Lawmakers consider harsher penalties for exam cheaters

Chinese legislators have started reviewing a bill to amend several laws to ban examinees caught cheating from future tests and punish those facilitating such cheating.

The bill, involving amendments to three laws on education, higher education and the promotion of privately-run education, was tabled to the National People's Congress Standing Committee for a first reading on Monday.

Although exam bans have been imposed on students caught cheating in sporadic cases, punishments for cheaters other than invalidating their scores have yet to be written into education laws.

The bill defines cheating as "obtaining exam questions or answers via illegal methods, bringing or using cheating devices, copying, or using substitutes to sit exams."

According to the amendments, education institutes that organize state-level exams where cheating is found have the right to disqualify cheaters and render their scores invalid. In severe cases, education administrators can ban cheaters from attending such exams for one to three years.

Tackling cheating facilitators, a subject absent from current laws, the bill says that "any organization or individual profiting from organizing or facilitating cheating activities, such as providing cheating devices, substituting sitters or leaking and spreading exam content, will be stripped of all illicit money and fined one to five times that amount,"

It adds that wrongdoers in severe cases will be criminally pursued.

Heads of education administrative departments and exam institutes and other people involved will also be held accountable for slack management that allows serious cheating during exams. Endi