Chinese parents and teachers in elaborate scams convicted of stealing state secrets
Reuters 4 April 2009
BEIJING: Eight Chinese parents and teachers, who used high-tech gadgets such as mobile phones and wireless earpieces to help children cheat at university entrance exams, have been jailed.
The eight, who were found guilty of illegally obtaining state secrets on Tuesday, were given sentences of six months to three years, Chinese media reported yesterday.
The cheating took place in 2007 in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang, with the parents and teachers operating in three groups.
The parents, some of them local officials, got together to plot how to help their children as ‘they knew their academic achievements were not ideal’, the official Legal Daily said.
One group of parents managed to bribe a teacher to fax them the questions once the exam got under way. They also engaged six university students, who were put up in a hotel room which functioned as the ‘headquarters’, to answer the questions.
The answers were then sent via mobile phones to their children in the exam hall who were wearing tiny earpieces, reported the BBC citing Chinese reports.
Another parent employed even more high-tech equipment. He bribed a student taking the same exam as his son to get him the questions using a miniature scanner, according to the BBC report.
To make sure that his child could pass with flying colours, he had nine teachers on standby to answer the questions.
A third scam involved a school teacher who had charged hundreds of dollars to get the answers to students. But the answers were not transmitted successfully because of technical glitches.
The cheats were discovered after police detected ‘abnormal radio signals’ near the school, said the Legal Daily. The reports did not say what happened to their children.
While such cheating incidents were not uncommon in China, the Zhejiang case has attracted attention because of the elaborate means used to cheat.
In court, one of the parents said: ‘As parents, we pin all our hopes on our children. That is why we are willing to take risks - even to the extent of resorting to illegal means - just to help them pass the university entrance exam which is crucial to their future.
‘Never did I imagine that I would end up doing harm to my child and myself.’
China’s college entrance exams, or ‘gaokao’, are fiercely competitive tests.
Stories of cheating surface every year, despite stiff penalties. Students pay for leaked exam papers, smuggle in mobile phones and electronic dictionaries, or pay others to take the exam for them.
In another recent high-profile case, more than 1,000 applicants were caught cheating during China’s civil service exams, with some using spy technology such as micro-earpieces.
More than 300 were caught during the Nov 30 exam, while about 700 others were deemed to have cheated because their papers ‘shared much conformity’.
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Eight high-tech exam cheats jailed
Chinese parents and teachers in elaborate scams convicted of stealing state secrets
Reuters
4 April 2009
BEIJING: Eight Chinese parents and teachers, who used high-tech gadgets such as mobile phones and wireless earpieces to help children cheat at university entrance exams, have been jailed.
The eight, who were found guilty of illegally obtaining state secrets on Tuesday, were given sentences of six months to three years, Chinese media reported yesterday.
The cheating took place in 2007 in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang, with the parents and teachers operating in three groups.
The parents, some of them local officials, got together to plot how to help their children as ‘they knew their academic achievements were not ideal’, the official Legal Daily said.
One group of parents managed to bribe a teacher to fax them the questions once the exam got under way. They also engaged six university students, who were put up in a hotel room which functioned as the ‘headquarters’, to answer the questions.
The answers were then sent via mobile phones to their children in the exam hall who were wearing tiny earpieces, reported the BBC citing Chinese reports.
Another parent employed even more high-tech equipment. He bribed a student taking the same exam as his son to get him the questions using a miniature scanner, according to the BBC report.
To make sure that his child could pass with flying colours, he had nine teachers on standby to answer the questions.
A third scam involved a school teacher who had charged hundreds of dollars to get the answers to students. But the answers were not transmitted successfully because of technical glitches.
The cheats were discovered after police detected ‘abnormal radio signals’ near the school, said the Legal Daily. The reports did not say what happened to their children.
While such cheating incidents were not uncommon in China, the Zhejiang case has attracted attention because of the elaborate means used to cheat.
In court, one of the parents said: ‘As parents, we pin all our hopes on our children. That is why we are willing to take risks - even to the extent of resorting to illegal means - just to help them pass the university entrance exam which is crucial to their future.
‘Never did I imagine that I would end up doing harm to my child and myself.’
China’s college entrance exams, or ‘gaokao’, are fiercely competitive tests.
Stories of cheating surface every year, despite stiff penalties. Students pay for leaked exam papers, smuggle in mobile phones and electronic dictionaries, or pay others to take the exam for them.
In another recent high-profile case, more than 1,000 applicants were caught cheating during China’s civil service exams, with some using spy technology such as micro-earpieces.
More than 300 were caught during the Nov 30 exam, while about 700 others were deemed to have cheated because their papers ‘shared much conformity’.
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