A Vietnamese student from Singapore Management University (SMU) on a fully-paid scholarship has been jailed 16 weeks for numerous cheating offenses. The first-year SMU student, Tran Gia Hung, hacked into his professor’s grading portal and changed his grades from D+ to B, and his overall grade from B to A-.
The despicable ASEAN scholar also changed his classmate whom he bear a grudge with from B- to D+. The classmate from Indonesia, Yudi Alvin, is also an ASEAN scholar. Yudi Alvin was also framed by Tran Gia Hung for being the actual culprit making changes to the grades.
When caught red handed with evidence clearly showing the unauthorised entries to the professor’s portal traced back to his laptop, Tran Gia Hung denied the charges repeatedly and even resorted to destroying any evidence by going to Sim Lim Square to have his macbook cleared of all data a day after he was investigated.
This is the second cheating case in SMU, with the first incident in 2016 where a Russian law student hacked into a professor’s computer to delete his class’s exam scripts.
Singapore’s local universities put up unequal entry requirements for Singaporean students and reserve at least 20% of their admissions for foreign students. Most of the foreign students came on scholarship with fees fully sponsored and living allowance given, while Singaporean students are denied such benefits. The Singapore government discourages Singaporeans from getting bachelor degrees out of fear more Singaporeans will emigrate.