Vietnam - In grad exam, 85% of students say cheating common

A poll by Tuoi Tre newspaper and local sociologists has shown that 85 percent of test-takers agreed cheating dominated the 2012 high school graduation exam.

The results back up longheld beliefs that academic dishonesty runs rampant across the national exams, in which administrators appear eager to pass candidates to manufacture sky-high success rates.

To check the 98.97 percent success rate announced by the Ministry of Education and Training, the survey questioned 500 high school graduates from 36 provinces and cities who had sat for this year’s exam.

Among those surveyed, 84.2 percent said discussing test questions was rife, while 83.5 percent reported seeing their peers copy each other’s answers.

More than one-third (36.4 percent) said proctors watched test-takers deliberate over questions, and one-fourth (23.4 percent) confirmed the use of cheat sheets.

Nearly 1 million 12th-graders took the exams June 2 to 4.

In other examples of cheating, students brought in cellphones, while proctors ignored and sometimes provided the cheet sheets, which test-takers read in restrooms.

‘They told the truth’

The poll offers authentic and reliable information, said to Dr. Ho Thieu Hung, former director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training.

Similarly, professor Pham Minh Hac, chairman of the Vietnam Association of Former Teachers, said the near-perfect pass rate is impossible for the current educational system, whose quality is always a bone of contention.

“I think they all told the truth about the exam,” Hac said of the students polled.

A sociologist who helped conduct the survey said it might not speak for all exam candidates, but could be a preliminary answer to why the pass rate was so high.

“In fact, 500 is not a small sample,” said Dr. Trinh Hoa Binh, with the Vietnam Institute of Sociology.

TUOI TRE

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