Repeated scandals about college entrance examination candidates getting extra marks for fake identity of ethnicity or fake athletic performance has put the policy on grill.

The exposure that many who get such bonus points are children from powerful or wealthy families points to the rampant abuse of power taking advantage of the defected policy.

Chongqing enrollment office still refuses to publish the names of those students who have obtained extra points for fake identity of ethnicity. This has enraged the public, and people have asked for disclosure of the detailed process of how the students cheated.

The policy for extra marks was originally designed to select candidates with talent in a particular field, and also to take better care of students from some ethnic minority groups. The policy was meant to make up for the deficiency of the unified national college entrance examinations in attracting a wide variety of students.

However, the policy of extra marks has turned out to be a channel for abuse of power, which is eroding the fairness of the national college entrance examinations and the very foundation of social justice at large.

An extra 20 or 10 points usually throw several hundreds of candidates behind or enable a candidate, who otherwise would have to go to an average university, to enter a prestigious one. The extra marks sometimes can change the fate of a student.

That explains why quite a number of officials push their children's career by using their clout for the bonus marks. So do some wealthy parents, who pave their way through with money.

In one of the scandals, of the 19 candidates who were awarded 20 bonus points for ship model performance in the city of Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, 13 are children of local government officials. In another case, 25 students, who faked their identity of ethnicity in the city of Shishou, are all from families of local government officials.

This type of cheating is even worse than the dishonest behavior in examinations. Tight supervision at examination sites can effectively prevent cheating in examinations. But this type of cheating is much harder to eradicate because the abuse of power is behind it.

In addition, the rampancy of such cheating is undermining the principles of social justice and fairness. Those who have no way to get such extra marks will likely feel justified to cheat in examinations, which they will consider as their own way to make up for their lack of power and money.

It is good that all officials involved in the scandal have been disciplined and students disqualified for enrollment because of their violations.

Still it is high time that enough importance is attached to the damage that the abuse of power in this area has done and will do to the fairness of the college entrance examinations. The education authorities may have to rethink its policy for extra marks.

Probably the scope for the application of the policy needs to be greatly narrowed. At the same time, it must make sure that those who have taken advantage of this policy to push their children's career be punished.

(China Daily July 9, 2009)