UGD's E-Transcripts Were "Fixed" for Money for Five Years: Two Employees Held in Custody

The electronic transcript was supposed to be proof that education in Macedonia had finally entered the digital age, where a grade is recorded by a system and not by someone's "connection" at a counter. At the "Goce Delčev" University in Štip, according to the prosecution, that very system spent five years serving a completely different purpose.

The Basic Court in Štip ordered eight days of custody for two employees: 44-year-old R.T., head of the e-transcript department, and 44-year-old M.M.N., an adviser in the student archive. They are charged with abuse of office and computer fraud, and the illegal gain is so far estimated at 21,000 euros.

What exactly was "on offer"? According to the Interior Ministry, the department head had for a long time been taking money from students from Turkey so they could register for and sit exams after the deadlines had already passed. He is also suspected of deleting grades and credits from transcripts so students could enrol in a new semester or year, and of entering data on supposedly paid tuition. The prosecution says the second suspect, following his instructions, entered false data into the information system.

During a search of the department head's home, three laptops, four mobile phones, USB sticks, documents and cash were seized. The university's electronic system was searched under a court order - and that is exactly where investigators found traces of changes made by the second suspect, after which she too was detained.

The figure of 21,000 euros sounds modest for five years of "work". The costlier question is a different one: how many passed exams and how many enrolled years rest on data that someone "adjusted"? And who at the university was supposed to check, and didn't - five years in a row?

So far the investigation talks about two people. Whether, in a system where one person can delete grades and reopen closed exam periods, nobody else really saw anything - that is the answer UGD owes every student who passed their exams honestly.