Tan Jia Yan sit the exam as a private candidate and beamed a live feed of the paper to her accomplices, using FaceTime. (Photo: straitstimes.com)
Singapore (VNA) – A tuition teacher involved in a scheme wheretuition centre employees helped six students cheat in the O-level Examinationsin 2016 was sentenced to three-year jail on April 15.
Singaporean Tan Jia Yan, 33 years old, had admitted to 27 counts of cheatingand was the first to plead guilty in the case, which involves three others fromthe Zeus Education Centre, including its principal.
They were charged with supporting the students, aged 17 to 20, by attachingdevices to their bodies including wearable Bluetooth devices which were linkedwith mobile phones concealed under their clothes, and skin-coloured “in-ear”earphones which fed them answers to the tests.
Tan attended the exams as a private candidate with acamera phone attached to her chest with scotch tape, with extra clothing tohide the phone from sight. She used iPhone video-calling applicationFacetime to send a live feed of the exam papers she was attempting back to herthree co-conspirators who were in the tuition centre.
It unravelled when one of the students was caught by an invigilatorduring the English Paper 1 exam at Tampines Secondary School.
Investigations later revealed that tuition centre principal Pony Poh Yuan Nie hadsigned contracts regarding the students stipulating that she would receiveadmission fees and deposits of about 1,000 SGD (738.84 USD) and 8,000 SGD (5,900 USD) respectively perstudent for taking them on.
However, if the students failed to pass the O-Level exams andfailed to get places in Singapore polytechnics, Poh had to refund the money infull to the Chinese company director she had signed the contracts with.
Poh paid Tan 1,000 SGD per student for providing them lodging, ontop of a monthly salary of about 3,000 SGD (2,200 USD).
Further investigation is underway.-VNA
VNA
