 kilograms of cheat-sheets written on tiny scraps of paper in a photocopy shop raid.
As the public spotlight has fallen on the cheats, even a member of the ruling Communist Party's powerful Central Committee has been penalised for violating exam rules, in May at the National Administration Institute.
Dao Ngoc Dung, the first secretary of the Central Youth Union, used writing paper not authorised by supervisors in a postgraduate exam. Authorities said they would reduce his mark by half.
"Cheating is now an epidemic in Vietnam," one university lecturer told AFP.
"Students cheat, from secondary school to gaining doctorates. It is like a fashion in society. Everybody wants to prove that they are academically good but, in fact, not all of them have real talent."
The education minister, who took office in a reshuffle last month, has vowed to put an end to the "public trickery" and announced a campaign from July 31 euphemistically called "Say No to Negative Phenomena in Exams."
To stress the point, he visited Wednesday a high school teacher in northern Ha Tay province who has been praised for exposing students, parents and teachers involved in large-scale high school graduation exam fraud last month.
Do Viet Khoa, 38, has been hailed in local newspapers and by the community -- but he has also received threats of violent retaliation from some teachers and parents.
By Tran Thi Minh Ha - Agence France Presse - July 13, 2006.
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