Defendants at the court. Photo nhandan.com.vn

HÒA BÌNH — The People’s Court of Hòa Bình Province on Thursday sentenced 15 defendants involved in the 2017-18 national high school exam cheating scandal in which dozens of candidates had their exam scores raised so they could graduate high school and enrol in universities or colleges.

Thirteen out of 15 defendants were charged with abuse of power while performing their official duties to inflate the exam scores of students.

Nguyễn Quang Vinh, 54, former head of the Testing and Quality Assurance Unit under Hòa Bình Province’s Education and Training Department was given eight years in jail for “abuse of power while performing official duties".

Khương Ngọc Chất, 39, former head of the Internal Political Security Division under the Hòa Bình Police, Diệp Thị Hồng Liên, former vice head of the Testing and Quality Assurance Unit and Nguyễn Khắc Tuấn, an official of the unit were sentenced to six, five and three years in jail, respectively, for the same charge.

Đỗ Mạnh Tuấn, 41, former vice principle of Lạc Thuỷ District Secondary and High School was given seven years in jail for receiving bribes and three years for abuse of power.

Hồ Chúc, 45, former teacher of Thanh Hà High School in Lạc Thuỷ District was sentenced to 30 months in prison for giving bribes.

Other defendants who are former education officials and teachers in the province were given 15 to 30 months either in jail or suspended for abuse of power while performing their official duties.

According to the indictment, the defendants have taken advantage of their positions and made use of their relationships to collude and intervene to raise the marks of candidates in the national high school exam in 2017 and 2018.

The intervention raised marks for 65 candidates who sat for the national exam in 2018 and one candidate who sat for the national exam in 2017.

Of the candidates benefiting from the scheme, 45 were forced to quit school after their exams were re-marked objectively, ten others could continue their university courses as their remarked scores were eligible for university admission.

Six other candidates did not attend university courses even though their re-marked scores met universities’ requirements, one candidate failed to get university admission while another candidate did not apply for any university or college. — VNS