Exam cheats face their toughest test
Print Edition
STUDENTS sitting China’s college entrance examination entered exam halls yesterday morning knowing that this is the first year when cheating will be treated as a criminal offense, punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Some 9.4 million high school students are registered to sit the two-day exam, known as the gaokao.
It is considered a relatively fair way to screen and select higher-education candidates, but the reputation of the test has taken a battering in recent years over allegations of cheating arranged between teachers and students.
Efforts have been made to limit sales of wireless devices, frequently used for cheating, as well as improper gaokao-related content online and the use of substitute examinees.
By far the toughest measure to safeguard the exam’s fairness has been an amendment to the Criminal Law which took effect on November 1. It covers organizing or facilitating cheating, and hiring others to sit state-level exams. Lawmakers hope the prospect of a prison sentence will act as an effective deterrent.
In Ruijin, in Jiangxi Province, test monitors were using instruments to scan students’ shoes yesterday before they were allowed to enter the exam hall, while devices to block wireless signals were also employed.
More than 20 police officers were on patrol outside Dongfangzhixing Foreign Language School’s test center, while another 100 were on stand-by.
“So far, no clues of organized cheating have been detected,” said Du Chuanjia, director of the education bureau in Jiangxi’s Zhongxiang City.
In Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, technical staff from the local wireless transmission regulatory commission checked monitoring facilities at all test centers a day ahead of the test.
In Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, test center staff were examining the stationery provided at the city’s No. 2 High School.
In Beijing, an average of eight police officers at each test center were on the lookout for any suspicious behavior.
Parents waiting outside a test center in Zhongquan, in Hubei Province, said they had received warnings and were aware of the penalties for cheating this year.
“The stricter the exam is, the fairer it will be for students,” said a parent, Zhang Ling.
However, some believe the penalties may be too strict.
“I think it’s too much,” said an examinee in Hunan Province. “It may ruin one’s life forever.”
Liu Lijun, a parent in Hefei, Anhui Province, also disliked the criminalization of cheating. “Its effect on society is not that severe, so I think writing cheating in state-level exams into the Criminal Law is taking things too far,” Liu said.
Xiong Bingqi, a freelance educationalist, suggested an overhaul of the system so that the gaokao forms just one part of the college entrance examination, to reduce the benefits to anyone thinking of cheating.
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