Chapter 4
The investigation file
Who was the leaker?
Once the ICAC decided to conduct an investigation, it was necessary to establish at which stage the leak occurred in respect of the 2016 HKDSE Chinese Language Oral Examination. Did it occur when setting the question paper? When delivering the question papers to the examination centres? Or on the day of the examination?
Based on the leak pattern, although the timing of the leaks varied, they all happened on the examination days. By inference, the questions were leaked during the examination.
The next question was then who leaked the questions to the Star Tutor. Given the quantity of the leaked questions, the possibility of leakage by the candidates was first ruled out because if that was the case, the Star Tutor would have to enlist the help of a large number of candidates. In addition, as the questions of the Oral Examination were randomly assigned by the HKEAA, it was quite impossible to divulge the questions at different time for over ten days as that would have involved many candidates too. In the light of the above, the ICAC inferred that the leaker was either someone in the HKEAA or someone in an examination centre.
The ICAC officers gradually narrowed down the scope of the investigation to those close to the Star Tutor. So among those close to him, who had connection with the HKEAA? Who was working in the education sector and also engaging in the HKDSE examination?
The HKDSE Chinese Language Paper 4 was assessed through an Oral Examination. In the 2016 Oral Examination, two sessions were held each day. Four rounds of examination were conducted in the first session, and three rounds in the second session. The questions for each session were different.
Leaks of the examination questions would undermine the recognition of the HKEAA and give rise to unfairness among the candidates. To uphold fairness and prevent cheating, the HKEAA strictly controlled the time for issuing examination questions. For this reason, the question papers were distributed to general candidates for preparation only ten minutes before the start of the examination.
Timing was an essential element in setting the flow of the Oral Examination. The HKEAA strictly required that the Oral Examination must be conducted at all centres at the specified time each day. In addition, control measures were put in place to prevent question leaks. According to the instructions to candidates, they must switch off their mobile phones; and once the candidates entered the preparation room, they would not be permitted to go to the washroom after distribution of the question papers. To uphold fairness, the Examiners were also required to switch off their mobile phones once they reported duty until the end of the examination that evening.
Collecting evidence
To gather more evidence, ICAC investigating officers closely monitored every move of the Star Tutor since 2016, and the surveillance operation targeting him had lasted for almost a year.
After inquiries, the Star Tutor was found to be a workaholic. He either went to the tutorial school or stayed at home, and he had no time for leisure. When under surveillance, he was not seen meeting any teachers or HKEAA personnel. It was reckoned that he no longer needed to contact the leaker after the HKDSE examination.
The ICAC also attempted to trace clues from the call records provided by the telecommunications companies. After tremendous efforts, the investigating officers discovered a call record between the Star Tutor and a friend of his on the first day of the Oral Examination. Despite a short conversation, his friend’s identity became a vital clue as he was an Examiner of the HKDSE Chinese Language Oral Examination (D2). However, after the phone call in question, the duo had no further contact for a year.
It took the ICAC a long time to narrow down the scope of the investigation from 600 to 700 people in the initial inquiries to just over ten.
An investigating officer recalled, “At first, we didn’t have any clue as to who the leaker was. 700 Oral Examiners were appointed that year. If the leaker was an Examiner, the questions would have been leaked earlier instead of just a few minutes before the start of the examination.”
The ICAC subsequently narrowed down the targets to those related to D1, including D1’s classmates in his Doctoral, Master’s and Bachelor’s degree programmes as well as his wife (D4). After a full year of surveillance, no suspicious contact was found between D1 and these people, except that …
“D1 was not found to have any contact with any invigilators or teachers in 2016. However, the call record revealed that he had contacted D2.” Since then, D2 was identified as one of the investigation targets.
Did the targets get wind of the investigation?
In the subsequent surveillance operation, no significant clues were found. The Star Tutor was not seen to have any further contact with his friends appointed by the HKEAA. With the 2017 HKDSE examination approaching, the Star Tutor was acting normally as if nothing had happened. The investigating officers wondered if the targets had got wind of the ICAC investigation.
On the night before the 2017 HKDSE Chinese Language examination, the Star Tutor released a video on tactics for handling the Oral Examination. In the video which contained leaked confidential information covered in the HKEAA’s briefing session for the Examiners, the Star Tutor emphasised that the information came from an official source. The ICAC believed that the leaker in the HKEAA was still in contact with the Star Tutor. Inquiries continued.
Suspects identified
Who was actually the leaker having contact with the Star Tutor? The question remained unanswered until the ICAC officers made a significant breakthrough.
After the time-consuming process of gathering and cross-checking the information on the Star Tutor, the investigating officers managed to narrow down the list of possible suspects. They first started with finding out if there were any serving teachers among the Star Tutor’s personal friends and workmates with whom he had frequent contact, his former colleagues in the tutorial school as well as his classmates who graduated in the same year as he did. Next, among those serving teachers, who had been appointed by the HKEAA to work in the HKDSE Chinese Language Oral Examination? Eventually, the possible suspects were narrowed down to just a few.
After further inquiries, a significant development emerged. The Star Tutor’s wife, who was a Chinese Language teacher, applied for the appointment as Invigilator of the 2017 HKDSE Chinese Language Examination Paper 2 – Writing. The investigating officers believed that she was up to something by making the application. On the bold assumption that she was going to leak the questions on the day she carried out her duties as Invigilator, the ICAC decided to mount an arrest operation on the examination day.

To ensure fairness and consistency in assessing the performance of candidates taking the Chinese Language Oral Examination performance, the HKEAA organised a briefing session for the Examiners on the assessment guidelines as well as the marking scheme and standards.
The assessment guidelines and the marking scheme were among the confidential documents distributed to the Examiners during the briefing session. While some contents of the marking scheme were disclosed to the public, some non-public contents were classified as confidential information. For example, the points to note covered in the briefing session were publicly available materials. They included a detailed briefing on a certain question type, and that particular question type was likely to be used in the examination of that year.
But among the non-public contents, the assessment criteria were explained in more detail. Therefore, if the non-public marking scheme was known to a candidate, he would know how to give an answer to get higher marks. In other words, leaks of such confidential information might give rise to perceived unfairness of the public examination.