Police in Hebi city, central China's Henan province, display devices seized during a raid against a group suspected of being behind a cheating scheme in the coming National College Entrance Exam which takes place on June 7 and 8. Two suspects were arrested in the raid at a local hotel on June 3. [Photo: Hebi police]

China's annual national college entrance examination, the "gaokao," will take place this Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ahead of the start, authorities have been taking increasing steps to prevent cheating in the high-pressure exam.

CRI's Qi Zhi has the details.

In China, arguably the most important exam in a student's life is now often associated with cheating, which invariably pop up every year.

To try to bring this to an end, authorities are taking steps - both legal and high-tech - to try to ensure no cheating occurs during the fierce competition.

For the first time, those convicted of cheating in the "gaokao" can end up serving 3 to 7-years in prison under changes to the Criminal Law which were enacted in November.

A national campaign has also been launched to crack down on the sale of wireless devices which can be used for cheating, as well as substitute exam sitters and other illegal acts.

Liao Junmin is with the Jiangxi Lawyers Association.

"The government has increased punishments for illegal acts. In cases where it's discovered staff members in the exam rooms become involved in cheating, they will be deemed accomplices, or even be considered the principal suspects in the case, and will face criminal charges for their actions."

In another first, high-tech measures, such as facial recognition and fingerprint verification systems, will be used in many places for this year's gaokao.

Candidates in Hainan are being required to be checked twice by hand-held metal monitors under a video surveillance system before they come back to the testing room if they take a bathroom break during the exam.

Watches are forbidden in the exam rooms in provinces including Fujian, Anhui and Hubei.

Guangxi's director of higher-education enrollment with the regional Entrance Exam Agency, Tu Didong, says authorities there are supervising every step in the process to ensure the test papers themselves reach "gaokao" sitters safely.

"We have rigid regulations covering every step of the process, from test paper printing, distribution, transport, custody to final use. The entire process is fully monitored."

The Ministry of Education has announced that vehicles used for transporting the test papers will be equipped with video surveillance systems and GPS devices for positioning and monitoring the vehicles during the transportat+ ion of the test papers.

Despite all the new anti-cheating measures, it remains to be seen how effective they will be.

In the central province of Henan, which has registered the largest number of exam takers this year, authorities there have already uncovered 4 gaokao-cheating schemes in the past 5 days, seizing around 300 devices, including cellphones and transceivers.

More than 9.4 million Chinese students sat last year's national college entrance exam.

This year's numbers are expected to be once again lower, as 'gaokao' registration figures have been dropping across China for the past 10 years as students either opt to study overseas or bypass post-secondary education all-together.

For CRI, I'm Qi Zhi.