Boom in Exam Cheats Battling for China's Top Jobs

Growing competition for jobs in the Chinese civil service appears to have produced a boom in dishonesty, with about 1,000 cheats caught in the national entrance exams this year.

Hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates seek safe berths in government offices, but their desperation to succeed has led to the highest level of cheating on record, according to the China Daily newspaper.

While 775,000 people took the exam - an increase of more than 20% year-on-year - only 13,500 jobs were available.

Applicants have used increasingly hi-tech methods to pass the papers, with some even using listening devices so accomplices outside can whisper answers into their ears.

More than 300 cheats were caught in the exam rooms in November last year, while another 700 were collared after examiners realized their papers "shared much conformity", the state administration of civil service said. Most of them came from the north-eastern province of Liaoning and the capital city of Beijing.

The administration said it would disqualify cheats this year and, in serious cases, bar them from central and local civil service exams for the next five years.

Details of their offenses would also be kept on a recruitment database, for future reference. The national civil service received so many applications this year that its webpage crashed on the first day of operation.

A huge expansion in higher education and reduced job opportunities because of the financial downturn are thought to be responsible.

An earlier report from the official Xinhua news agency said the public had been warned not to buy answers. It added that exam papers were state secrets and those caught leaking them faced three to seven years in prison.

One would-be cheat got into trouble last month after paying a conman 12,000 yuan (£1,200) for a copy of a test paper. When he realized it was a fake, and that none of the questions appeared on the actual exam, he complained to the police, who launched an investigation.