A new disciplinary board has backtracked on a decision to automatically fail 250 students after a cheating ring was discovered in one class.

The class, within the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, had been told that they’d all be failing after screenshots of a Messenger chat showed collusion between students. The screenshots showed students allegedly asking each other about questions involved in a particular study unit’s test, EMA1008: Quantitative Analysis for Business 1.

However, there was backlash after FEMA announced it would fail all students, regardless of whether they were involved in the actual cheating or not.

The new board appointed to investigate the cheating ring have since changed tact, and instead spoke to all students involved specifically in the chat and will only be penalising those involved in the cheating ring.

“Those students involved in the chat were granted a fair hearing by being individually allowed to explain their participation in the chat,” the University of Malta said in a statement.

“This allowed the board to determine the extent of their involvement in the matter. In those cases where it transpired that students indeed colluded with others, the board reprimanded them for their unacceptable behaviour. These students were further penalised by having their original marks deducted according to the degree of severity of their collusion,” they explained.

The board is made up of Prof. Frank Bezzina, Prof. Vincent Cassar, Deputy Dean and Zane Camilleri as student representative.