Thousands of German students studying for diplomas in information technology have been forced to resit an examination - after the questions were leaked in advance on the Internet.
"Of course we are annoyed," Juergen Mund, a training officer for one of the regional chambers of commerce who ran the exams, said this afternoon.
So far, investigations have turned up no trace of who put the questions on an anonymous homepage the day before the exam, and it was not clear if it had been the result of a particularly gifted IT student hacking into the exam board's system.
"The most annoying aspect is the cost involved in re-doing the whole exam," said Annette Mueller, a spokeswoman for another chamber of commerce that has set up a hotline to deal with the fiasco and queries from the 10,000 or so students involved.
The exam board is launching legal proceedings. The students will have to repeat the exam on June 6th, cutting into their summer vacation.
The government is concerned that Germany's dominance of traditional engineering disciplines is counting for less and less in the web-based new economy , and has made it a priority to train more young people in information technology.