Exam papers thrown out with rubbish

A Belgian university lecturer is in trouble after accidentally throwing out 700 exam papers with the rubbish.

Students who now have to retake their psychology exams are furious with Hugo Schouppe of Lessius High School in Antwerp.

"I regret it from the bottom of my heart," he told the Antwerp Gazette. "There is no other way than taking the exams a second time. That is honest to all students."

Mr Schouppe had taken the exam papers home to mark them and then brought them back to his office to enter the results into a computer.

But he got side-tracked and left them on a desk, near a wastepaper basket, where a cleaner mistook them for rubbish and threw them out.

University director Flora Carrijn confirmed: "We looked everywhere but we couldn't find them. After a meeting with our legal advisor we thought it was better to take the exams again, to give every student a fair chance."

But one student complained: "They made an error and we have to pay for it. It's a scandal."