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Bad genius: Singapore tutor faces jail for 'sophisticated' system to help students cheat

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Reuters

SINGAPORE - A Singaporean tutor has pleaded guilty to helping six Chinese students cheat in school exams in a &quot;highly sophisticated&quot; operation using video calling and skin-colored earphones, court documents seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.Private tuition is big business in Singapore with parents paying as much as S$700 ($535) for four-session courses and some tutors have become millionaires from the business. Singapore&#x27;s reputation for a good education system attracts students from across Asia and beyond.Tan Jia Yan, 32, worked for a tuition center that offered money-back guarantees to Chinese students if they failed to pass exams and get a place in a Singapore polytechnic.Tan pleaded guilty on Monday to 27 charges of cheating.Together with her colleagues, Tan helped attach &quot;wearable Bluetooth devices&quot; and skin-coloured earphones to the students which were connected to discreetly placed mobile phones when they sat their exams in 2016.Tan then sat the exams herself as a private candidate and used a camera phone attached to her chest to send video footage of the paper to her colleagues via Facebook&#x27;s Facetime app .Her colleagues would then call the students to tell them the answers.Court documents said the &quot;highly sophisticated&quot; operation ran between Oct. 19 and Oct. 24, 2016, before it was uncovered by an invigilator.Tan faces up to 3 years in prison or a fine, or both, per charge.Three of her colleagues, including principal of the Zeus Education Centre, had also been charged, but were contesting the charges, media reported.The principal allegedly worked with a Chinese associate, who would refer students to him, court documents said.For each student referred, the associate allegedly received S$8,000 ($6,100) in deposit fees and another S$1,000 ($763) in admission fees.The court documents said the six students were witnesses in the case. (Reporting by Fathin Ungku Editing by John Geddie and Robert Birsel)

BAD GENIUS: A Singaporean tutor has pleaded guilty to helping six Chinese students cheat in school exams in a "highly sophisticated" operation using video calling and skin-colored earphones, court documents seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.

BAD GENIUS: A Singaporean tutor has pleaded guilty to helping six Chinese students cheat in school exams in a "highly sophisticated" operation using video calling and skin-colored earphones, court documents seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.