The exam cheating scandal in the northern mountainous province of Hà Giang has officially become a criminal case as the province’s police on July 19 started legal proceedings to investigate the wrongdoings.— VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The exam cheating scandal in the northern mountainous province of Hà Giang has officially become a criminal case as the province’s police on July 19 started legal proceedings to investigate the wrongdoings.

The province’s results in the national high school examination, which will determine whether a student can get into university, showed suspicious signs as the rate of good scores was unusually high compared to previous years’ records and other localities that traditionally does better.

After double-checks by education ministry’s officials, 330 multiple-choice test sheets by 114 students in Hà Giang were found to have each test’s individual score inflated by 1-8.75 points.

A preliminary investigation pointed to Vũ Trọng Lương, deputy head of Hà Giang’s provincial education department’s education quality control office, as the one who allegedly manipulated the answer sheets.

Inspection of tests’ scores

Minister of Education and Training Phùng Xuân Nhạ asked for the facilitation of inspection into national high school examinations held in three mountainous provinces Hà Giang, Sơn La and Lạng Sơn.

In a press conference held on the same day, Minister Nhạ stressed that every person found to be violating the law would be strictly punished.

Nhạ said the Hà Giang scandal is a ‘wake-up call’ to all test organisers.

He added that after four years, the new format of the high school examination has been improved in many aspects, which helped reduce pressures, save time and costs for the students, their families and the whole society in general.

With each passing year, the technical aspects of the exam has been getting better, but the “human factor is still the decisive element.”

“If the people involved in the process are not of pure integrity, then such unfortunate incidents could still happen no matter how modern the grading system has become,” Minister Nhạ said.

On July 19, the education ministry’s task force led by Mai Văn Trinh, head of education quality control department, had a working session with Lào Cai provincial education department regarding the suspicious scores.

Teachers assigned with grading the tests in this year’s exam were summoned to the meeting.

According to official statistics, Sơn La recorded the lowest average score for all six subjects in the high school examination. However, the rate of students scoring nine and above in the maths and physics tests were way higher than other localities with a history of good scores. — VNS