Court hearing after reported theft of exam questions
Today, 13 June 2023, a court hearing was held concerning the by Saxion reported theft and sale of exam questions to students. Saxion has made every effort to leave no stone unturned in order to get to the bottom of the matter and we are therefore pleased that the Public Prosecution Service has proceeded to prosecute.
Four suspects were prosecuted. For Saxion, theft of exam questions is unacceptable as an educational certificate has to be of undisputed quality for us and is of great importance to society.
That is why we filed a report last year, called in a company investigation agency and conducted an internal investigation. The responses that came in through the hotline and subsequent investigation in response to police information have given more insight into the theft. This investigation was carried out by an internal investigation committee that was set up consisting of chairpersons of the examination boards.
The investigations (both internal and by the police) have revealed that more than 100 unique exam codes were stolen from different programmes. The internal follow-up investigation by Saxion focused on how many students may have made use of the stolen exam questions. To date there have been 15 hearings leading to 4 penalties. Due to the fact that it is not clear whether the exam questions were traded and subsequently used by students, we will not name the programmes in as far as we know.
Social impact
Each year at Saxion an average of 5,000 exams are taken. To ensure the smooth running of exams, Saxion has a central assessment office. In Enschede, four people in the central support had authorised access to these exams. One of these employees deliberately abused this position and authorization.
Anka Mulder, President of the Executive Board: “The deliberate action of one of our employees has led to considerable unrest among students and staff and is damaging to Saxion. Saxion stands for the integrity of its staff and reliability of its exams. This is of great importance to all our students and alumni. During the trial the accused conceded that they had underestimated the social impact of their actions. Self-interest prevailed over the interests of other students and the reputation of Saxion certificates. Two of the former students now see what the effect of their actions has been and have expressed regret. We appreciate this.”
The employee involved has been fired, a student suspected of trading has been suspended for the time being.
Further investigation by the internal investigation committee has shown that the value of certificates at all programmes are beyond reproach. Saxion does has built extra safety into this by making adjustments to the curriculum of several study programmes. In addition, investigations were carried out into individual students who may have committed fraud. These measures are aimed at individual students that we were able to establish had committed fraud have been penalised and protecting students who took exams honestly and with a clear conscience.
Saxion’s internal investigation committee is looking into whether information from today’s court hearing warrants further investigation into the use of stolen exam questions by individual students.
The verdict of the criminal cases will be on 4 July and on 25 July the verdict on the matter of confiscation will be given.