Dozens of Chinese students have been using foreign passports to apply as overseas Chinese to study in Shanghai University, the Oriental Morning Post reported Wednesday.

A forged Guinean passport (left) used by a Chinese high school girl to apply to a mainland university was seized by the Sanya customs officials in Hainan September 1. [hinews.cn]

Students from abroad can apply to Chinese universities as long as they hold a high school certificate, a Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK) certificate, a national standardized test to assess Chinese language proficiency of non-native speakers, and a foreign passport.

Students bought Vietnamese, Laotian and other countries' passports to take advantage of the preferential policy, according to the report.

Shanghai University has turned down their applications, and it is reportedly the most frequent cause of application rejection by municipal universities in recent years.

International students who are up to the university's standard are usually accepted by the university within two to four weeks after their application, however Ye Zhiming, Shanghai University vice president, was suspicious of their applications.

" They came from North China's Shanxi Province, with Chinese high school certificates and Chinese parents but held foreign passports," Ye said.

" I heard about students migrating within the country to take advantage of the acceptance score levels that differ from province to province, but I've never seen these 'international immigrants'," Ye said.

Fudan University, another prestigious university in Shanghai, expelled 12 Chinese students holding Bolivian passports last year.

" They seemed more Chinese than Bolivian in terms of their Chinese proficiency, but it's hard for school authorities to check their passports," an anonymous official in charge of enrollment told the Oriental Morning Post.

According to the source, a forged passport sells for tens of thousands of RMB on the black market, but many parents are willing to take the risk and pay the money if it means their child is exempt from the win-or-lose entrance exam.

'International migrant students' have caught the state authority's attention, and the Chinese government amended the related regulations in February of this year.

Permanent or long-term residence in foreign countries and at least two years of living overseas are the necessary conditions for overseas Chinese to apply to mainland universities.

The amendments were made to tackle the problem of forged applications bearing in mind the increasing number of overseas Chinese studying in mainland universities.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Education show that 140,000 students from abroad came to study in China in 2005, exceeding the number of Chinese pursuing studies abroad in the same year.