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June 8, 2010

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Pupils embrace the final frontier

AFTER all that cramming and sweat, it comes down to this - three days of examinations and winners take all.

More than 9.57 million Chinese high school students yesterday began sitting for the national college entrance exams.

At most venues across China, metal detectors are being used to prevent candidates from taking any electronic or battery-driven devices - apart from basic calculators - into classrooms.

Surveillance cameras are installed in nearly 110,000 exam venues in 25 provinces so central and provincial education authorities can simultaneously oversee venues from a distance, according to the Ministry of Education.

In northeast China's Jilin Province, where a cheating scandal ignited a national outcry last year, more than 3,000 police officers have been sent to exam venues for 160,000 candidates, said Vice Governor Chen Xiaoguang.

More than 1,200 disciplinary inspectors were patrolling the venues, monitored by surveillance cameras, he said.

Troops were on guard to ensure security in transporting test papers to 6,800 venues in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Most of the venues in Xinjiang, where 164,500 students are taking the exam, were installed with surveillance cameras.

Makeshift classes

Central China's Henan, the only province to have a population of more than 100 million, had 950,000-plus examinees, said Vice Governor Xu Jichao.

Henan's police have launched round-the-clock checks on the Internet for the online selling of cheating devices and exam-related scams.

In earthquake-hit Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province, 1,023 students took the exam in 30 makeshift classrooms made of plastic boards on the playground of Yushu Vocational School, according to Chimed Dorje, head of the area's education bureau.

Only one student was too badly injured to take the exam, he said.

Reconstruction work was halted and vehicles were banned from blowing their horns near the school.

Only the rustling of paper was audible when the exams started at 9am, he said.

Eight medical workers are standing by at the school.

An emergency-response plan involving armed police was drawn up to ensure safety in Yushu, said Wang Yubo, director of the Qinghai Provincial Education Bureau.

Dai Jiagan, director of the examination center under the Ministry of Education, said security at this year's exam venues was a serious challenge, after recent earthquakes and other extreme weather conditions in many parts of the country.

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