Mo Tanweer, who graduated from Cambridge in 2004, has now left Eton
A cheating scandal that rocked Eton College may have first come to light when a student tried to impress of girl by bragging about the leaked exam details he was in possession of.
Two disgraced scholars left their professions at Eton and Winchester College, after answers to exams were ‘inadvertently’ emailed to students.
They were Mo Tanweer, head of Economics and Politics and one of Eton’s principal examiners, as wells as Winchester College’s Laurence Wolff.
Mr Wolff is alleged to have given student information on what exam questions would be included in two papers.
Now it has emerged that concerns over exam cheating were raised by a student at Downe House, an independent school for girls.
It is thought that she and a male Eton student befriended one another and that he sent her the email in an attempt to impress her.
‘It turns out that one of the boys had really put his foot in it, because he’d let slip to a girl he was trying to chat up at Downe House,’ a source told The Telegraph.
‘She was outraged and reported it to the school, which led to this sorry chain of events.’
The girl’s complaint is thought to have sparked a spate of investigations by Cambridge International Examinations (CIE).
It was revealed that Winchester College’s head of art, Laurence Wolff, was behind the leaks.
Mr Wolff was suspended pending an investigation, and was later convinced to take early retirement.
The letter sent from Head Master Simon Henderson to boys at Eton College, Windsor
Pupils at Eton had also been passed details of the exam from a pupil at Winchester, which resulted in a second set of exam marks being voided.
Mo Tanweer (above) left his job at Eton after an investigation revealed he had emailed three colleagues practice questions which ‘breached exam security’
Members of Eton’s economics department had also come forward to raise concerns that the department’s head had also leaked confidential information about upcoming Pre-U economics papers.
Mr Tanweer and Mr Wolff were both examiners for CIE.
On Thursday, Ofqual launched a review into whether teachers should be permitted to set exam questions in the subjects they teach.
The Commons education select committee are also expected to discuss probe the scandal when Parliament resumes.
Downe House’s headteacher, Emma McKendirck, said that the school looked into concerns after being raised by a pupil.
Simon Henderson, Head Master at Eton, said students affected had been ‘inadvertent recipients’ of the information.
Eton (file pic) Headmaster Simon Henderson told students that because of the confidential information that had been passed on to them, through no fault of their own, their marks in the exam would not be accepted by the board for the Cambridge Pre-U qualification
Mr Henderson sent a letter to candidates for the economics exam explaining that practice questions emailed as part of the revision programme were deemed to breach confidentiality, voiding marks.
It is not clear how the pupils became ‘inadvertent recipients’ of the questions, but Mr Tanweer is the only person implicated.
The boys’ overall marks would instead be calculated from the results of the previous two tests on the certificate’s syllabus.