Two high school teachers in northeast's China Jilin Province have been detained by police for selling cheating devices to students before the country's annual college entrance exam, which was held from Sunday to Tuesday.

Liu Yanhua, from the No. 1 High School of Fuyu County in Songyuan City, was charged with selling 27 units of cheating devices, including receivers, earphones, chargers and batteries, to parents of students before the national test, at a profit of more than 400,000 yuan (US$58,823), a spokesman with the Songyuan Public Security Bureau said yesterday.

Liu allegedly confessed that she bought the cheating devices online in May and she promised parents she would send test answers to the students through the high-tech devices during the matriculation, the spokesman said.

Acting on a tip-off, local police began investigating the case on June 2. Liu and her colleague He Shujie were detained by police on the night of June 4 when they were testing the cheating devices in an apartment building near the county's No. 4 High School, an exam venue.

During the operation, police destroyed three hideouts planned by the teachers as places for transmitting test answers near the county's No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 high schools. They also confiscated a laptop, two printing machines, and a number of transmitting and receiving devices.

According to Chinese law, the two teachers face imprisonment for up to three years for selling the cheating devices, the police spokesman said.

But for the purchasers, or the students, if they did not use them, this would not constitute a crime, he said.

In a country where a college diploma can help secure a decent job, the annual college entrance exam is considered decisive in determining a student's future career opportunities.

More than 10 million high school students sat the three-day exam. Although the number of candidates was down 3.8 percent from last year, the exam was still the world's largest.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2009)