Related to the exam leak case, 2 university lecturers received sentences

This afternoon (July 14), the Hanoi People's Court announced the verdict on the case of leaking Biology exam questions in the 2021 high school graduation exam.

The trial panel sentenced defendant Pham Thi My (born in 1963, former lecturer at Hanoi Pedagogical University) to 13 months and 4 days in prison (equal to the time in detention) for the crime of "Abusing position and power while performing official duties".

Regarding the case, the court sentenced Mr. Bui Van Sam (born in 1949, former lecturer at Hanoi Pedagogical University) to 12 months of non-custodial reform for the crime of "Abusing position and power while performing official duties".

According to the indictment of the Supreme People's Procuracy, due to the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic, the 2021 high school graduation exam was organized in 2 sessions.

After the exam ended, public opinion and the press reported on the suspicion of leaking the Biology exam questions. Accordingly, the Biology exam questions were 80% similar to the review questions on the Internet by Mr. Phan Khac Nghe (Vice Principal of Ha Tinh Specialized High School).

The investigation results show that, in preparation for the 2021 national high school exam, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) is implementing the exam question creation work in 2 phases: Building a question bank and organizing the exam question creation.

Regarding the construction of the exam question bank, the Department of Quality Management, Ministry of Education and Training has organized it into 5 phases, each phase lasting about 1 week.

During the above 5 working sessions, Mr. Bui Van Sam and Ms. Pham Thi My (both former teachers of the Biology Department, Hanoi National University of Education) were assigned to participate in building the question bank and the Biology exam question board for the 2021 high school exam, in which Mr. Sam was the team leader, Ms. My was the deputy team leader, along with a number of other teachers as members.

Regarding the organization of exam questions, the Ministry of Education and Training assigned Ms. My to be the head of the Biology exam group, and Mr. Sam to participate as an evaluator.

Because Ms. My and Mr. Sam participated in the team that built the exam question bank and the exam council in 2019 and 2020, and knew that the software randomly drew questions, in 2021, these two defendants took advantage of their assigned duties and powers to bring documents home to compile into questions.

The defendant then arranged them into positions to be drawn as the official exam source and directed the selection of question combinations he compiled to build the official exam, and at the same time used the above questions as exam review materials for a number of students who were acquaintances.

For the students, parents and those who recommended the defendants Sam and My to teach and review for exams, they did not know that these two teachers used documents related to the process of building the exam question bank for teaching and reviewing, so there is no basis for consideration and handling.

The indictment determined that the defendants' actions were motivated by personal motives, violated public duties, directly infringed upon the proper functioning of state management agencies, leading to a lack of fairness and transparency, causing public outrage, and negatively affecting the 2021 national high school graduation exam.

Mr. Sai Cong Hong, former Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (currently Deputy Director of the Department of High School) and Mr. Do The Chan, an officer of the National Testing Center, edited and changed the question proposal mechanism of the software, leading to the software used at the Exam Council not ensuring the principle of random question drawing, violating the regulations of the High School Exam Regulations and a number of related responsible individuals of the Ministry of Education and Training.

However, the Ministry of Public Security's Security Investigation Agency concluded that there was no basis to determine whether the above-mentioned people had profit motives or other personal motives and did not know that the defendants committed crimes, so there was no basis for criminal prosecution.

The investigation agency has a document recommending the Ministry of Education and Training to inspect and consider handling the responsibility of related individuals for the above violations and to inspect and review procedures and regulations to overcome loopholes and shortcomings, and prevent similar violations from occurring.

Mr. Phan Khac Nghe's online teaching content is similar to the documents compiled by Ms. My and Mr. Sam and the 2021 high school graduation exam in Biology. However, the investigation results show that there is no basis to determine that Mr. Nghe has appropriated confidential work documents or intentionally disclosed work secrets, so there is no basis for prosecution.

The investigation security agency has sent a document requesting the Department of Education and Training of Ha Tinh province to hold a meeting to review and discipline Mr. Nghe. On February 14, the Department of Education and Training of Ha Tinh province held a meeting to review Mr. Nghe for causing negative public opinion, which partly affected the reputation of the education sector.

According to Vietnamnet