Students ‘Really Getting Sophisticated’ to Beat Exams : High-Tech Cheats Bug Thai Universities

BANGKOK, Thailand —  Cheating in Thailand’s fiercely competitive university entrance examinations used to be a relatively simple matter of buying a set of the correct answers.

No more.

Students who want an illicit short cut into the nation’s prestigious state universities now resort to the sort of high-technology gadgetry most people only see in James Bond movies.

“Cheating is really getting sophisticated. Students are doing it by radio,” a Post and Telegraph Department analyst said.

Cheats Going Digital

Nor are students content with old-fashioned miniature radios and earphones. They have gone digital.

“We think there are receivers that don’t make a sound--possibly pressure devices on the skin,” said the analyst, who is taking part in a major crackdown on high-tech cheats.

The Thai Universities Ministry was so concerned that the 80,000 candidates should have an equal chance in this year’s April 7-16 entrance examinations that sophisticated detection and jamming vans were dispatched to campuses administering the tests.

Observers could be forgiven for thinking the whole business smacks of the murky world of espionage rather than higher education, and indeed the Post and Telegraphs experts being used are sometimes involved in Thai national security work.

Expert Uses Alias

So sensitive are his normal duties that the analyst who spoke a reporter wanted only to be known by the pseudonym Somchai.

“We started by looking for audio transmissions. But we’re picking up suspicious signals that are digital,” said Somchai, who was on patrol with three technicians in a large windowless van buzzing with static.

In air-conditioned comfort, they were bent over millions of dollars worth of electronic equipment scanning the airwaves around Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University for illicit signals.

Pointing to a green-glowing oscilloscope trace, Somchai said his crew was picking up 10 suspicious signals daily during testing hours.

The technicians say the job is tense but challenging.

‘Some Strange Signals’

“Thammasat (University) was quiet, but there are some strange signals around here,” one technician said.

They analyzed one suspicious signal and turned on the fiery red van’s own transmitter to send out a jamming beam on the same frequency that would foil any cheaters.

Then another mysterious signal appeared, sending the van and a back-up truck, also packed with equipment, racing off to track down its source.

With mounting excitement and a police escort, they traced the signal into Chulalongkorn’s Faculty of Teaching, only to find it was coming from a washing machine.

Not far away, inside Chulalongkorn’s examination halls, honest candidates were poring over questions on Thai history, literature, mathematics and other subjects.

Elaborate Lengths

This year is the first time the Thai government has gone to such elaborate lengths to catch dishonest students.

None have been caught so far, but in previous years monitors have caught several students and their accomplices using expensive miniature radio equipment.