A young man shows his admission ticket before attending the Gaokao in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu province, June 7. [Photo/IC]

Substitute exam takers were caught sitting this year's college entrance exams in East China's Jiangxi province. A reporter, who pretended to be interested in doing such a job penetrated an organized ring, and found that they had help from collaborators within the educational department in charge of the local exams.

It is not the first time such hired substitutes have been caught. In 2014, more than 120 such exam takers were punished in Central China's Henan province alone.

Despite the use of devices to identify examinees by their fingerprints or irises at some exam venues, it seems that the organizers of such substitutions are able to bypass them.

But no matter how capable the organizers of such schemes are, without the help from collaborators in charge of the exams within the government education departments, it will be very difficult for them to get real examination certificates, and it will be even more difficult for them to send a substitute to take the exams.

Yet only a limited number of officials in educational departments have received severe penalties for their involvement in such schemes. Disciplinary penalties such as warnings or suspension of Party membership for a certain period of time are reported to be the usual punishments meted out to those involved.

Genuine candidates are elbowed out of the way, along with the years of painstaking efforts they will have spent in vain, when students buy their way into university by employing a substitute to sit the exams.

All who are involved in such cheating, including the organizers, enabling officials, brokers, the real and substitute exam takers, are discipline and law violators who are preying on the future of genuine college entrance exam candidates.

They are also undermining the very foundation of social morals. So there is more than enough reason for them to be punished for their actions.

And, to our disappointment, despite the promises from both the central and local authorities that such scandals will be thoroughly investigated whenever they are exposed and mechanisms be improved, there is still much room for the perpetrators to bypass the security nets and defy the law. This calls for strengthened identity inspection nets and strict law enforcement.

We will see what happens following this year's scandal.