Arts exam cheats paint up a storm

GUANGZHOU - A chief examiner has been suspended after more than 430 students were investigated for cheating in arts exams at the city's polytechnic.

Of those students, 103 had hired substitutes to undertake the arts tests, said sources in the education examinations authority of Guangdong province on Thursday.

The authority confirmed in a statement that the chief examiner surnamed Wu has been removed as director of the teaching affairs office with Guangzhou City Polytechnic, one of the main sites for arts examinations in the province.

The statement said the qualifications of the students found cheating and any enrollment will be canceled. Those who hired others to take the exam will be banned from taking the exam next year.

Huang Youwen, deputy director of the education examinations authority, urged insiders to report cheating. He promised to investigate the scandal and increase inspection and supervision levels at all examination centers to prevent similar cases happening again.

The cheating scandal was exposed after the education authorities received reports from students' parents earlier this week.

A total of 103 students were discovered to have hired substitutes to draw or paint their artwork to submit for the examination. The bogus work had been done in the unlicensed studios in Xiaozhou village, near Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in the city's Haizhu district.

"A substitute can earn as much as 200,000 yuan ($31,700) a month from students to do their work for the arts exam," according to a student who did not want to be named.

Haizhu district government launched a special investigation into the studios on Thursday, but many were found to be empty.

Xiaozhou village has many studios, but only 16 of them have been granted a license to operate, authorities said.

He Liping, a professor from the school of sociology and anthropology with Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said cheating had been investigated in many examinations, including the national entrance examinations for universities and colleges, in the province in recent years.

"There are loopholes in the running of the examinations," he said on Thursday.

He urged relevant departments to strictly implement regulations to close the loopholes.

Chen Yingwei, a senior high student in Guangzhou's Yuexiu district, said cheating is shameful conduct and unfair to honest students.

"Relevant departments should introduce stiff and effective measures to prevent cheating to ensure a fair environment for all students in examinations," he said.

A total of 157 Chinese universities and colleges arranged arts examinations in nine test centers in Guangdong this year.

More than 180,000 students have participated in the examinations from Jan 30 to Feb 22.

Zhang Yiren contributed to this story.