The Business of University Exams
29/11/2022
29/11/2022
Mohammad, a Saudi student in the Medical Laboratories department at
the public University of Tabuk, recruited the help of Yemeni students
to sit some exams on his behalf for 3000 Saudi Riyals ($800). Mohammad
blames the difficult tests for his action and that some of the
questions do not align with the curriculum. Mohammad also blames
remote learning introduced during the Covid pandemic, and the fact
that his peers have been doing the same thing.
At the other end, dozens of Yemeni students considered this an
opportunity to earn some money during the war, and the harsh living
and economic conditions in their country, so they resorted to
providing paid assistance to the Saudi students.
Amjad is a Yemeni student in the Media Department at Taiz University.
He was repeatedly invited by his friends to sign into Telegram, the
social media app, to take exams on behalf of Saudi students, but he
would refuse. Later, due to his worsening financial circumstances, he
decided to give it a try and took an English exam on behalf of a Saudi
student. He passed the exam scoring a high grade, which made him
popular among many Saudi students who started to contact him offering
him more work. At times, it got to a point where he would take ten
exams per day in the hours allotted, with the help of a professor at
Taiz University. He said, “I took exams in translation into English,
chemistry and applied sciences. I would make between 1500 to 2000
Saudi Riyals per day ($400 to $540). Sometimes I would make 3000 Saudi
Riyals ($800), but I became exhausted, and anxious.”
This investigation has followed an elaborate cheating ring sitting exams remotely for students at four Saudi universities, Najran, Taibah, Tabuk, and Al-Jouf, between November 2020 and December 2021. The investigation has also tracked the cheating methods used and the money transfer process. The investigation monitored more than 30 Telegram groups belonging to Saudi students at various universities tabling requests for others to sit exams in return for money.
Khalid, a twenty-five-year-old student of mechatronics in the Faculty
of Engineering at Taiz University, confirms Amjad’s story about how
the coordination with Saudi students takes place, “students sign into
a Telegram group, and when Saudi students in the group ask for help,
we send them private messages to enquire about the material they need
help with, so we can start the process.”
Khalid explains that the process was not well organized at the
beginning, but over time, it became more like an E-exam sitting
market. He adds, “time shows how proficiently you completed the
process, which makes you famous and students start to share your name
and number, and they seek you out for help.”
Khalid undertook around one hundred assignments ranging between
sitting exams, preparing projects, and writing papers. He said, “80%
of the courses that I took tests in on behalf of Saudi students
aligned with my major at university, and only 20% of the courses I was
not familiar with.” And despite that Khalid says that he obtained
grades above 90%.
Students say that Saudis resort to recruit Yemeni students because
both nations curricula are similar.
Emad, a Yemeni student, said, “Whether we are in Yemen or in Saudi
Arabia, the programming language has fixed codes, just like Arabic is
unified and has fixed letters. The difference comes about through
achievement, performance and depends on the student’s intelligence.”
Other Yemeni students believe that Saudi curricula are organized,
simplified and comprehensible compared to the more intensive Yemeni
curricula. “This difference benefits both parties,” says Rafiq, a
Yemeni studying medicine.
Sitting exams for money is done in two different ways, the first is
when Saudi students coordinate with Yemeni students through messaging
on Telegram and WhatsApp, and they agree a specific amount of money in
return for the Yemeni students to take the exams on their behalf. Upon
agreeing the terms, both students sign into one of the apps at the
time of the exam. The questions are then photographed for the Yemeni
student who sends the answers back.
The second method is when a Saudi student sends his exam platform
login details, such as his university number and password to the
Yemeni student who takes the exam directly on the platform instead of
the Saudi student.
Khalid, who is from Yemen explained that some students snap photos of
the questions and send them in a conversation on WhatsApp or Telegram,
“and we give them the answer. They upload the answers we send to the
university’s website. Some even share their username, password, the
exam start time, and the link to the exam site, and then we log onto
the site at the exact time, look at the questions and answer them as
stated by the university regulations.”
Khalid confirmed that he sat exams on the platform on behalf of four
Saudi students in different majors.
To verify the possibility of doing this, this investigation obtained
documented conversations that confirm all of the above, cross checking
login information of Saudi students sent to Yemeni students in order
to sign into the exam platform. The investigators verified the
validity of the information by signing onto two remote exam platforms
at the universities of Najran and Al-Jouf by using the login details
obtained for this investigation.
