Reform prescribes sound dose for gaokao disorder

In recent years, several provinces have experimented by having a combination of the two streams. However, such efforts have failed because of the resistance of students, parents and teachers, who believe the widely practiced "bifurcated" approach is the best to achieve a higher gaokao score. Therefore, it has become even more difficult to address the main cause of the predicament like a single test. Even in times of widespread mistrust of the privileged and powerful, gaokao results are still seen as the fairest criterion for admission to college, as well as one of the few avenues still open to students from working class background to move up the social ladder.

Although greater autonomy to colleges in terms of students' enrollment, rather than State-controlled admission, has been projected as the ultimate solution to the gaokao conundrum, recent scandals surrounding public colleges that sell "reserved seats" have made people more circumspect about any major changes in the system.

On an experimental level, some colleges have been allowed to reserve a small number of seats for students who have not performed well in gaokao but have demonstrated their skills in other fields such as art and sport. Unfortunately, the experiment has gone awry as colleges wallow in money, power and corruption, and trade the seats with the rich and powerful.

So what will make the abolition of different streams in high schools a success this time? For starters, the CPC blueprint for higher education in the next decade offers a much more holistic and coherent course that includes independent admission to schools based on multiple tests and fewer gaokao subjects, which decision-makers in the education department had long been weighing but were reluctant to roll out at one go because of concerns about social harmony.

At a deeper level, students and parents who fear that changes in the gaokao system will deprive them of the chance of upward social mobility should probably be heartened by the purpose of such social reforms, which, according to the CPC document, is "to allow more benefits from the development to be more equally shared by all people".

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

(China Daily 11/23/2013 page5)