O-Level exam cheating case: Student coughed to get answers repeated over call

SINGAPORE — Telling the court how he cheated to get answers to the first of five GCE O-Level papers, 17-year-old Zhou Zice said that he secretly answered a call that came in the middle of his Combined Science (Physics/Chemistry) practical examination.

Over the phone, a tutor would narrate solutions to his test questions in chronological order. When he could not hear any of the answers clearly, Zice coughed to have the answer repeated to him.

The teen, a Chinese national, was a witness on Thursday (April 19) testifying during a trial involving Poh Yuan Nie, 52, principal of tuition agency Zeus Education Centre, and two of her accomplices — her niece, Fiona Poh Min, 30, and Chinese national Feng Riwen, 25.

They allegedly helped six students from China cheat during the O-Level exams in 2016.

On the third day of trial, Zice was cross-examined by defence lawyer James Chai, who asked how he managed to get answers fed to him when his grasp of the English language was poor. All factors considered, Mr Chai claimed that it was “impossible” for Zice to receive the answers to all the questions in the middle of his exam when its duration was only 90 minutes.

Zice said that he did not have to understand what he was writing. He blindly inscribed every English word read to him.

“I don’t know if the answers were correct. I simply wrote it down,” Zice testified through a translator. “They would read out each word one by one. They would even spell out each word for me.”

General instructions, such as which question the narrator was answering, were clear to him because they were given in Mandarin, he explained.

When the prosecution questioned him earlier on Tuesday, Zice said that he was instructed to wear thicker clothing and a jacket to sit for his O-Levels so that he could better conceal three Bluetooth devices taped to his body.

The devices, which were connected to an iPhone in the back pocket of his trousers, enabled him to tune in to an audio feed via an “in-ear” earphone for answers to five papers, namely Mathematics Paper 1 and 2, English Paper 1 and 2, and a practical assessment for the subject of Combined Science (Physics/Chemistry). These took place in four days between Oct 19 and 24 in 2016.

On Monday, one of Poh’s accomplices, 32-year-old former tuition teacher Tan Jia Yan, pleaded guilty to 27 charges.

She admitted to helping the students attach wearable Bluetooth devices onto their bodies before they went into the exam centres, and Tan herself sat the exams as a private candidate to help the six Chinese nationals cheat.

As part of the elaborate scheme, she used an iPhone and Apple’s video-calling app, FaceTime, to beam images of the exam scripts back to the three accused. From the tuition centre, they purportedly worked out the answers before calling the students individually to read out the answers to them.

A pre-trial conference is scheduled on April 26 to discuss how the rest of the trial will proceed. For that, TODAY understands that the prosecution will lead evidence from at least 10 more witnesses, which will include more Chinese students, and a number of police investigation officers and Ministry of Education (MOE) officers.

In response to queries from TODAY, the MOE said that Zeus Education Centre was not registered with the ministry and has never applied for registration.

Under the Education Act, centres offering tuition or enrichment programmes with 10 or more students must seek registration.

Registered centres have to comply with building and fire safety requirements, conduct their activities at appropriate facilities and have a school management committee.

They must also register new teachers and new courses with the ministry, and renew the term of office of their school management committees, an MOE spokesperson said, adding that prospective students and their parents are advised to do research into tuition and enrichment centres before enrolling with them.

To date, there are about 900 tuition centres and enrichment centres registered with the ministry. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FARIS MOKHTAR