Rafiq, a student in the Department of Human Medicine at Taiz
University started taking exams on behalf of Saudi students through
Telegram and established a network of relationships with many Yemeni
and Saudi students for which he created and managed an online
coordination room that offers “remote exam services.”
Each group of Saudi universities on Telegram includes about 20000
subscribers. Yemeni students communicate with those who ask for help
and work to send them reassuring evidence that they are able to
help, and later the conversation moves to other messaging
applications. Rafiq claims that “we reach an agreement with the
Saudi student, and we inquire whether they have peers who also need
help, or whether they had similar communications with other Yemeni
students, for example.”
Regarding the coordination with Yemeni students, Rafiq explains that
it is done directly with trusted peers who are given the required
courses after agreeing the terms. The Saudi student is informed
about the “trusted student” found to sit the exam on their behalf.
In other instances, the Saudi student is directly connected with the
Yemeni student to agree on the details of doing the exam.
This investigation also managed to track down how the money change hands, specially that direct money transfers between Yemen and Saudi Arabia are not operational. Most transactions are made internally from Saudi students to Yemeni expatriates residing in Saudi Arabia who usually have accounts in the same Al-Rajhi bank.
Khalid and others had difficulties receiving money because they did
not have ties to expatriates in Saudi Arabia, instead they resorted
to their friends in Yemen who had friends or relatives who possess a
Saudi bank accounts, and this takes time and costs approximately 20%
as commission deducted from the total sum for the intermediary.
Through this investigation we managed to obtain around seventy
copies of notifications of completed money transfers sent by Saudi
students to Yemeni students who sat exams on their behalf.
The fees charged for sitting an exam vary between 30 to 230 Saudi
Riyals, ($8 to $60) per exam subject. Khalid said, “There is no set
cost for exam sitting, each student is charged a different price.” .
Saudi and Yemeni students have different reasons for engaging in
this process. Some Saudi students say that the challenge of studying
remotely and the poor method of executing the exam prompted many to
seek paid help.
For example, Salah, a student in the English department at Al-Jouf
University, says that the time dedicated to the exam was very short,
and the course material has been covered very quickly. At the same
time, students cannot find time to learn unlike the case when they
attend face-to-face classes. He disclosed that 20% of his peers rely
on others to sit their university exams.
On the other hand, Yemeni students find that taking exams for their
Saudi counterparts is a good source of income that helps them face
the difficult living conditions caused by the war.
Emad said, “Some take tests on behalf of 15 to 20 students a day
during exam periods, and make between 5000 and 6000 Saudi Riyals
($1500 - $1600) per day, which is an amazing amount.”
By taking exams remotely, Amjad was able to pay off his mother’s
debts. In the first half of the month of Ramadan in 2021, he earned
about 18000 Saudi Riyals ($4800). He had dedicated that period to
taking English language exams with the help of his friend who is a
university professor. In addition to paying his mother’s debts he
was able to refurbish a room in his house and announced his
engagement.
We have sent letters to the administrations of the Sa udi
universities mentioned in this investigation and to the Ministry of
Higher Education in the Kingdom seeking their reaction and their
right to reply to our findings. But we have not received any reply
after three month from sending the letters.
The head of scientific research at King Abdulaziz Centre for World
Culture, affiliated with Saudi Aramco, Mohammad Al-Mulhim, believes
that the cheating issue also exists in face-to-face education. The
fact that it occurs more frequently in remote learning does not
undermine the outcomes dramatically.
He added, “I believe that the educational procedures resulting from
the Covid-19 pandemic were improvised due to unprecedented
circumstances. We should not rush in evaluating them, and we should
take into account the context of the situation and the recent
experience of educational institutions in applying these methods.”
Al-Mulhim explained that the poor outcomes are not the result of
cheating; rather, they are due to poor teaching and an unrealistic
curricula. Additionally, there is a shortage in practical
applications in the fields of engineering and science, or the
applied course modules are there in theory in cooperative and summer
training programs.
The Coronavirus pandemic enabled the emergence of sitting exam “business” between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Coronavirus’ decline also caused the phenomenon to stop. The Saudi Ministry of Higher Education and the universities did not take any measures to curb organized cheating in the future if remote learning should be needed again.
Note: All the names mentioned in the investigation are pseudonyms documented in our records, which were withheld at the request of the persons for fear of being pursued legally.