Beijing, June 30 (IANS) Fourteen people have been punished in China for a 10-minute delay in distributing answer-sheets to seven students appearing in the national college entrance exams.

According to authorities, the incident occurred June 7 in north China’s Shanxi province.
The individuals were found responsible for a delay in sending out papers to the students taking the exam called “gaokao” in Chinese, at a school in Yaodu district, Xinhua quoted the government authorities as saying.
An investigation found the examination paper handler misdirected answer sheets between rooms, leading to the delay in one of the examination rooms where the exam was expected to begin by 9 a.m.
The 14 individuals, including Liu Yujiang, secretary of the district’s education bureau committee of the Communist Party of China and Zhu Yunlong, president of examination centre — the Linfen No. 2 Middle School, received punishment ranging from warnings to dismissal.