Defendants listen to the verdict on May 21 (Photo: VNA)HoaBinh (VNA) - The People’s Court of Hoa Binh province on May 21 sentenced15 defendants involved in the 2017-2018 national high school exam cheatingscandal in which dozens of candidates had their exam scores raised so theycould graduate high school and enrol in universities or colleges.
Thirteenout of the 15 defendants were charged with “abuse of power while performingtheir official duties” to inflate the exam scores of students.
NguyenQuang Vinh, 54, former head of the Testing and Quality Assurance Unit under theprovincial Department of Education and Training was given eight years injail for “abuse of power while performing official duties".
KhuongNgoc Chat, 39, former head of the Internal Political Security Division underthe provincial Department of Public Security; Diep Thi Hong Lien, former vicehead of the Testing and Quality Assurance Unit; and Nguyen Khac Tuan, anofficial of the unit were sentenced to six, three and five years in jail,respectively, for the same charge.
DoManh Tuan, 41, former vice principle of Lac Thuy District Secondary and HighSchool was given seven years in jail for receiving bribes andthree years for abuse of power.
HoChuc, 45, former teacher of Thanh Ha High School in Lac Thuy district wassentenced to 30 months in prison for giving bribes.
Otherdefendants who are former education officials and teachers in the provincewere given 15 to 30 months either in jail or suspended for abuse of power whileperforming their official duties.
Accordingto the indictment, the defendants have taken advantage of their positions andmade use of their relationships to collude and intervene to raise the marks ofcandidates in the national high school exam in 2017 and 2018.
Theintervention raised marks for 65 candidates who sat for the national exam in2018 and one candidate who sat for the national exam in 2017.
Ofthe candidates benefiting from the scheme, 45 were forced to quit school aftertheir exams were re-marked objectively, ten others could continue theiruniversity courses as their remarked scores were eligiblefor university admission.
Sixother candidates did not attend university courses even though theirre-marked scores met universities’ requirements, one candidate failed to getuniversity admission while another candidate did not apply for any universityor college./.
VNA
