Search Page

A Singaporean tutor has admitted to helping six Chinese students cheat in their 2016 exams in what prosecutors say was an elaborate plot. The tutor took the exams as a private candidate and FaceTimed questions to accomplices who then rang students and read answers to them, prosecutors say. The students snuck in mobile phones and Bluetooth devices and wore earphones during their exams. The plot was uncovered after an invigilator noticed unusual sounds coming from one of the students involved, prosecutors said.

Leading English academics and former HSC chief examiners have warned that plans to make HSC English exams shorter and put word limits on answers will make it easier for students to game the system and will "further fuel the HSC tutoring industry". The submission warns that the tutoring industry would benefit from the introduction of shorter answers because students would pay to be taught how to "memorise and then reproduce" 600-word responses for their exams.

The Office of the Private Education Commission (Opec) has set up a working team to investigate private tutoring institutes which allegedly provided hi-tech devices to students to cheat in entrance exams after three students who took entrance exams for the university's College of Medicine, Faculty of Dental Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy were found to have used video camera glasses and smartwatches to cheat during the exams. Opec will work closely and exchange information with Pak Klong Rangsit police who are investigating the case.

As the academic results improve due to a national curriculum that contains coherence and a continuation, the government is concerned with the fact that the increase of private tutoring expenses could open an edge between poor and rich students. Therefore, governmental online tutoring programs are being released in order to compete with the enterprises specialists in teaching services.

The IIEP/UNESCO report "Corrupt schools, corrupt universities: What can be done" has identified private tuition as a major source of "unethical behavior" in India, observing that it has become a major industry, consuming a considerable amount of parents' money and pupils' time. Together with private tuitions, two other major problems that face the Indian education system are the manipulation of entrance test scores and teachers absenteeism.

Admissions, courses, grades and diplomas are for sale in high profile higher institutions. Admissions officers offer expensive private lessons. Reforms should include an accreditation system, an entrance exam and an increase in financing.