The Ministry of Education has said it will to severely punish those involved in a scandal in which a former police officer sent his daughter to college under the name of a classmate.
This was the ministry’s first response to the scandal, which became public after media reports.
Luo Caixia, 23, from central China’s Hunan Province, was the victim of an identity fraud by the family of her high school classmate Wang Jiajun.
Wang’s family allegedly used Luo’s national ID card number, applied using her name to Guizhou Normal University, intercepted the admissions letter and enrolled their daughter in her name in 2004.
Luo herself, unaware of the scheme, enrolled at Tianjin Normal University, seen here, a year later.
Wang Zhengrong, Wang Jiajun’s father, has been detained on allegations that he helped his daughter enter college by stealing the other girl’s ID.
Wang Zhengrong was the head of a township government in Shaodong County when he allegedly committed the ID theft in 2004 and later served as commissar in the public security bureau of neighboring Longhui County.
China View reports that Li Qiang, dean of School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University, said the incident reflects loopholes in the education system.