A-level students tipped off on questions, court hears
A La Salle College physics teacher and a lab technician tipped off students about questions to appear in an A-level exam this year, a court heard yesterday.
Sham Chor-wai, 42, and Leung Kwok-yuen, 41, were alleged to have revealed experiment questions and which lab apparatus would be used in the practical exam.
Sham and Leung each pleaded not guilty at San Po Kong Court yesterday to three charges of giving exam information to students.
The court heard that Sham, the head physics teacher and an examiner for the Hong Kong Examination Authority at La Salle in Kowloon City, told students in a lecture more than a week before the exam what kind of questions were likely to appear, with most of those he suggested appearing in the final examination.
Sham was responsible for conducting the exam at La Salle in April. He was given documents containing confidential information about the practical portion of the exam, including an apparatus list with an asterisk next to each item students would need.
It was alleged that he and Leung, an authorised lab technician for the exam, disclosed this information to students.
Sham's defence counsel, Joseph Tse Yeuk Sun, questioned the clarity of the examination authority's communication system, saying warnings about confidentiality were not clear.
La Salle physics teacher Ho Chi Tat contacted the Independent Commission Against Corruption in April, when he suspected Sham and Leung of wrongdoing. Mr Ho was asked by the ICAC to secretly record conversations with the defendants.
'In the tape, [Leung] has implied admission that he knew it was not proper for him to disclose information to the students,' said prosecutor Gary Lam Kar-Yan.
Transcripts of the recordings are expected to be read out today when the trial continues before Magistrate Robert McNair.