University Entrance Exam Committee says entrance tests fairer this year

Only one of around 24,000 students registered to sit this year's university entrance examinations was found cheating and was disqualified from continuing the test, according to education officials.

The Deputy Head of the Committee for University Entrance Examinations, Mr Khamhoung Saengmany, said yesterday that the student from Vientiane was found using his mobile phone to receive messages from his friends outside the exam room who supplied him with answers in a chemistry test last week.

Mr Khamhoung confirmed the student was the only one found seriously cheating in this year's examinations. “There were a few other cases, but they were not serious,” he said in an interview with Vientiane Times.

The examination committee had told students not to bring communication devices such as mobile phones into exam rooms, and it would confiscate them if found, he said. Teachers decided to give the cheating student zero points for the subject, but said he might still earn a university place if he did well in three other subjects: Lao language, Mathematics and Geography.

Mr Khamhoung also said it was impossible for the examination to have been released before examination time. However, there have been rumours that officials or excellent students may have received exam papers beforehand and then sent answers to students taking exams via SMS.

Mr Khamhoung suspected some students left the classroom before the end of the exam “It's possible that, knowing the questions, they could have sent answers to their friends.”
 

He said the committee had instituted strict controls over the transportation of exams to exam centres, to ensure no-one had access to content before official examination times.

Teachers inspected all students to prevent them taking in “documents and devices”, but some students could have avoided the inspection.

“We admit that students have countless tricks, so we can't always find and prevent cheaters,” he said.

Mr Khamhoung said this year's university-entrance exam was fairer than those of previous years. He said the committee issued two forms of tests, both in multiple-choice form.

The new tests prevented students sitting together from looking at each others'answers, he said. He added that those taking the exams were arranged to sit in alphabetical order based on their first names, preventing relatives from sitting together.

In the past, he said, some students who were friends and relatives submitted applications to take tests at the same time. This allowed them to sit near each other and pass answers to each other using hand gestures.

Also in previous years most of the students who passed came from the same exam room. “The new system tries to prevent students helping each other during the tests,” he said.

Only the first 1,500 students with the highest scores will have the chance to study at the National Univerisity of Laos. Results will be available in the middle of August.

Source: vientianetimes via laosmile