The defence counsel for a teacher charged with tipping off students on what to expect in a physics examination argued yesterday that advance knowledge of what equipment was to be used during the exam would be of no practical use to students.
Lawyer Joseph Tse Yuk-sun said that with 18 experiments to be conducted during the exam, it would not be possible to deduce from a list of equipment what experiments to expect.
But Gao Ju, an associate professor of physics at the University of Hong Kong, said a smart student would be able to figure out from knowing about the equipment what experiments were going to be conducted.
The comments came on the second day of the trial of La Salle College physics teacher Sham Chor-wai, 42, and technician Leung Kwok-yuen, 41, who are charged with disclosing confidential information to students before an A-level physics practical exam this year.
Several of Sham's former students from La Salle and from the Students' Union Education Centre, where he tutored, took the witness stand. All denied having seen a confidential list of exam apparatus provided by the Hong Kong Examination Authority. But they said they had seen some equipment a week before the exam.
Both Sham and Leung remain employees of La Salle College, in Kowloon Tong, while the trial runs its course.