Havana, November 5 (RHC-Xinhua) -- A Cuban court has sentenced six teachers and an employee of the Higher Education Ministry to prison terms ranging from 18 months to eight years for stealing and selling university entrance exam papers, according to Tuesday's edition of Granma daily newspaper.

The case, originally reported in early June, forced education authorities to cancel the results of a May 6th entrance exam in mathematics for students in Havana province and hold new exams, as well as to modify Spanish and History tests.

The cheating scandal cost the Ministry of Higher Education more than 28,000 convertible Cuban pesos (CUCs) and the University of Havana more than 1,000 CUCs, Granma said.

During the process of printing and packaging the exams, the investigation showed, an employee of the printing house run by the ministry stole copies of the tests and sold them to the teachers for 180 CUCs each. The teachers, in turn, charged students between 40 and 50 CUCs for access to the exams.

The court handed down the stiffest eight-year sentence to the employee of the printing house. Two university professors were sentenced to four years in jail, and the rest, including one professor who used the information to secure an advantage for his own children, to shorter jail terms.

The court also ruled that the defendants had to compensate the ministry and the University of Havana for the incurred costs of around 30,000 CUCs, and barred them from teaching in the future.

Granma said that the defendants' actions "undermined the prestige of our educational system."