Medical schools have been warned to look out for fraudulent applications after two applicants were recently caught trying to use fake qualifications to gain acceptance.
According to the Consortium of Thai Medical Schools, one applicant forged Ordinary National Educational Test scores to be higher than they actually were, while another faked CU-TEP scores, the English proficiency test developed by Chulalongkorn University to measure students' ability to use English for academic purposes, to pass the university's criteria.
The consortium said university officials suspected something was amiss when they spotted scores in documents sent by one applicant this year which did not match those on its database.
They later began an investigation and concluded the two students used documents in their applications that were either forged or altered to state higher grades than were actually achieved.
Avudh Srisukri, secretary-general of the consortium, said both students involved in the cheating have been blacklisted as an initial punishment.
They will not be able to apply for places or take exams in medicine-related faculties at other universities.
"We have sent their names to all members and warned all medical schools to be vigilant against fraudulent applications. We are also considering taking legal action against their parents because we don't think the students would have dared doing such a thing on their own," Dr Avudh said.
"The medical and health profession is well known for having high ethical standards so, as a representative of medical education institutes, we cannot allow any people who have committed bad conduct into the field as they might bring dishonour to the profession," he said.
Nantana Sirisup, managing director of Chulalongkorn University Academic Testing Centre, said medical schools will discuss the issue at the consortium's annual general meeting scheduled for July to prevent the problem happening again.
"We still don't know how bad the problem is exactly, but we have heard from the National Institute of Education Testing Service that complaints about forged student documents have been sent to it as well," she said.
Last month, another cheating scandal made national headlines when three students who took entrance exams for the College of Medicine, Faculty of Dental Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy at Rangsit University (RSU) were found to have used glasses embedded with a video camera, and smartwatches which relayed the answers to cheat in direct-admission exams.
The trio's smartwatches had answers written in a code sent from one or more private tutorial institutions. Proxies wearing camera-equipped glasses were sent to take the exams initially.
After filming the exam sheets with the cameras, the gang members left the test centre with the information.
Another person waiting outside downloaded the tests to a computer and emailed them to one or more tutorial schools. They sent the answers back to the students on their smartwatches.
The three students were ordered to meet police for questioning as RSU had sought police help to crack down on tutorial schools and others behind the cheating.
The RSU organised a new round of medical entrance examinations Tuesday, after the earlier ones, tainted by cheating, were cancelled.