Search Page

Sorbonne has for the first time in the university's history made a complaint against two students after having cheated on an exam. The two students have supposedly got help from a third person to correct their papers.

Two students in their first year of law studies have paid 50 euros each in bribes to have their exam paper corrected. They have most likely used their cellular phone to contact a third person who has then corrected their papers.

Several hundreds of students cheat on exams every year and the methods and imaginations are better than ever; programmed calculators; copying from Internet; fake identity card and so on. However, the sanctions can be up to two years exclusion from sitting an exam.

The National Council for Higher Education and Research (Cneser), which is an administrative jurisdiction, treats every year cases of fraud in the French education system.

809 procedures against university students have been raised because of cheating. In 1999, 84 cases of fraud were detected for the graduating exam, against 148 cases in 2003. Out of the 77 cases discovered in 2004, 55 concerned use of personnel documents; 8 use of mobile phones; 6 change of draft and 8 false identity.

A member of the commission responsible for the examinations at the end of the first cycle of secondary (BEPC) and 50 other persons have been arrested. According to the police, they stole copies of the tests before the start of the exams. Using new technology, they swiftly copied the questions and put them on sale for students and parents in some areas of the country.

According to the report of the general inspection of the administration of the national education and the research (IGAENR), the evaluation of the students at the university is not good. Actually, the fragmentation of the evaluations (due to the transition to the half yearly of the studies connected to the passage in the LMD) and the complexity of rules, return the illegible system for the students. It also entails disparities of treatment; thus universities develop their own rules of evaluation: the faculties with big workforce opt for the multiple choice question paper, faster and easy to organize. Besides, the cheating is another factor that undermine the credibility of the diplomas: according to the questioned students, between 25 and 50 % of the students resort to it.

For the very first time in Guinea, professors were suspended by their functions for facts of corruption and the students were condemned to pay a fine or to a prison sentence for fraud in the examinations. During his taking of office, Mr Souaré, Minister of the Higher education and the scientific research - who arises from the labor union of the teachers and which fought in the past against the corruption - had indicated that it would make of the fight against the fraud and the corruption its first priority.