Despite obstacles, gaokao reform perseveres

(Ecns.cn)--As millions of Chinese teenagers prepare to endure the stress of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE, or gaokao) this coming June, related educational reforms have come under the national spotlight once again.

Currently, migrant children without a local hukou, or household registration, are not allowed to take the examination in the cities where they live. As a result, students must leave their parents and return to where their hukou are registered to take the exam, according to the Global Times.

To solve the problem, the Ministry of Education (MOE) plans to issue a gaokao reform guideline in the first half of this year which will allow students to take the exam in areas where they currently reside.

Education Minister Yuan Guiren told media during the NPC and CPPCC earlier this month that a reform initiative would be unveiled in less than 10 months.

Du Yubo, deputy chief of the MOE, added on the sidelines of the "two sessions" that regional governments should also issue detailed policies concerning the issue and release a plausible time frame by the end of this year, reported the Beijing News.

In a pioneering move, Shandong Province on February 29 announced that students without a local hukou can take the gaokao as long as they have completed all of their studies at a local high school.

However, Xiong Binqi, an education expert at Shanghai Jiaotong University, has been unsupportive of the practice, arguing that the recruitment quotas of colleges are allocated according to provinces or provincial regions, meaning that migrant students will compete heavily with local students for college entrance.

Du Yubo also noted that the best interests of both migrants and locals should be taken into consideration to prevent gaokao overcrowding in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, where students have a better chance of entering top-flight universities than out-of-towners with higher scores.

Statistics show that in 2005, about 851 Beijing students were admitted to Peking University and Tsinghua University, while the quota for Henan Province was a mere 171.

As a result, more and more migrant kids are joining students in Beijing and Shanghai, causing speculation among locals that these children might be "gaokao migrants," a term referring to students who covertly immigrate to other places a few days before the gaokao in order to get bonus points or be in a less competitive environment.

However, Yuan Guiren explained that "gaokao migrants" usually take exams in Qinghai and Hainan provinces, where "college admission rates are high, but education is poor," instead of in big cities.

Yuan added that migrant students should meet certain requirements before being allowed to take the gaokao in the cities they are living in, and education resources should also be assessed to make sure they are not stretched to the limit.

Yet Xiong Bingqi, vice head of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, revealed that the number of senior high students in Shanghai and Beijing has been decreasing in recent years, and a report predicts that graduates from senior high in Beijing will drop from 93,000 in 2006 to 41,513 in 2016.

China Newsweek pointed out that the current gaokao system, instead of causing excessive exploitation of education resources, has resulted in the draining of student pools at universities.

At this, Xiong Wenzhao, a professor at Minzu University of China, suggested that top-level reforms should be carried out to improve the situation.

Currently, passing the gaokao remains "the only real route for families to get their perfect, precious bundle into a higher income bracket," Heidi A. Ross, director of the East Asian Studies Center at Indiana University Bloomington and an expert on gaokao reform, told The Chronicle.

Ministry officials also acknowledged the unfairness of "a single examination that defines a student's destiny" in a 10-year education reform and development plan in 2010, and vowed to change the equation.

As part of efforts to achieve a broader government goal to develop a more independent higher education system, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, the MOE has been encouraging universities to design their own "university-based assessments" to identify candidates with special talents.

Individual students who come from ethnic minorities or belong to other underprivileged groups have also been given bonus points to lift their scores.

Another new entrance model that allows some institutions--mainly elite ones--to accept students based on recommendations from high school principals has also been created to provide outstanding students with more chances to enter college. Peking University started admitting up to three percent of its students on such recommendations starting in fall of 2009.

Moreover, reforms that emphasize different types of skills have been implemented too.

Yet reformers know that by making any changes they risk creating fresh resentment, analyzed The Chronicle. Certain groups, including disadvantaged groups, would resist losing the special considerations they get in the exam review process, for example.

"There's a tremendous amount of energy going into rethinking these proposals," says Heidi A. Ross. "But it's just beginning to crack the nut."

Zhang Jiandang, an activist campaigning for the removal of the barrier that blocks migrant students from taking the local gaokao, told the Global Times that he felt happy that the MOE had laid out a schedule to solve the issue.