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Thursday, 4 September 2014
Highly anticipated plans to reform China’s rigid national university entrance exam unveiled
Proposals, to be tested by Shanghai and Zhejiang students in 2017, means admissions will rely less on two-day exam, and more on regular high school tests, Ministry of Education says.
Highly anticipated plans to reform China’s rigid national university entrance exam unveiled
Proposals, to be tested by Shanghai and Zhejiang students in 2017, means admissions will rely less on two-day exam, and more on regular high school tests, Ministry of Education says.
Andrea Chen 04 September 2014
The highly anticipated plan to reform China’s rigid national university entrance exam was finally unveiled by the Ministry of Education today.
Currently the results of a two-day national examination, or gaokao, decide the university places of more than nine million high school seniors each year.
However, under the new proposals, university admissions will rely less on the results of the gaokao, and more on the different tests of subjects that will be scheduled throughout students’ high school life.
By 2020, mainland students will need to take only three subjects – Chinese, mathematics, and English – in the national university entrance exam, the ministry said.
The new proposal intends to phase out the integrated subject test, which includes three science or social science subjects, depending on whether a student taking the test is in a liberal arts of science sequence – a decision that students need to make in their second year of high school.
Instead, students will need to take standardised tests in the six subjects separately – at a time of their own choosing. For example, students can choose to take physics in year one, and chemistry in year two.
They will have to pass all six tests in order to graduate from high school, but can choose which three out of the six subjects will be reviewed when applying for university admission.
The new scheme also promises that students will have a second chance to pass the tests in English and all six science and social science subjects.
High-school first-year students from Shanghai and Zhejiang Province – the regions chosen to test the reform plans – will be the first to sit the new gaokao in 2017.
“It is the most comprehensive and complicated reform since the country reintroduced national university entrance exams [in 1977],” education minister Du Yubo said at this morning’s press briefing to discuss the new scheme.
He said the reform would ensure that students gained all-round skills from their high-school education.
The ministry also vowed to put a stop to unfair competition by cancelling special admission on the basis of sports and arts merits by next year.
In the past, this has benefited students with a particular talent in sports and the arts, who have comparatively poorer academic performance.
China’s university admission rate has seen a 17-fold jump over the past 40 years – up from 4.8 per cent to about 75 per cent.
However, the mainland’s annual university entrance exam remains one of the most competitive in the world; ministry figures from 2012 show that there were more than nine million high school graduates from the mainland competing for fewer than seven million university places.
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Highly anticipated plans to reform China’s rigid national university entrance exam unveiled
Proposals, to be tested by Shanghai and Zhejiang students in 2017, means admissions will rely less on two-day exam, and more on regular high school tests, Ministry of Education says.
Andrea Chen
04 September 2014
The highly anticipated plan to reform China’s rigid national university entrance exam was finally unveiled by the Ministry of Education today.
Currently the results of a two-day national examination, or gaokao, decide the university places of more than nine million high school seniors each year.
However, under the new proposals, university admissions will rely less on the results of the gaokao, and more on the different tests of subjects that will be scheduled throughout students’ high school life.
By 2020, mainland students will need to take only three subjects – Chinese, mathematics, and English – in the national university entrance exam, the ministry said.
The new proposal intends to phase out the integrated subject test, which includes three science or social science subjects, depending on whether a student taking the test is in a liberal arts of science sequence – a decision that students need to make in their second year of high school.
Instead, students will need to take standardised tests in the six subjects separately – at a time of their own choosing. For example, students can choose to take physics in year one, and chemistry in year two.
They will have to pass all six tests in order to graduate from high school, but can choose which three out of the six subjects will be reviewed when applying for university admission.
The new scheme also promises that students will have a second chance to pass the tests in English and all six science and social science subjects.
High-school first-year students from Shanghai and Zhejiang Province – the regions chosen to test the reform plans – will be the first to sit the new gaokao in 2017.
“It is the most comprehensive and complicated reform since the country reintroduced national university entrance exams [in 1977],” education minister Du Yubo said at this morning’s press briefing to discuss the new scheme.
He said the reform would ensure that students gained all-round skills from their high-school education.
The ministry also vowed to put a stop to unfair competition by cancelling special admission on the basis of sports and arts merits by next year.
In the past, this has benefited students with a particular talent in sports and the arts, who have comparatively poorer academic performance.
China’s university admission rate has seen a 17-fold jump over the past 40 years – up from 4.8 per cent to about 75 per cent.
However, the mainland’s annual university entrance exam remains one of the most competitive in the world; ministry figures from 2012 show that there were more than nine million high school graduates from the mainland competing for fewer than seven million university places.
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