A university official has come under fire as cheating allegations emerge at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Lat Krabang. Tawil Paungma is currently being investigated for altering academic grades for his son, a student at KMITL
Tawil acts as president of the university and it is believed that back in 2012 he altered grades in 8 subjects for his son. The allegations would have taken place during the first semester of his son’s freshman year, a common period when students experience academic mishaps.
The president believes that he was framed by unfair campus politics following the recent selection of 7 new rectors and deans for the Bangkok university.
The fudged grades were first discovered when an English-language professor demanded a student revise course scores. What they found was shocking; Prof. Tawil’s son had earned himself a D however the official report with the registrar’s office reflected a B grade.
This discovery uncovered 7 additional grade changes for the same student. Half of which were failing F grades, all scores were reversed to passing.
When the scandal was first reported to the university on November 27 the English-language professor demanded the original D score to be restored. The petition states that no action was taken.
In his defense, Prof. Tawil is claiming that any grade updates were simply clerical errors because his son still has D grades on his transcript. Surely, if he wanted to cheat grades for his son he would have changed all scores. He is blaming high student enrollment and campus politics to the repeated error.
The university president released the following statement: “It may be a setup to destroy me so I cannot continue to work here. There are strong politics here (on campus), but grading or grade changing is done by the lecturers of each subject, and the administration cannot get involved or even request to see grades,”
A group of outraged lecturers are demanding education authorities to examine the case and determine whether tampering of information occurred. The petition has been submitted to the Education Ministry and Office of Higher Education Commission, as reported by Bangkok Post.
