Twelve people have been sentenced to four years of prison after posing as students to take a Cambridge University-affiliated business English exam. The head of the criminal network is a former English teacher who has set up his exam preparation agency. Students were paired with similar-looking candidates so that their faces could be digitally blended to produce images that were then overlaid on the students' actual ID cards.

Between 1999 and 2006, 242 graduates in the Eastern Shandong province enrolled at universities using other people’s identities and college entrance scores. According to reports, dozens of people have been punished, but under existing laws, students cannot be charged with a crime. The National People’s Congress has received a proposal to criminalize exam fraud, and the Ministry of Education will work with authorities to investigate and hold students accountable.

The Hunan University of Technology in central China introduced a new free tool to limit plagiarism on campuses. Students could check their final dissertation with an online database to see how much of each paper’s content is copied from existing publications. A former director of the People’s Liberation Army’s Institute for Disease Control and Prevention plagiarised the work of another Ph.D. student in his final thesis. He was stripped of his doctorate after being found guilty of cheating 12 years after receiving.

Fenglan School violated regulations and used false advertising to enroll more students than its legal capacity. 400 students were found to be “missing” in the local student registration system. According to a student, the school asked them to sign an agreement saying that students would take the standardized exam as a local teenage resident not associated with the school. As a result, the students would not obtain graduation nor take the college admission exam. Some private schools would also bribe local education officials in order to obtain student registration for these unqualified students.

A major Chinese education company has paid thousands of dollars in perks or cash to admissions officers at top U.S. universities to help students apply to American schools. According to eight former employees the company’s services didn’t end there. Employees engaged in practices such as writing application essays for students, altering recommendation letters and modifying grades on high school transcripts. The company’s success in gaining access to leading American colleges underscores how people on both sides of the Pacific are hungry to capitalize on Chinese students’ desire to study in the United States.

This is what is provided in a law passed last autumn to combat endemic levels of cheating during the gaokao, china’s national exam which determines the future career of its candidates. Following the adoption of the law, student caught or accused of cheating can face seven years imprisonment in a state gaol. A law voted in last autumn, also makes cheating a crime. This is why, last Tuesday 7 June, the day of the goakao, the Chinese authorities ordered the deployment of 768 police officers, tasked with supervising the country’s 96 exam centres.

The University of Iowa suspects at least 30 Chinese students of having used ringers to take their exams. The case offers a look inside a thriving underground economy of cheating services aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Chinese kids applying to and attending foreign colleges. Coaching services author essays for clients. Handle their homework. Even take their exams. All for about a $1,000 a course.

The United States firm that owns the SAT, a college entrance exam accepted by many US colleges and universities, cancelled plans to administer the test this weekend at centres in China and Macau following concerns that some students may have obtained information about questions in advance. Tests scheduled to be administered Saturday in Bahrain and Kazakhstan also were cancelled. Students in Hong Kong sat for the test Saturday as scheduled.

As a record number of Chinese students stream into American universities, verification companies have sprouted up to help combat doctored transcripts, falsified essays, and surrogate test-takers. They vie against another set of Chinese companies, which turn out false applications and seek to profit off the frenzy for a US degree. Verification companies such as InitialView test College-bound Chinese students by filming a video interview to prove their speaking abilities match their applications.

One of the biggest Chinese illegal immigrant networks ever discovered in France was centred on a private business school based in the XVth arrondissement. This network made it possible to channel between 500 and 1000 Chinese immigrants into France annually, mostly young men between the ages of 20 and 25. Once in France, fake certificates attesting to their student status, report cards and diplomas allowed them to establish themselves permanently, without ever having to set foot in a classroom.