A disciplinary board has revised a decision to fail more than 250 first-year commerce students, a statement by the Faculty of Economic said.

Students found to be directly involved in suspected cheating have been reprimanded and had marks deducted "according to the degree of severity of their collusion". 

All other students have been given the original mark they obtained in the test. 

The Faculty of Economics had earlier informed students that they would receive no marks for Progress Test 1 after it emerged that some of them cheated their way through two tests.

The faculty had said it had more than 43 screenshots from a Facebook Messenger chat to prove “the collusion.”

On Monday, the faculty said that a new disciplinary board, chaired by the Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy, Prof. Frank Bezzina, had reviewed the decision to fail all the students.

"Those students involved in the chat were granted a fair hearing by being individually allowed to explain their participation in the chat. This also allowed the Board to determine the extent of their involvement in the matter. In those cases where it transpired that students indeed colluded with others, the Board reprimanded them for their unacceptable behaviour. These students were further penalised by having their original marks deducted according to the degree of severity of their collusion," the university said.

The faculty did not say how many students had their marks deducted.