The exams authority reported a tutorial centre to "a law enforcement agency" yesterday over allegations that the centre tried to "con" students after gaining improper access to an English-language exam paper last week.
The development came as the tutorial centre alleged by Chinese-language media to be involved, Xiandai College, denied any connection to the case but suspended all classes taught by the celebrity tutor accused of being at the centre of the claims.
The allegations centre around complaints that a tutorial centre had offered an "extended learning" mobile phone service related to the Certificate of Education Examinations English language paper 1A - a test of students' reading ability.
The alleged service involved sending students text messages explaining the content of the exam after it had finished, claiming it would "help candidates gain a deeper understanding of paper 1B", the writing paper. The two exams were held on Friday, with a 45-minute break between the two.
The Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority first confirmed it was looking into the case in a statement posted on its website late on Tuesday night.
"The incident could indicate that the related organisation got hold of a copy of the question paper through an improper channel before the exam was over and used this to profit from and cheat students," it said.
According to the authority's regulations, students and exam supervisors are banned from removing question papers from exam halls until the exam is over. However, the statement added that although the topics of the two papers were "similar", the second was not directly related to the first and "candidates would not gain any advantage because of this service". A spokeswoman confirmed yesterday the matter was now in the hands of the authorities, but declined to confirm whether it was being dealt with by the police or the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and refused to name the tutorial centre.
"As this case has been passed to a law enforcement agency, we will not make further comment," she said. "We wish to have a clear investigation of this case and so feel it would be more appropriate for them [the law enforcement agency] to investigate this than for us to look into it."
Xiandai College, meanwhile, held a press conference yesterday to deny any involvement.
Although the tutoring chain said it would "initially trust" the tutor at the centre of the row - Karson Oten Fan Kar-no - it had temporarily suspended its working relations with him until he could provide an explanation.
Lee Wai-lok, executive director of the chain, said the school had not terminated Mr Fan's contract and explained the temporary suspension was just to avoid the public losing confidence in Xiandai due to the controversy.
"Because the Form Five and Form Seven courses are finished, the number of students involved is not so much," Mr Lee said.
Mr Fan did not attend the press conference, but the centre issued a short statement on his behalf. The statement stressed Xiandai College was not involved. It claimed media reports had not represented the "whole truth", but did not elaborate.
SCMP. May 8, 2008
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