Leaking of the contents forces the Ministry of Education to cancel the results and repeat the test.
14YMEDIO, Havana | May 21, 2014
The Ministry of Higher Education and the National Admissions Committee decided to cancel the results of the Mathematics Exam for Admission to Higher Education for students in the city of Havana. The move came as a result of the leaking of the test contents, which many students in Havana had access to.
The official notice states that the exam will be repeated at 9:00 AM on 26 May. The news has caused consternation among young people who already completed the 12th grade, because access to the university requires passing exams in Mathematics, Spanish and History. Most of these students have been preparing for months, including studying with private tutors.
The exam was held on 8 May, and shortly afterwards it was learned that several of the capital’s high school students had previously obtained the questions. “Unscrupulous people stole the exam, despite the measures taken,” according to the statement by the Ministry of Higher Education.
“We have to pay for their sins,” a girl from Havana’s Nuevo Vedado neighborhood said. She had barely passed the test without having known the questions ahead of time. “Now they’re going to ‘toss a pea,’” she added, using teenage slang to suggest that the second test will probably be harder than the first.
The investigations uncovered the involvement of at least three teachers who participated in the preparation of the test; severe penalties await them. As an additional measure, the History and Spanish tests are also being modified at the last minute, for fear that they, too, could have been leaked.
