Toyama University covered up computer errors made while marking 1997 and 1998 entrance exams that resulted in the rejection of 16 applicants who had actually passed the tests, education ministry sources said Friday.
Although 15 people were mistakenly rejected based on results of the 1997 exam along with an additional person in 1998, the state-run university took no measures to correct the mistake, the sources in the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said.
The errors were found after the 1998 exam, they added.
At a news conference Friday, university officials told reporters that seven men and nine women from nine prefectures, including Yamagata, Niigata, Ishikawa and Nagano, had been rejected after applying for the faculty of humanities.
In May, Yamagata University, also run by the central government, was found to have mistakenly told 428 engineering applicants between 1997 and 2001 that they failed entrance exams although they had actually passed. The mistake was also caused by computer errors.