Cheating incidents mar exams

Students in Jiangxi province taking the ongoing national college entrance exam should expect a stricter check on their identities on Monday after authorities captured two people taking Sunday's tests for other students.

"The provincial Education Department and Education Examination Authority have informed their local branches as well as exam venues to strictly conduct identity checks to ensure the safety and order of the exam," Cao Zhenglong, deputy Party chief of the Jiangxi Education Examination Authority, said at a news briefing on Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday morning, police in Nanchang, the provincial capital, detained a man in the middle of the Chinese language test after media reported he was attending the exam under another student's name.

Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangdong province reported on Sunday morning on Sina Weibo that one of its reporters had infiltrated a fraud gang that hires university students to take the two-day national college entrance exam for "clients".

The hired test takers produce a fake ID at the exam venue and can get a considerable reward if they get a high score, which helps the client win a place in a top-tier university, the report said.

The undercover reporter said several university students in Hubei province are involved in the scheme, adding that this is not the first time for some of them to take part in the plot.

One university student told the reporter that a client paid more than 1 million yuan ($161,000) after the gang helped his or her child obtain a place in a top Chinese university.

After digging out details of the gang and its operations, the journalist reported the case to the police, the newspaper said.

The report has sparked a huge wave of repercussions from the public and education authorities. The Ministry of Education requested Jiangxi to launch a thorough probe of the incident and asked local police to investigate those involved.

It said students who hire others to take the tests for them will be disqualified from the national exam and their test takers will be expelled.

Also on Sunday afternoon, another unidentified person was caught taking the national exam under someone else's name in Yingtan, Jiangxi, the provincial examination authority said.

The national college entrance exam, commonly known as gaokao, is usually considered the most important exam for Chinese students as it determines whether they can enter a university and whether they can be admitted to desired departments.

About 9.42 million Chinese high school graduates, slightly less than the population of Sweden, will take this year's exam.

The number has increased slightly from the 9.39 million who took the exam in 2014, according to the Ministry of Education.

zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn