Vietnam - Top university officials reprimanded in score inflating scandal

The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) signed a decision Friday to chide two top officials of a Hanoi university after its examiners were found inflating English test scores for hundreds of graduate students.

MoET accordingly reprimanded Tran Duc Vien, president of the Hanoi University of Agriculture, while also rebuking his deputy Dinh Van Chinh.

The university had earlier criticized ten staff members, slapped a written warning at twelve, and dismissed another from his post following their involvement in this cheating scandal.

The school figured out that the examiners had added 0.5 to 5 points to 180 test papers after it checked the first 500 of 2,700 sheets following written allegations that many students paid them for it.

Nine hundred graduate students had sat for three English tests on reading comprehension/writing, listening, and speaking as a graduation requirement for their master’s degree courses at the institution.

An investigation by the university showed that these examiners made corrections on the test answers and put in extra scores.

There were also cases in which the test graders arbitrarily hiked the scores without modifying the wrong answers.

Chinh, the vice president, later admitted to the school management that he had reminded the examiners to loosen the grading and grant higher scores where possible, as he knew the test takers were very poor at English.

In the meantime, president Vien claimed he did not know anything about the test score inflating although he was chairman of the exam council then.

TUOI TRE

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