The Ministry of Education has set up a system to help local governments and schools deal with the fallout from major emergencies.

Under the new system, "supervision and guidance groups" will be deployed when emergencies are reported to monitor investigations, identify safety issues and urge improvements.

Under the new system, announced at a news conference on Wednesday, when a major emergency takes place on or off campus, local governments and schools will receive supervision and guidance from a special group sent out by the steering committee for education under the State Council.

At the first signs of an emergency, the steering committee will assess the extent and impact of the incident and then decide whether to send the monitoring group.

The list of potential emergencies includes any major incident that may harm students and teachers, such as natural disasters, accidents, and health or security incidents on campus.

The new system follows on a series of emergency situations in recent years that affected schools, such as earthquakes, floods, security incidents involving school buses, food poisoning and problems with teachers' behavior.

In January, 26 students were found to have cheated on entrance exams for the Harbin University of Science and Technology's MBA course. The director of the MBA recruiting office at the university was involved in the scandal, and the amount of money involved totaled 1.5 million yuan ($247,500).