When some students are worried they might fail their examinations, they beg their teachers for help with their marks. Now Peking University is to regard these students as cheats. New regulations issued this term introduce a category know as cheating after the exam.

In addition, Peking University is to adopt a strict system which will eliminate students with the very lowest scores. It is estimated this will lead to the lowest performing 2 percent of students being put off campus every year.

Starting in the new semester, Peking University will no longer accept a 100-percent pass rate in its examinations. Instead, there is now a requirement for 1-2 percent of students to fail. It will be unacceptable for a teacher to assess every student as passing the examination in a particular subject.

According to Prof. Li Kean, academic dean of Peking University, undergraduates generally pick up 2 to 3 credits from each subject. From this term students, who only manage 15 credits during their four years of study, will be rusticated. This is a major change for students who would previously have been allowed to repeat their studies.

The new undergraduate examination regulations impose heavy penalties for plagiarism in written work. Those found after investigation to have plagiarized or fabricated statistics in their coursework will incur a minimum penalty of a warning. Where this is a "serious" warning, the student will receive no credits for the subject. In the case of particularly severe breaches like plagiarism or fabrication of statistics in a graduation paper, a demerit will be recorded. The effect of a demerit is to strip the student of his or her BA with all credits counted as zero.

Requests to teachers to alter results or cover up cheating, accompanied by entreatment, gifts, banquets or threats will now be considered as post-examination cheating and be dealt with much like any other form of cheating.

Senior officials at Peking University emphasized that strictly regulated examinations are only a means to an end, not an end goal. However such measures are necessary to foster high quality teaching and cultivate world class graduates. Rigid enforcement of assessment discipline is one measure that is known to be effective.

(china.org.cn by staff reporter Zheng Guihong, October 21, 2002)