Parents of a top scorer in southwest China were punished Monday for lying about their son's ethnic status for extra points at the national college entrance examination.

He Chuanyang, who attended Nankai Senior High School, scored 659 points, the highest in Chongqing Municipality. He could have been given 20 additional points if local authorities had not uncovered falsified information on his testing records.

Ethnic minorities enjoy preferential treatment in China, including being awarded extra points in entrance exams.

Government officials who are accused of immoral activities often face removal from their posts.

He's father, He Yeda, was removed from his post as head of Wushan County's college entrance examination office, the Wushan County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced Monday.

The committee also temporarily removed Lu Linqiong, the boy's mother, from the post of deputy director of the CPC Wushan County Committee's organization department.

Wan Minqiang, chairman of the county science commission, was also sacked for helping cheating.

Wan approved senior He's application to change his son's ethnic status in July 2006 when he was head of the county's ethnic and religious affairs bureau.

Ethnic status is a detail included in family census information.

He said his son knew nothing about the change to Tujia ethnicity, a minority ethnic group, from Han ethnicity, the majority ethnicity.

Feng Zhiyue, head of Peking University's admission team in Chongqing, told Beijing Evening News that the school admission office would decide whether to enroll students involved in cheating scandals.

The case has provoked many comments from netizens, some of whom have shown sympathy for the boy and blamed the current education system.

"With the severe competition for college entrance and increasing point-add categories, parents and students will not give up any possibility to get bonus points," said Lan Yuhong, a student in Beijing Sports University.

Source:Xinhua