An official from Bulgaria's Education Ministry has been arrested following alerts over a possible leak of information about the mandatory state high-school matriculation exam in Bulgarian Language and Literature, police said.

The suspect initially denied any wrongdoing, but eventually made a confession.

According to unofficial information police did not detain the suspect, just searched his house. Police believes that the leakage of information was made possible by a higher-ranking official from the Education Ministry, reports say.

The news come on the heels of numerous media reports that the exam’s themes, questions and answers have been traded for BGN 600, citing high-school seniors, parents and teachers.

According to the reports, around 11 pm on the night before the exam, a lecturer from the University of Sofia, who also gave private lessons to students, sent them a short text message (SMS) with the 3 possible versions of the state exam.

One of them had been drawn out on the morning of the test. It remains unclear if the versions in the remaining 2 envelopes match the ones from the SMS.

The Bulgarian Parliament rejected Wednesday the proposal of the opposition to appoint a special committee to investigate alleged violations of the high-school exit exam.

Education Minister, Sergey Ignatov, has said he is not at all worried about the matriculation’s security and has rejected rumours that the allegations aim to discredit him over controversial reforms in the education sector and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

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