Police probe cheating scandal after dozens of Henan students caught hiring others to sit exams

A police investigation is underway today in Henan, where the provincial education authority admitted on Wednesday that at least 127 students had hired other people to take the country's all-important college entrance exam on their behalf.

The Higher Education Admission Office in the province has promised a full investigation into the scam after the state broadcaster China Central Television ran an exposé on Tuesday.

Several invigilators and at least two parents of students involved had been detained, CTTV reported. Police in Henan said they were interrogating the parents of two college students paid to take the exam. The imposter test takers would be expelled, authorities pledged. 

Police are also investigating in Hubei Province, where students were reportedly paid to sit the exam, known as gaokao, on behalf of others in Henan.

Education authorities have imposed increasingly strict rules to guard against cheating during the national exam, and although it continues to happen, hiring of surrogate test takers has so far been rare.

In the state television's undercover report, a "fixer" surnamed Li claimed he had recruited students at several Wuhan-based universities as test takers. They could earn 20,000 yuan (HK$25,000) to 50,000 yuan, depending on the result.

Test-takers were given fingerprint films of the students whose places they were taking, in order to fool the fingerprint recognition devices that validate students' identities at the exam.