A 28-year-old teacher has been charged with 154 counts of perfect 10s.
The Latest: On the morning of July 8, Tuyên Quang police formally charged Nguyễn Hà Duy, 28, with “abusing position and power while performing official duties.”
- This charge comes after authorities detained Duy on July 5 amid a rapidly expanding investigation into severe irregularities during the 2026 high school graduation examinations in the province.
- According to state media, Duy previously attended the same school and won multiple awards. After returning as a math teacher, he also coached the school’s national math team.
The Details: Across the country, 4,208 math papers received perfect 10s, with 154 of those originating from Tuyên Quang province.
The irregularity stemmed from the unusual concentration of these scores.
- Rather than being scattered naturally, most of the perfect scores were concentrated within a continuous range of candidate numbers—from 080163xx to 080166xx—covering 328 candidates.
Of the 154 perfect math scores in the province, 147 belonged to students at Tuyên Quang High School for the Gifted, accounting for more than 95% of the province’s top marks.
The remaining perfect scores appeared among a small number of candidates outside this specific cluster.
Timeline of Events:
July 1: The investigation began after Việt Nam’s Ministry of Education and Training announced the nationwide exam results.
July 3: Observing signs of irregularities, the ministry collaborated with the Tuyên Quang education department to verify the case.
July 4: The provincial exam council sealed and withdrew all math papers that received perfect 10s for review, comparison, and further clarification.
July 5: Tuyên Quang police urgently detained teacher Nguyễn Hà Duy, 28.
July 7: Deputy Prime Minister Lê Tiến Châu asked the education ministry to conduct a nationwide review of the results from the 2026 high school graduation exam.
July 8: Nguyễn Hà Duy was officially charged.
Expert’s Take: Following the charges against Duy, lawyer Hoàng Hà wrote on his personal Facebook page that “this case is not simply exam cheating, but an act of abusing an assigned position and duties during the exam to distort official activities.”
- According to Hà, “this charge does not require the offender to have directly ‘taken money’ as in bribery, nor does it necessarily require asset appropriation as in embezzlement. The core of this offense is that a person with position and power, for personal gain or another personal motive, abused that position and power to act against official duties, causing property damage or other harm to the interests of the state or to the lawful rights and interests of organizations and individuals.”
- “The decision to charge him with this offense also shows that investigators may initially not be focusing on who benefited and by how much money, but first on whether there was conduct contrary to assigned duties during the organization of the exam. Because teacher Duy held a position, had authority, or was assigned specific public duties during the exam. […]” Hà commented.
Public Response: Meanwhile, public reaction on social media has been highly sympathetic toward Duy.
Under a post on Threads, numerous accounts suggested he was merely a “pawn” or a “scapegoat.”
- In the comments, account ltnhsnm2911 wrote that “this teacher is just a pawn. He is still very young, and his child is seriously ill. During his time working, he was extremely devoted to his students. All the students loved him. He even reviewed lessons with students at 11 or 12 at night.”
- The comment received more than 4,200 likes.
- Another comment by account a_night_animal read, “I was in a lower grade than anh Duy and knew him through Facebook. From my interactions with him, I found him to be very kind. When I messaged him to ask about math close to midnight, he still replied even though we didn’t know each other. I have no basis to say he is clean [Ed: honest, innocent] in this case, but I think someone who studied well and won a national award must have worked very hard. It makes no sense that he would suddenly come up with the idea of ‘helping’ people who want something without working for it, because that would disrespect his own effort.”
- The comment accumulated more than 3,500 likes in just one day.
- Account sunermm_ similarly noted: “A 28-year-old man who probably hasn’t worked for more than five years—where would he get the nerve to do something like that?”
- The comment received more than 4,200 likes.
The Background: In 2018, Hà Giang province shocked the country with a national high school exam score-fixing scandal, which is widely considered one of the most serious cheating scandals in the history of Việt Nam’s high school exams.
- That case began in early July 2018 when the public raised questions about an unusually large number of very high scores.
- Investigators ultimately determined that 107 candidates had their scores inflated, with 309 multiple-choice papers altered and 210 parents linked to efforts to “ask for score increases.”
Thành Phương wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on July 8, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.
