Police cracks bagrut leak

Suspects named include Education Ministry exam writer, teacher.

StudentsAtHebrewU311 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
StudentsAtHebrewU311
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
More details surfaced Sunday on the leaked Bagrut affair, which is being investigated by the Jerusalem Police Fraud Division. Police have arrested two people on suspicion of leaking the Bagrut maths test, Israel radio reported.
Rachel Kedem, a member of the Ministry of Education's exclusive committee that composed the high school matriculation exam, is alleged to have illegally passed questions from it to Eli Cohen, a pre-academic teacher from the northern Israel Technion University, supposedly to 'consult his opinion'.
Cohen, who is also a private mathematics tutor, passed on the information to a student of his, who sold them to others for NIS 1,000. The leak rapidly gathered momentum, with subsequent sale prices rising even higher.
The suspects arrested Sunday were released later that day under strict limitations.
The leak emerged a few days before the test when a teacher was told by one of her students that the questions were available on Facebook, and she reported it to the police.
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As a result of the leak, the Education Ministry was forced to change the test at the last minute which caused problems in distribution of the test. A ministry internet site from which headmasters  were supposed to retrieve it crashed under the load and in addition various schools had problems caused by the need to print the test at the last minute.  Tests are usually delivered already printed by the post office.