Eight parents and teachers have been jailed on state secret charges after using hi-tech communication devices to help pupils cheat in college entrance exams, Chinese media reported today.
The conspirators used scanners and wireless earpieces to transmit exam answers, indicating the lengths to which people go to ensure success in the make-or-break "gaokao", which determines the future of 10 million 18-year-olds each year.
Concern about cheating is such that papers are kept under armed guard, and last year their classification was upgraded from "secret" to "top secret".
But three separate scams operated in a single school in Zhejiang province. Those involved were sentenced to between six months and three years for illegally obtaining state secrets. It is not known whether any children were punished.
The Legal Daily newspaper said the parents began plotting in 2007 because their children's achievements were "not ideal". One group bribed a teacher to fax them the test paper and paid university students to provide answers, which were transmitted to the children through earpieces. The ruse was discovered when police detected "abnormal radio signals" near the school.
Another man had created an even more elaborate ? and expensive ? system. He bribed a student to send him the questions using a miniature scanner and hired nine teachers to answer them. He then sent their work back to his son and the other boy.
A teacher was also jailed for charging parents to deliver answers to students. The equipment he used failed on the day.
The two-day exams are key to social mobility in China, and determine whether teenagers will enter university and which institution they can attend. Success or failure can shape their lives, and those of their families, who may depend on their future earnings.
The tests are taken so seriously that the authorities stop traffic to ensure candidates arrive in time and order residents not to shout or use car horns lest it distract the students.
Despite the stiff penalties, stories of cheating surface every year, ranging from leaked exam papers to fake candidates.
Earlier this year, state media warned that growing competition for government jobs appeared to have encouraged cheating in the civil service entrance exam, with about 1,000 miscreants caught in the past four months.
