'Criminal examination may be requested on suspected exam scores in Ha Giang'

Regarding public opinion questioning the negative aspects of the 2018 National High School Graduation Exam in Ha Giang province, lawyer Vu Tien Vinh (Bao An Law Firm) sent an article toZing.vngive some legal opinions.

The incident that occurred in Ha Giang after the 2018 National High School Graduation Exam was very serious, causing many consequences for society and severely affecting the legitimate rights of thousands of students with good academic results.

The investigation agency needs to get involved soon to clarify who violated and how, regardless of whether the Ha Giang authorities request it or not. The investigation will clarify whether there are any loopholes in the process to be corrected for the following years, in order to create a fairer and more transparent examination environment.

The fact that many students in Ha Giang have unusually high scores raises negative suspicions is completely grounded. Because general education is a process, it is impossible to have a leap in achievement in one year.

The number of students with high scores far surpasses many other provinces with good results, showing that the incident is of a very large nature and scale. Therefore, if there is a violation, it cannot be done by one or a few people.

The entire process from receiving, preserving exam papers, invigilating, marking, managing exams after marking, scoring, announcing scores... can all be considered suspected of violations, even criminal violations.

The above procedures have been strictly regulated by the law in general and the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training in particular, with specific sanctions for each violation. If the violator is a cadre or civil servant, they will also be subject to sanctions for cadres and civil servants. The specific responsibilities of each individual and organization will be clarified by the competent authorities.

In this case, if there is an act of leaking exam questions, changing scores, redoing or adding to the exam to get a high score, there is enough basis to initiate a criminal case to clarify who committed the crime, what crime, and to what extent.

The National High School Exam is classified as a top secret document. Therefore, anyone who intentionally discloses it will be considered criminally responsible for the crime of intentionally disclosing state secrets, as stipulated in Article 337 of the 2015 Penal Code. This article has 3 penalty levels, the lowest being 2 years in prison, the highest being 15 years in prison.

The act of correcting scores can be considered as a crime of Forgery in work, regulated in Article 359 of the 2015 Penal Code. The offender can be imprisoned for up to 20 years, minimum 12 months depending on the nature and severity of the crime.

In addition, during the investigation, the authorities may request a criminal forensic science.

Exams with corrections or additions (even in pencil) can be easily detected by the assessment of whether the ink is the same type (lead) or the same writer (for exams with an essay section).

In addition, the investigation process can randomly conduct a number of examination councils to detect abnormalities or can also take cases of students with average academic results for three years of high school but with unusually high graduation scores.

Once you have "picked up" some unusual records, finding out which step is violating is no longer too difficult.

Development of the incident

Immediately after the Ministry of Education and Training announced the 2018 national high school exam scores, public opinion raised questions.when Ha Giang province had a series of candidates with high scores.

Belonging to the group with the lowest graduation rate in the country (89.35%), this province has 3 candidates on the list of students with the highest scores in the exam. Notably, these students had low scores in the mock exam. After that, social networks spread the admission score sheet by block of 36 Ha Giang candidates which was considered abnormal.

On July 12, the Ministry of Education and Training issued an official dispatch requesting the Ha Giang Department of Education and Training to inspect and review all stages of the exam, and report in writing on the 2018 National High School Exam to the Department of Quality Management before July 17. On the same day, Mr. Tran Duc Quy - Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ha Giang province and Head of the exam steering committee of this province admitted that the exam scores were irregular.

On July 14, a working group from the Ministry of Education and Training went to Ha Giang to coordinate the investigation into the suspicion of unusually high exam scores.