Updated on: Thursday, January 12, 2012
China is probing allegations of leakage of question papers on internet of a national entrance examination for postgraduate students, which was taken by more than 1.65 million students.
A statement from the Ministry of Education said answers to an English test had reportedly been circulated online.
It further stated that if the allegations are found true then it would seriously damage the credibility of the exam and bring severe penalties to those responsible.
More than 1.65 million students took the exam from January 7 to January 9, state run China Daily reported.
The whistle-blower, Liu Ruoqing, 23, a first-year PhD candidate in physics at Tsinghua University, posted evidence of apparent leak of papers on January 7 on 'Weibo.com'. The post went viral and reached the attention of the school authorities and the Ministry of Education.
Liu's girlfriend, who told him about the leak over internet, took the test for a master of law program.
On January 6, she found an online chat group that offered answers to the English test, for USD 15.84 which was scheduled for the
next day.
The questions from the English test she had taken were nearly the same as a posting on the online chat group half an hour prior to the test, the daily reported.
The sender of the leaked messages is now offline and the chat group has closed.
On January 7, Liu posted screen-shots of the messages from his girlfriend on his blog, which is verified to be registered to him.
Many netizens also responded to the blog and confirmed receiving similar messages online or on their mobile phones, it said.