Shenzhen education authorities announced they would disqualify 32 students for taking this year's National College Entrance Exam in the city after they were found to be "gaokao immigrants".

"Gaokao immigrants" refers to those individuals who lack a hukou (household registration) or student status in a province but still attend the gaokao, the National College Entrance Examination, in that province.

According to a notice published on the official website of Shenzhen's education bureau on Sunday, 32 students from Shenzhen Fuyuan School used dishonest means to gain qualification for taking the college entrance exam in South China's Guangdong province in the coming June.

Authorities will revoke their qualification to participate in the exam. Shenzhen Fuyuan School is also required to severely punish those responsible and will have its high school enrollment quota cut by half in 2019.

Shenzhen Fuyuan School, a private school established in 1999, raised many eyebrows after its third-grade students performed extraordinarily well at a mock gaokao. Among the top 10 students in the mock exam, six came from Shenzhen Fuyuan School.

Considering that its high school enrollment score has been nearly 100 points lower than the four key high schools in Shenzhen in the past three years, some parents suspected that gaokao immigrants might be involved, China News Service reported.

Parents later found that nine students of Shenzhen Fuyuan School were admitted to Tsinghua University and Peking University, two of China's top universities, in 2018, but some of them also appeared in promotional reports from certain Hebei high schools.

Many Chinese schools publish the names of top scorers on their bulletin as a way to promote the school.

According to previous media reports, Shenzhen Fuyuan School and Hengshui High School in Central China's Hebei province joined hands to establish Hengshui High School's Fuyuan branch in 2016. A parent said that if the new school turned into a channel for gaokao immigration, it would pose challenges to exam fairness.

Guangdong's education department issued a notice May 5, requiring a thorough investigation into gaokao immigration within the province as well as promising a fair and just educational environment for students.