Cheating teachers arrested
2004-06-21 10:26
Shanghai - At least seven high school teachers have been arrested for selling exam answers to their students amid charges of widespread cheating in a central Chinese province.
Teachers at Henan province's Puyang No. 2 High School used cellphone text messages to send answers to students during the three-day nationwide university entrance exams earlier this month, Shanghai's Youth Daily reported.
Students and teachers in the scam used text messages and digital cameras to pass questions to other teachers outside the exam room, who then looked up the answers before messaging the answers to the students who paid for them, papers said. In one case, a student carried out a digital camera after asking to visit the school nurse.
The scam is at least the second major cheating scandal uncovered in Henan, China's most populous province.
At least five students have been arrested in the Henan city of Zhenping for also using cellphones to transmit answers. Reports in local newspapers and on state television said authorities plan to charge them with stealing state secrets.
Corruption is a widespread problem throughout China, and exam cheating has been on the rise in recent years with the advent of new technologies such as cellphones.
Poorly paid teachers appear increasingly willing to accept bribes from students hoping to ensure success in exams, which decide access to a university education and to opportunities denied to the vast majority of Chinese.
The Puyang case reportedly involved teachers, administrators and more than 100 students who are thought to have paid thousands of rands each to get answers.
The arrested teachers, led by the school's deputy director of political education Tian Chunshan, bribed administrators to obtain jobs as test monitors, media reported. They then took part of each student's payment as their fee, or used it to pay off other monitors. Cellphones were confiscated from students who hadn't made payments.
- AP