The Ministry of Education and Training hosted a press conference, as authorities confirmed exam fraud at this test site and the first round of university admissions began yesterday. The announcement comes after a cheating scandal at the Tuyen Quang specialized high school test site drew significant public attention.

The incident attracted public attention from 1/7, when the Ministry announced high school graduation exam scores. Tuyen Quang province had 154 math papers with perfect scores out of nearly 17,600 students, a rate of 0,88% – the second highest nationwide. Significantly, these perfect scores were mainly concentrated at Tuyen Quang specialized high school.

Over 290 of the 328 students at this test site achieved 9 math points or higher; more than 140 of them earned perfect scores.

Police later identified Tran Thi Thu Hang, Deputy Principal of Nguyen Van Huyen high school and head of the test site, as having directed and guided several supervisors to facilitate students in completing their math exams. Subsequently, math teacher Nguyen Ha Duy "entered exam rooms and directly guided" some students. To date, 27 individuals have been prosecuted for abusing their position and power while performing official duties.

On 9/7, Tuyen Quang province proposed that all aforementioned students retake the exam. However, the Ministry requested the province to continue fully and objectively verifying the nature of the incident before proposing a solution.

The Ministry stated, "The solution will ensure that genuinely capable students are not affected in their study opportunities, while upholding the discipline, fairness, and credibility of the high school graduation exam."

The gate of Tuyen Quang specialized high school. Photo: Thanh Hang

The high school graduation exam took place on 11-12/6, involving over 1.2 million students. Nearly 875,000 of them applied for university admissions. The university application filtering process (loc ao) involved six rounds, concluding at 5 PM on 9/8.

Duong Tam