The investigation carried out by the Higher Education Board (YÖK), the State Supervisory Council and the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office allegedly discovered that someone within the Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) -- the organization responsible for preparing the questions for the State Personnel Examination (KPSS) tests -- passed the questions on to a gang that then sold them to test takers for $10,000 some days before the examinations took place on July 10 and 11. The price dropped by $1,500 one hour before the tests. While it was earlier claimed that only the educational sciences test was distributed before the examination, now other KPSS tests are being brought into question.
Police officers are continuing to search ÖSYM examination committee members’ computers at the center’s offices as police cannot remove any items from the premises. Police are looking to establish what happened on July. 5. On that day at 11 a.m., ÖSYM tests were sent to the printers. The test questions were allegedly sent to an e-mail account at 2:22 p.m. It is also believed that the test could have been leaked by the workers of the printing house. The KPSS questions can only be seen by ÖSYM President Ünal Yarımağan and the examination commission head and deputy head of ÖSYM. The printing house workers can also see the questions, but they cannot leave their workplace for 15 to 20 days and cannot make or receive phone calls. However, they can go to the hospital with police officers.
The ÖSYM has drawn much criticism lately due to the recent scandal surrounding the KPSS tests, which were taken by hundreds of thousands of people. The fact that around 3,200 people answered most or all of the questions on the test correctly -- a first in Turkey -- has led to allegations that some of the candidates cheated during the test or obtained the questions ahead of the exams. Some of the most successful test takers were either married to each other or were friends sharing the same house, which some argue increases the likelihood that they cheated. The teacher appointments are determined according to the results of two tests, one of which is the educational sciences test -- the test at the center of the controversy.
It has also been discovered that people taking the test from numerous provinces throughout Turkey had the questions beforehand, but the number of “cheaters” has not yet been firmly established.
The Education Ministry initially intended to announce new teacher appointments on Tuesday; however, the announcements have been pushed back at least one month in light of the test scandal. In addition, if the number of test takers who cheated reaches the thousands, authorities will prepare a new test and round of examinations. If that happens, teacher appointments will most likely take place in November. Schools are set to start on Sept. 20.
Authorities say another option is to cancel the tests of candidates found to have cheated and to recalculate the scores of others. The results of the test takers are calculated by a relative evaluation system in which the performance of every test taker affects the value of every question. Süleyman İ. reportedly did not take the KPSS examination.
