A New Case of Fraud Jolts Cuban Universities

Villa Clara/A new case of academic fraud jolted university campuses this Thursday. A group of first year students in Medical Sciences in the province of Villa Clara had prior access to the answers for the Morphophysiology III exam, given on Thursday, July 2. According to several witnesses, the sale and circulation of the test was extensive and affected sites in other cities such as that in Sagua la Grande.

The immediate solution will be to retest all first year students on Monday, July 13. So far it is not known if sanctions will be applied to those who committed the fraud, nor if the source of the link is known. The only details come from those who must retake the test, a measure some students lamented as “paying for the sins of others.”

Scandals of this kind in Cuban academia have become common at all levels of education. Last June, this newspaper reported on the leak of several final exams in the No. 1 Medical School in Santiago de Cuba. On that occasion, 23 students were directly involved in leaking and distributing the content of the second year Anatomy and Statistics exams, fourth year English and the well known State Test. On that occasion the school’s director asked for a two-year suspension from higher education for the students involved in the incident.