Students found cheating in the national College Entrance Examination (CEE) may be disqualified from next year's registration, as well as losing all the marks this year, a Ministry of Education (MOE) official said on Thursday.

Students with "severe cheating behavior", including cheating with telecom instruments and asking someone else to take the exam, will receive punishment.

The MOE, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security, will strengthen patrolling around exam rooms to prevent people from using radio transmitters and receivers to aid in cheating.

College students taking the exam for others may be expelled from school.

The MOE ordered a safety check over examination rooms, dormitories and dining halls for students in quake-hit areas.

The CEE will be postponed in the 62 counties worst hit by the May 12 8.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan and Gansu provinces. The new date for the exam has yet to be set.

The ministry ordered local departments to set up evacuation passages and carry out evacuation exercises among teachers and students who have to take the exam as scheduled in other parts of the quake zone, to ensure their safety.

About 10.5 million students will take the CEE, which starts on June 7, up four percent from that of last year.

Students who were orphaned or handicapped in the earthquake would be exempted of tuition fees and receive living subsidies if they were admitted to colleges, the ministry said.

The ministry will also provide free vocational trainings for those who fail to be admitted.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2008)