Media

Investigation Report on the Confidentiality of Medical Faculty's Examination Questions taken on board

18 Jul 2008

A 3-member panel responsible for investigating the confidentiality of questions of a Medical Faculty's examination in Surgery of The University of Hong Kong has submitted a Report to the Vice-Chancellor Professor Lap-Chee Tsui.

The Panel was set up by the Vice-Chancellor on February 25, 2008 to look into an alleged leakage of examination questions reported by some local press on the same day. The examination was held as scheduled with a replacement question paper made up of reserved questions in place of the original paper.

The Panel was chaired by Pro-Vice-Chancellor Joseph H.W. Lee, and comprised Justice Patrick S.O. Chan and Professor Grace W.K. Tang as members. Findings and recommendations in the report are summarized as follows:

1. The Panel found that 5 medical final-year students approached a teacher in the Department of Surgery with a list of probable examination topics students had collectively guessed and tried to elicit from the teacher concerned indications, hints or clues relating to the examination. The teacher had unintentionally provided them with hints and clues from which the students made their own deductions and produced a list of possible examination questions/topics which they collectively guessed. There was a significant similarity between the contents of the list students came up and the original examination paper.

2. The Panel fully realised that the teacher concerned is a compassionate teacher held in high esteem by his colleagues and students, and is a caring mentor and counsellor in the eyes of students. The Panel was of the view that both the teacher and the students involved should be responsible for the incident. However the Panel concluded that the allegation that the teacher concerned leaked the questions to individual persons or students for personal favour is unfounded.

3. The Panel was satisfied that there was neither unfairness caused to any individual student nor adverse effect on the examination as a replacement question paper made up of reserved questions had been used.

4. The Panel recommended that in future Faculty mentors and counsellors (such as the teacher involved in the incident) should not be involved in selecting questions for the final version of examination papers to avoid potential conflict of roles. The Panel also suggested that a letter of caution should be issued to this teacher. Also, Faculty mentors and counsellors should regularly inculcate in students the correct attitude towards learning and examination.

The report and all the recommendations have been accepted by the Vice-Chancellor who has taken the necessary action to issue a letter of caution to the teacher concerned. The teacher has relinquished his duties relating to the selection of final examination questions.

For a summary of the findings and recommendations, please visit http://www.cpao.hku.hk/media/EQS080718.pdf

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