Exam change won't dampen English fever

Being tested for less score doesn't mean the subject can be taken lightly. Beijing will hold English exams twice a year and a student could take the exams more than once a year to earn the best score to seek admission to a college. Remember, gaokao is so competitive that students could spend a year or more just to raise a few points to surge ahead.

Some education experts suspect that a new grading system to assess students' proficiency in English in lieu of a gaokao test, as proposed by Jiangsu province, could make college admission as tough as before, because a top university might demand scores in English through a separate test regardless of a student's total gaokao score. Former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji, one of the most respected and foresighted Chinese statesmen, advocated English as the medium of instruction in the management school of the prestigious Tsinghua University, because "in a globalizing economy, if you cannot interact with foreigners, how can one be part of the world economy?"

Now the question is, if English is so important, why have education authorities chosen it to spearhead the overhaul of an exam system that incarnates both a major education impasse and the pinnacle of Chinese social justice?

While popularly seen as the fairest criterion for admission to college, gaokao has also been criticized for emphasizing rote memory rather than creativity of students, admissions based on a single test and a lack of recruitment autonomy by colleges.

English has become an apparent target of reform because of a famous classroom teaching tradition that encourages memorizing textbooks rather than communication skills. However, the downgrade may also be the consequence of a growing controversy over the enthusiasm for English, as critics worry about its usefulness for most college graduates as well as a potential erosion of Chinese language, culture and identity.

But parents who want to give their children the best may have found some opponents' rhetoric hollow and even hypocritical. For instance, it's increasingly difficult to find a successful Chinese figure who hasn't given or planned to give, his/her child an all-English education.

It doesn't take Zhu's wisdom to realize why students will continue to be motivated to learn English, even for fewer points at gaokao.

The writer is editor-at-large of China Daily. dr.baiping@gmail.com

(China Daily 10/26/2013 page5)