NTU exam answers leaked on the Net by Jane Ng AFTER an accountancy exam at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) on Wednesday, at least one student went up to a lecturer saying some course-mates had seen online answers to the exam they had just sat. These answers had been available on NTU’s website days before the exam, the student added. Some of the 350 second-year students taking the accounting measurement and disclosure paper are believed to have brought the answers along for the exam, as they were allowed to take in textbooks and notes. But whether they used the answers, which did not appear online with the questions, is not clear. Some of them apparently did not realise the answers were for the exam they were sitting. Now, the university is investigating how those answers ended up on the site and whether students need to retake the exam. According to the dean of the business programme, Professor Vijay Sethi, investigations are expected to take a few days. The school will decide on its course of action after that. He said the standard procedure after creating exam answers is for the lecturer to submit them to Nanyang Business School’s exam office, which then forwards them to the university’s office of academic studies for safe-keeping. After that, all hard copies of the answers are destroyed and soft copies deleted from the lecturers’ computers. The next time the lecturers see the answers is when they mark the papers. Said Prof Vijay: ‘I’ve been with the school for more than 10 years and all lecturers have followed this procedure conscientiously. This is the first time such a situation has arisen. ‘I’m glad the students brought it up. That speaks well of the integrity of our students as they could have just kept quiet,’ he added. The two lecturers who came up with the answers for the exam - Nanyang Business School sub-dean for accountancy Wendy Foo, who won Teacher of the Year awards in 1997 and 2001, and Assistant Professor Khim Kelly from the same school - are working with the university to find out how they ended up on the site. Those who sat for the exam but were not aware some course-mates had the answers, took the news in their stride. Mr Ng Teck Loong, 22, who did not have the answers, said he was prepared to retake the exam, which counts for 50 per cent of his grade. ‘It would be unfair to count the grades for the original paper now this has happened,’ he said. One of his course-mates, who declined to be named, said he would rather concentrate on next week’s papers.