The party chief of Ha Giang Province, Trieu Tai Vinh has claimed that he played no role in the adjusted marks for over 330 tests in the recent national high school exams conducted by local education officials.

The party chief of Ha Giang Province, Trieu Tai Vinh. Photo by NTNN

Answering Dantri/Dtinews about his daughter and two nephews were among the 114 students in the province who have been found to get higher marks than what they should have received after an investigation, Vinh explained that he knew nothing about it.

"Many people know that my daughter did well at school," Vinh noted. "She had won many awards at local and national contests during her school time."

When being asked about the children of some local officials being in the list of those who got their marks raised, Vinh doubted they might be victims of some people who tried to get the province's leaders in their trick to ensure their success. 

The official vowed to co-operate with police to investigate the case and will strictly punish those involved in the scam.

The northern mountainous province of Ha Giang, which has never got high records in education compared with other localities nation-wide, suddenly announced high results in the national high school exams this year.

Of the 5,400 students in the province who took part in the exams, three was listed among top 11 with highest scores nationwide. Regarding the physics test, 65 students scored nine or higher, accounting for 67 percent. The abnormal result has triggered an uproar. 

Following the abnormally high test results in the province, on July 14, an inspection team led by Mai Van Trinh, head of the Authority of Examination and Quality Management under Ministry of Education and Training (MoET), started re-grading all students’ answer sheets. 

The inspection revealed that, bar the literature test, all eight others which were taken as multiple-choice test showed signs of cheating. 

A total of 102 maths test results were adjusted, as were 85 in physics, 56 in chemistry, 52 in English, eight in biology, eight in history and three in geography and 52 in English.

Several students ended up with results more than 20 marks higher than they should have received. Some even ended up 29.95 marks better off.

Nguyen Cao Khuong from the Ministry of Public Security said Vu Trong Luong, Deputy Chief of the Examination and Quality Management Division under the provincial Department of Education and Training, was mainly responsible for scanning answer sheets into a computer then sending the database of results to the MoET.

Luong then took advantage of his position to download the database of tests to his personal computer.

According to the inspection team, from 12pm to 2.38pm on June 27, Luong was in charge of transferring two boxes of multiple choice answer sheets and a computer to the provincial Department of Education and Training. In only two hours, he broke the seal, pulled answer sheets out and altered answers.

No-one else has been identified as an accomplice of Luong. However, it seems impossible he could have altered all the answer sheets in the period as it took the inspection team of 10 people eight hours to do the same thing. “We are conducting further investigations,” said Khuong. 

At a press conference held on July 17, the MoET reported that more than 330 test results of 114 students would have been adjusted. 

Vu Van Su, Director of the provincial Department of Education and Training, said that they would take responsibility for the incident.

“We worked all night to reach the final conclusion and reveal the real result in the effort to restore trust among people in Ha Giang,” he said.

Dtinews