Cheating probe after chat room discussion on ‘notes’
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has confirmed it is investigating claims of cheating at one school after discussions on the boards.ie website at the weekend. One student had started a discussion thread on Saturday saying that other Leaving Certificate candidates were retrieving notes hidden in their socks and pants in the toilets, and that others were reading saved notes from mobile phones in the exam hall. “We are commencing an investigation into an allegation made by a student in relation to cheating at an exam centre,” a SEC spokesperson said.
But she stressed that this is no different to probes it conducts every year if cheating allegations are made by other students, by school staff if they discover materials on the premises, or by parents of students who tell them classmates have been cheating. Every year, dozens of students do not get a result in one or more subjects if investigations conclude they had broken exam rules. Many cases arise from reports of suspicious activity by SEC personnel supervising exams and by exam markers who notice similar work by students at the same exam centre or who find notes in answer booklets that appear to have been brought into the exam in breach of the rules.
