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CRIME

Cheating scandal forces 28,000 Berlin students to retake exam

Berlin authorities have launched a criminal investigation and are insisting 28,000 10th grade students retake their final mathematics test after discovering it was distributed in as many as 15 schools around the city before the test date.

Cheating scandal forces 28,000 Berlin students to retake exam
Photo: DPA

The 10th grade ‘MSA’ final math took place on Wednesday, but authorities believe someone leaked the test up to two weeks earlier, according to Berlin daily Berliner Morgenpost on Friday.

“It was sold in the school yards,” spokesperson for the education administration Kenneth Frisse told the paper.

An unnamed student told the paper that the test questions were sold for €10 to €15.

Authorities don’t know just how widespread the cheating was, but education senator Jürgen Zöllner believes it was enough to warrant a criminal investigation, the paper reported.

“But probably none of the teachers noticed a thing,” Zöllner said.

Education spokesman Frisse told the paper it’s likely that someone involved in the test’s preparation is the culprit.

Zöllner told Berliner Morgenpost that the first report of the massive cheating scandal came in around 9:55 am on Wednesday, but authorities did not discover the extent of the cheating ring until after the students had taken the test.

Test results have been declared invalid, and a new test date set for June 23, but many students feel it’s unfair they have to go through the stress of final exams twice, especially if they weren’t among the cheaters, the paper reported.

Students plan to protest the second test on Monday in front of the Berlin’s city council building, the Rotes Rathaus.

Frisse has asked anyone with information on the source of the leak to contact police in their ongoing investigation.

CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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