ACT may audit centers accused of cheating

ACT Inc, which administers the ACT college-entrance exam, may be auditing 200 education centers it owns that have been accused of cheating by international students after it laid off its head of test security, according to a Reuters report.

The ACT is the most popular college admissions exam, and ACT Inc owns the Global Assessment Certificate program, a college preparatory program for students whose first language is not English.

Several GAC centers, all of which are operated by a Hong Kong-based subsidiary of ACT, have been accused of rampant cheating, and they may potentially be audited to see how big the cheating problem is, according to Reuters.

This comes as the company laid off Rachel Schoenig, its head of test security, after Schoenig’s 14-member team suggested tightening security measures at testing sites around the world. In June, the ACT exam was canceled in Hong Kong and South Korea after a test was leaked.

ACT Inc, based in Iowa City, Iowa, declined a request for comment on whether the potential auditing and layoff of its test security head will have an immediate impact on students in Asia who wish to take the test, but said that the not-for-profit organization takes test security “very seriously”.

“There will always be cheating attempts and incidents around highstakes testing. ACT has layers of test security measures and procedures in place to deter and detect cheating attempts before, during and after testing, and we will continue to work to regularly improve our processes,” the organization said in a statement provided to China Daily.

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