College students in Beijing hire people to attend classes

Some college students earn hundreds of dollars monthly by substituting for "employers" who cannot make class in the capital, according to a report by the Beijing News.

Through undercover investigation within some of these online chat groups, the newspaper learned there are many online groups focusing on matching students who will pay to hire people who can substitute for them in classrooms and those who want to make money by going to classes for others.

The average price is 50 yuan ($7) to 100 yuan for a 45-minute class. The price can be higher if the "employer" wants the substitute to take notes or answer questions.

Usually, students want to hire people to go to general courses and optional courses to save time to prepare for exams or just hang out.Those courses usually have more than 100 students in a classroom, so it can be hard for teachers to tell whether a certain student is in the room.

Chen Xin, 20, a student who started working as a substitute last year, said he makes 3,000 yuan a month by going to classes for others.

Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said the behavior is irresponsible and duplicitous.

He said colleges and teachers need to make efforts to attract students by enriching the courses so that they are interesting, which he said is the solution to the problem.