A 70-year-old professor of music history has admitted accepting cash and sex from a female student in return for helping her enter a doctorate program, the Beijing News reported Saturday.

Surnamed Liang, a professor and doctoral tutor at the Beijing-based Central Conservatory of Music confessed to the school's discipline inspection department in July, accompanied by his wife, the paper said.

Liang had already returned 100,000 yuan (14,600 U.S. dollars) to the girl surnamed Zou who had given him the money and sex in return for higher scores to boost her chances of admission.

In May when results were announced, Zou failed to get in. In China, a doctoral candidates are usually evaluated by a panel of professors giving separate marks.

Sources said Zou had badgered Liang after that, and Liang decided to turn himself in, according to the paper.

"He was honest while confessing to the school in a tearful voice," a spokesman of the school surnamed He was quoted as saying.

Liang's rights to teach, enroll students and conduct academic research within the school had been revoked, said He.

Liang was a retired professor who was re-employed by the school because of his professional talents, He said, "thus it was not a question of firing him, and we could only revoke his rights in school."

"It's the first time such a scandal has happened in the school since it was founded in 1950," He said.

He said student applicants should never trust promises from individual professors.

A string of academic corruption cases in Chinese colleges and universities has raised great public concern and harmed the image of scholars.

Liang was a well-known professor specializing in China's modern music history and had once been a speaker in CCTV's Lecture Room program.

The Grand National Theater confirmed Friday that a lecture by Liang scheduled in August had also been cancelled, the paper said.

Calls to the school went unanswered on Saturday morning.

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2009)