Football test in high school entrance exam triggers debate

The notice that students must take football tests in their high school entrance exam triggered heated debate in Qingdao, a coastal city of east China.

This is the first time that football was brought into high school entrance exam in China, and students were asked to run around five mark posts with football on a field of 30 meters by 10 meters.

Boy students can get the full mark of five points within 7.5 seconds and the full mark time for the girls is 8.1 seconds.

As the notice was published, some questioned whether it is appropriate to ask all students, including girls, to practice football, which is harder than running, jumping, swimming and basketball.

Although promoting football is good, authorities should not force all students to practice it. Football should be a hobby not a burden, said Liu Weixiang, whose son will take high school entrance exam this summer.

"The exam should focus more on students' physical fitness instead of techniques, so I think running and chinning are worthy to be considered," Liu said.

"It surprised me when I heard I must take football test in the exam. I like playing basketball rather than football, and I am worried about the exam," said Lou Rui, a graduate student of No. Five Junior Middle School of Qingdao.

Football was really hard for girls, because we didn't play football beside PE lessons. A few girls like football, but they did not play it either as parents and teachers would think they are not elegant, said Wang Yueming, a female graduate student.

"We would like to choose sports event of PE exam by our own," Wang Yueming said.

However, some thought football test was beneficial to the promotion of the sport in China.

"Popularization of football is very hard in China as the national team always disappointed us. In my opinion, it is the hope of China's football future that football was brought into the exam," said a netizen with the alias of "Xiao He".

Sui Zhiqiang, deputy director of education bureau of Qingdao told Xinhua Thursday that football test is aimed to promote students' constitution instead of training professional football players.

"The sports event of PE exam is notified a year before the exam in previous years, and middle schools only had students training the specific event for exam and everyone got a high mark," Sui Zhiqiang said, "This isn't good to develop all aspects of students' physique."

The bureau decided to choose the sports event at random with sport lottery machine three months before the exam, so schools will have to offer all kinds of sports events in PE lessons, Sui said.

According to the national regulations, football, basketball and volleyball are all options for the exam. And football only tests youngsters' physical flexibility rather than football techniques, Sui said.

Xie Jiewen, head of No. 41 Junior Middle School told Xinhua that it is good to choose sports event at random, and parents will see that having good academic record doesn't mean a complete success to children.

Some parents and teachers only ask students to learn more from textbooks and get high scores in exams, but ignored students' constitution, which is worsening in recent years, Xie said.