Poly graduate fined $5,500 for forging grades to enter university
SINGAPORE — Desperate to gain a place at a local university, a polytechnic graduate repeatedly submitted doctored grades on his academic transcript, a court heard.
Kieffer Tay Kai Xian’s mother had criticised her only child for his failure to get good grades, and even chased him out of their home twice. He had to be put up at a hotel by his father, and later spent one month living with his paternal grandmother.
At the State Courts on Thursday (19 December), Tay, who turns 25 at the end of the month, was fined $5,500 after pleading guilty to one of four forgery charges.
Tay is currently an undergraduate pursuing a degree in business management with communications at SIM Global Education.
Desperate to enter university
Tay attended Temasek Polytechnic (TP), where he obtained a diploma in leisure and resorts management in 2014.
Between 2016 and 2017, after completing his full-time national service, Tay submitted doctored polytechnic certificates multiple times to SIM University (UniSIM) and the Singapore University of Social Sciences, which succeeded it.
“In 2017, the accused was desperate to get into a course to study finance in SIM University. Thus, the accused decided to forge a document by dishonestly altering his Temasek Polytechnic academic transcript by editing his cumulated grade point average to reflect 2.76 instead of the 1.76 that he achieved,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor R. Arvindren.
When SIM University conducted a verification test of Tay’s transcript, the school found that it had been doctored. The university then rejected his application.
Tay had submitted a forged transcript to UniSIM the year before and also submitted a forged transcript to SUSS in 2017.
DPP Arvindren asked for a fine of at least $5,000, arguing that Tay’s offence was serious and that it “undermines the integrity of the admissions process for local universities”.
“Despite the (UniSIM) rejecting him the first time after realising the transcript was doctored, the accused was undeterred and continued applying to the same university,” he added.
Mother a ‘fearsome, abusive parent’
Meanwhile, Tay’s lawyer Jeffrey Soh urged District Judge Samuel Chua to consider probation.
Soh said that Tay’s mother was a “fearsome parent” who was abusive to Tay and his father. He added that Tay was under “an immense level of stress” when he committed the offences.
“(Tay’s) grades from Temasek Polytechnic were lacklustre and this had been a source of torture for him because the mother kept on criticising and lambasting him for his failure to do well at the polytechnic to enable him to go into a respectable local university,” the lawyer added.
Attached to Tay’s mitigation plea was a statutory declaration from his father, a 64-year-old building construction manager, seeking to explain his son’s actions.
“He did make applications to the local universities but was rejected. The mother became very angry and upset because of the rejections. In fact, she even chased him out of the house and I had to put him up in a hotel,” said Tay’s father.
“Subsequently, she again chased him out of the house for the same reason... I then made arrangements for my son to stay at my mother’s house and he lived there for a month until her temper had cooled off.”
Tay’s father also said he was not aware that his son had committed the criminal offences at the time.
“Being under a great deal of stress and anxiety brought on by my wife’s constant harassment, my son forged his polytechnic grades and got himself into trouble with the law,” he said.
Tay’s father also described his wife as being highly concerned with keeping up appearances – to the point that they lived in a landed property he could not properly afford – as well as quarrelsome and violent.
“She has broken so much of our crockery that we have little of it left as I am too tired to buy new ones,” he said. “She has also cut me with a kitchen knife several times while quarrelling with me. I have the scars to prove this,” he added.
Noting that he was looking to get a divorce after more than 30 years of marriage, Tay’s father said he hoped that his explanation would encourage the authorities to be compassionate towards his son and spare Tay from having a criminal record.
The maximum punishment for forgery is up to four years’ jail along with a possible fine.
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