Thai medical school applicants caught cheating using super high-tech glasses and smartwatches

Students have been blacklisted and are set to appear at police inquiry

A Thai university has been forced to cancel a series of entrance exams after three prospective students were found to be cheating using super high-tech gadgets.

Echoing something out of a James Bond movie, CBS News reports how the students at Rangsit University (RSU) in Pathum Thani, north of Bangkok, were caught wearing glasses with embedded cameras.

The cameras were designed to take pictures of exam questions which were then allegedly sent to a third party.

The students were also reportedly wearing smartwatches to which third parties sent the answers back to for the three to then cheat their way onto medical courses.

A member of staff at the university, Arthit Ourairat, posted a group of pictures of the gadgets onto his Facebook page, which have since gone viral having racked-up almost 65,000 reactions and almost 25,000 this week.

Local media reports have said the students involved have been blacklisted and will not be allowed to resit. They are due to appear at a police inquiry on Monday.

The director of academic standards at RSU, Kittisak Tripipatpornchai, told The Associated Press staff had come across cases of students copying one another in the past, “which is quite normal,” but added: “We’ve never found cheating of this level. Now, we’re going to be paying much closer attention.”

According to the university’s site, RSU is a leading private institution which is fully-accredited by the Ministry of Education under the Thai government.

In the wake of the scheme, the Bangkok Post reports the Medical Council of Thailand called an emergency meeting and confirmed it would ban any student caught cheating in medical tests, “preventing them from becoming doctors, even with private college or overseas credentials.”

Closer to home, in the UK, Britain’s universities were found to be in the midst of a “plagiarism epidemic” after an investigation by The Times newspaper in January revealed how almost 50,000 students were caught cheating in the last three years.

The University of Kent came out on top with the highest number of academic misconduct cases - with 1,947 - followed by the University of Westminster (1,933), and the University of East London (1,828).

In a statement shortly after the findings emerged, a Kent spokesperson said it had “robust systems” in place to detect anyone who may be trying to cheat, adding the institution “will not tolerate academic misconduct.”