By Carolyn Quek

A TEACHER on Monday pleaded guilty to altering the examination scripts of three of her pupils to improve their answers.

Shanti Krishnasamy, 40, who was invigilating the Tamil language exam at Canberra Primary School in 2007, was caught because she neglected to fake a child's handwriting when she fixed the spelling errors or corrected the answers to the multiple-choice questions.

The exam in question was the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

Shanti, who has been suspended from her duties for a year, admitted to three corruption charges; five others were taken into consideration.

The district court heard that she did not stand to be paid for what she did. She claimed to have been pressured by the school to deliver good results for its Tamil pupils. If her pupils bagged good grades, it would also have reflected well on her ability as a teacher.

Disciplinary action will be taken against her, the Education Ministry said.

Shanti joined the profession 16 years ago. In 2003, she joined the school as a subject head for aesthetics, but also taught Tamil to its Primary 6 pupils.

On Oct 5, 2007, she was assigned to watch over a class where some of her pupils were sitting for the Tamil language Papers 1 and 2. She did not alert the presiding examiner, though she knew this was not allowed.

After collecting the scripts for Paper 1, the composition paper, she waited until everyone had left the classroom. She then looked through her pupils' scripts, making 17 spelling corrections to one essay.

Later, after Paper 2, she amended her pupils' mistakes in the multiple-choice section while locked in a toilet cubicle.

The court heard that the markers noticed the changes were in an adult's handwriting. Shanti will be sentenced next month. She may be jailed for up to seven years and fined on each charge.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.