I work as a teacher at a public university located about a 45 minute train journey to the south of Wuhan. The entire English Major First Year student body numbering around 300 or more students has just been told that they are to be supplied with mobile telephones by the university at a cost to each student of RMB:50 - (they pay for their own calls). They have all been told that they must ONLY use these new telephones and must NOT use their own mobile telephones. They have all been made to sign an agreement to this effect.

These students all have their own mobile telephones and I wonder why a university that cannot be relied on to spend a single penny to keep the place well maintained. That does not provide anything else at subsidised costs, should suddenly insist 300 new students should be supplied with telephones at a heavily subsidised price and make it a rule that their own phones must not be used.

I am reminded of the case earlier this year in the USA where a high school had issued telephones or maybe issued mobile phone software that enabled the school management to literally spy on their students' call patterns and history as well as record and listen in to calls in progress but most importantly they could remotely activate the cameras in the phones so that pictures would be sent back to the management of whatever the cameras were pointing at - and all this could be done clandestinely without the knowledge of the students.

That incident caused an uproar and I believe that most of the senior management were either fired or allocated elsewhere into less senior positions.

Chinese management, especially those in schools, routinely act as if they are God and generally look on their students with little consideration. Cladestine underhand surveillance with 'doctored' mobile phones is right up the Chinese cheating street.

I have so far warned two classes of students that there is a reason for this issue of telephones and it is most unlikely to be for the students' benefit but is for some reason that suits the management. In fact I contend it is against the law of the land to force students to use university issue telephones when they all have perfectly serviceable phgones of their own and if the university wish to have a contact number for each student they do not need to issue them each with a telephone.

Any commments about this? Anyone come across this in China before, Would it be worth approaching the press and tv people to see if they might like to expose it?

Dave