With less than one month before the national college entrance examination, the news that Jiangsu province would offer some of its college enrollment quota to students from less developed regions created panic among students and parents in the East China province.
The education authorities later stated that the 38,000 university places being offered to students from the central and western regions would not mean fewer students from the province would be enrolled in colleges.
Both the education authorities and some media outlets are responsible for the angry response to the news, as the former failed to give a clear explanation about the reform, while the latter misinterpreted it.
Lacking a detailed explanation about the change, many parents and students assumed it would mean the quota for students from the central and western regions would be at the expense of children in Jiangsu.
The education authorities should have made clear when they released the news that only 9,000 of the 38,000 students will be recruited as undergraduates, and the remainder will be enrolled for junior college education and vocational training.
Jiangsu's actual college enrollment quota from the province may only be reduced by 5,000 at most, and the reduction for key universities may be only 2,000 to 3,000, with colleges in other provinces recruiting more students from Jiangsu province to compensate for this.
Some students and parents supposed the reduction in the number of exam candidates would mean that it would be even harder than before to pass the national college entrance examination in Jiangsu. In fact, the number of candidates for the exam this year decreased by 32,500 compared with that of last year. Indeed, over the past seven years, the number of exam candidates has fallen by about 160,000.
If the college enrollment quota in Jiangsu province doesn't reduce accordingly, the college enrollment rate in Jiangsu province will increase.
It's unreasonable to only take the reduction of the enrollment quota into consideration while ignoring the fact that the number of candidates taking the exam is declining.
China is pushing education reform to promote greater fairness. It is good for the country that the education authorities are adjusting the college enrollment to help those students from areas with less educational resources. But the educational authorities should also draw a lesson from the panic of parents and students in Jiangsu this time.
First, educational authorities should better explain their plans to the public in a timely manner, because college enrollment is related to the interests of students and their families.
Second, there should be a unified standard of college enrollment adjustment in the developed regions. Students and parents in Jiangsu province were strongly opposed to the adjustment this time in part because of the unbalanced enrollment rate in different regions. The educational authorities should directly face the issue of unfairness in the college enrollment process.
It will be a huge challenge for the education authorities to map out a plan that balances the interests of the developed and the underdeveloped regions. But it's time for them to come up with a solution.
The author Xiong Bingqi is vice-president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute.
