THE results of the national college entrance exam were published late last week, a source of euphoria for top scorers and distress for low achievers.

While all the eyes are now fixed on the upcoming enrollment, Tsinghua University recently created a furor with an inflammatory microblog post.

On June 26, admission officials of the prestigious university claimed on weibo that "Tsinghua adamantly boycotted the policy of awarding bonus points to athlete test-takers from Sichuan Province, so as to enable honest, truly outstanding candidates to study at Tsinghua."

According to a national policy, test-takers who are "secondary national athletes" are entitled to 20 bonus points in the college entrance exam, or gao kao, as it is commonly known.

Tsinghua's announcement was met with fierce objection from Sichuan's education establishment, which cried foul and said that the university discriminated against students of Sichuan origin.

In its own defense, Tsinghua said the boycott targeted mass cheating found in the credentials of so-called "secondary athletes." Many of the credentials appear to be bogus.

Some Sichuan candidates were reportedly of a small build and didn't appear athletic at all. And a few of them blew their covers in interviews. When admissions officials asked a "sprinter" how fast he could run a 100-meter race, he stammered and replied 14 seconds - slower than most.

Tsinghua therefore suspected widespread fraud and has denied all Sichuan athlete test-takers the 20 bonus points since 2008, China Youth Daily reported.

Attack on fraud

While this showdown was hailed as a courageous attack on education fraud, some Sichuan commentators took it very personally, perceiving it as an insult.

A commentator named Zhang Hongquan wrote on Sichuan Online, a local web portal, on July 1 that gross manipulations did occur behind the scenes that helped Sichuanese secure undue advantage, but the same violations are likely to be surpassed in Beijing, since the capital has more officials.

Tsinghua, in his view, is unfairly singling out Sichuan students. He went on to assert that many student athletes, without ever winning a medal, should not be eligible for the bonus points. In the interest of justice and equality, the preferential policy ought to be ditched.

There may be some substance in his reasoning, but commentator Zhang failed to see that termination of the bonus point policy, in ending some form of inequality, will engender new inequality, to real athletes.

Although most of them never win a medal, that doesn't negate their commitment to the country's sports endeavor. The 20-bonus points is a justifiable reward for their service, provided it is justifiably given.

Critics of the arrangements should be aware that in the United States, where opportunity is more equal, many universities with big sports programs also admit student athletes, employing much less stringent academic criteria and grant them fellowships.

Missing the point

The opponents of bonus points miss the point.

Rather than asking if it will be scrapped, they should be asking how did a good policy go bad?

Populous as it is, Sichuan's ratio of student athletes to ordinary gao kao candidates is markedly higher than that of provinces equally populous, such as Henan and Hubei.

This disproportionate number of "athletes" can only invite easy conclusions that a great number of its athlete titles are fabricated. Local sports authorities, who have a say in granting these titles, apparently are behind the systemic deception.

We can safely presume that they doled out titles in return for bribes received from parents or did so at the behest of their betters in the bureaucracy. They continued to do so until Tsinghua said it had enough of such scams.

Meanwhile, no education or sports authorities, local or national, ever probed the suspicious surge in the number of young Sichuan "athletes" - at a time of national decline in youth fitness due to lack of outdoor exercises.

China's gao kao is immensely competitive, sometimes compared to troops jostling each other to pass over a log bridge. One point less makes a big difference between a good school and a mediocre one.

Just imagine how many hard-working students would be unfairly knocked out of the competition were the several thousand "secondary national athletes" of Sichuan recognized and granted the bonus points?

In fact, history is not without precedents of similar shenanigans. In 2006, numerous "secondary athletes" from Hunan Province were exposed as fake.

Punishment was outrageously clement. Fourteen cities involved in the scandal only had their right to classify athletes suspended for a year. The local sports bureau went through a "self-criticism" session.

When the bonus point policy is exploited by the privileged to work the education system to their benefit, it is in need of overhaul.

China is mired in uneven distribution of wealth. But the distribution of some social resources, education in particular, is equally skewed.

Decades ago the rural poor could hope for a turn of fortune by studying hard and attending a good university. Thanks to an ossified social structure, upward mobility today through academic excellence is a lot harder.

In a report published two years ago, the Southern Weekend newspaper cited a study indicating that the proportion of rural students in top universities has steadily fallen since 1990s.

In Peking University, that figure has dropped from 30 percent to 10 percent, while at Tsinghua, those with rural origins account for only 17 percent of all its students. For rural youths, the existing education system is rigged against them. By what?

Sleights of hand

In recent years, Chinese universities have gradually won the liberty to administer their own tests to gauge and enroll applicants on the basis of their all-around development, rather than academic merit or rote-learning ability.

These tests, meant as an alternative to the grueling gao kao, are comprised of too much arts, sports and knowledge of the most advanced things. They actually discriminate against the rural poor.

On top of that, nepotism and sleights of hand like the illegitimate dispensing of bonus points put them further at disadvantage.

Education equality is part and parcel of the "China Dream." Tsinghua did the right thing in revealing the threat to it. The revelation needs only to widen, to expose more individuals, groups and institutions that are undermining equal opportunity.

Other schools should follow Tsinghua's lead, speak out against wrongdoing and take action to correct it. Silence will cost them dearly, in terms of talents and integrity.