by Yong Zhao
Exams not only work against the development of individuality and creativity but also prevent equality by limiting the opportunities for the laboring class to gain access to higher education. Test scores and examinations were thus considered counterrevolutionary measures to keep laborers' children away from higher education. In a 1970 article published in the state-controlled paper People's Daily, the author argued: “Using test scores as the only measure for college admissions and advocating ‘everyone is equal before test scores’ is in reality a culture tyranny imposed upon the working people by the capitalist class.”9
Mao's revolution against tests and test scores went further than removing testing from requirements for college admissions. He wanted to install a new educational paradigm freed from the Confucian and keju tradition. He envisioned and forced the implementation of an educational system to serve the masses, not the intellectual elite—the traditional scholars who “never labor their limbs and [are] unable to tell different crops.” In Mao's view, education should serve the proletariat, and it should be rooted in their daily activities and experiences. He brought about massive changes: a tremendous expansion of basic education in rural areas, with postsecondary education conducted in factories and villages. Students and teachers labored like peasants and factory workers, academic studies were rendered antirevolutionary, and the required number of years of schooling was reduced.
But Mao's revolution ended shortly after his death in 1976, and the college entrance exam was restored in 1977. The consequences of Mao's revolution have been generally viewed as disastrous. Instead of being allowed to teach, hundreds of thousands of university faculty and leaders were investigated, publicly humiliated, and even tortured. University admissions were completely suspended for four years, resulting in a loss of perhaps 2 million college graduates. The “worker-peasant-soldier students” had extremely low academic capabilities. The quality of teaching in the expanded schools at both the basic and postsecondary level was far from adequate because the teachers did not have adequate preparation. However, Mao's idealistic pursuit of an educational utopia has been reexamined in recent years. Many scholars agree that even though Mao's methods were dictatorial, his intentions to fight against the authoritarianism and intellectualism of Chinese education were well justified.10
Back to “Naked” Tests
Although the entrance exam was restored in 1977, its negative effect on creativity and equality was not lost on the Chinese. A series of policies have since been developed to dilute the power of exams. Initially the government instituted policies to lower the cutoff scores for applicants meeting certain criteria. Up to fifty points could be lowered for students who earned the “Three-Good Student” awards; winners of contests in academic subjects; students with exceptional talents in sports and arts; winners of governmental recognition; and recipients of recognition in other areas.11 For example, a 1987 policy issue by the Ministry of Education stipulated that high school students who won prizes in provincial-level science and technology invention contests could be admitted with scores lower than the cutoff. Students applying for certain specializations, such as arts, theater, acting, agriculture, forestry, mining, and at one time teacher education, also had a lower cutoff.
After 2001, China began awarding bonus points instead of lowering minimum test scores. College applicants could receive bonuses based on their family background and merits that could not be tested. There are two types of bonuses: compensatory and merit based. Compensatory bonus points are similar in spirit to affirmative action strategies in other countries because these bonus points are intended to compensate for certain disadvantages the students have suffered. For example, students who belong to an ethnic minority group or were educated in areas with a high concentration of ethnic minorities could be awarded points. The second kind of bonus, merit based, was granted to students who had demonstrated desired qualities and talents not easily tested in the college entrance exam: students who received prizes in a national or international contest for scientific and technological invention, students who competed in international Olympiads in math and sciences, and students who competed well in sporting events.
The idea of bonus-point or extra-credit measures was to contain the power of the college entrance exam and recognize students with special talents or interests. However, like the experiment granting autonomy in admissions, these measures have resulted in rampant corruption and created new forms of standardized tests. For example, thirty-one students were found to have faked their ethnicity in Chongqing in 2009, although their ethnic minority status had to be reviewed, inspected, and verified by multiple layers of government agencies.12 Certification for qualifications of athletic abilities can be bought with a few thousand yuan; so can invention patents. Bribery can bring students honorary titles. According to an investigative report in the national newspaper China Youth, assisting students to obtain qualifications for bonus points in the college entrance exam has become a sophisticated industry.13
The industry manages bribes and alters ethnicity, and it also includes training centers that prepare students to earn all sorts of certificates and prizes. The Math Olympiad, an international math competition for students, for example, became a de facto mandatory extracurricular activity for virtually all students from the primary grades on up. But it is not math that interests these students. They simply want to win the contest and earn the extra points. Likewise, music, art, and sports have all become ways to earn extra points on the college entrance exam. As a result, music and art classes have turned into exam prep.
The corruption and distortion that entered education when officials tried to foster special talents triggered widespread complaints among the public and leaders alike. Moreover, awarding bonus points to students demonstrating talents in art, music, and sports further disadvantages poor students and students in rural areas because they do not have the same access to these expensive opportunities. Increasingly, people are calling for “naked tests”—that is, using only test scores to make admissions decisions. In response, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of categories included for extra credit, as well the number of bonus points that can be awarded. Math Olympiad winners, for example, will no longer receive extra points. Neither will winners in some science and technology competitions.
The Witch That Cannot Be Killed
In January 2014, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued a stern policy banning the use of any form of exams for students advancing from primary school to middle school.14 “Exams cannot be used by local educational administration, government schools, or private schools to select students,” stated the policy document. “Government schools cannot use any certificates of contest prizes or qualifications as basis for determining students' eligibility for admissions.” For schools with more applicants than space, a computerized lottery is to be used.
This policy is yet another attempt to free Chinese education from the power of exams. Over the past three decades, the Chinese central government and provincial governments have issued similar policies every year. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the central government issued multiple orders forbidding the use of exams in the admission of students to middle schools. All middle schools were required to accept students within their designated communities without using exams to determine eligibility. But in practice, these orders were generally ignored by local governments and schools until the late 1990s. Shanghai began implementing the policy in 1997, and Beijing began a year later.
Officially middle schools are no longer supposed to use formal exams to make admissions decisions and must enroll students residing in their communities. Nor are schools supposed to enroll students from outside their communities, a common way to recruit more academically talented students or increase financial resources by charging a fee to those who are less talented. In reality, both practices continued, forcing central and local governments into an annual exercise of issuing more orders and policies. In 2000, for instance, the Ministry of Educati
on issued an order prohibiting the use of any form of written exams to select students. In 2005, the ministry ordered all government schools to stop offering classes in Math Olympiad and referencing qualifications in Math Olympiad for admissions. In 2006, the Chinese legislature passed the revised Compulsory Education Law, which made using exams to admit students to middle school illegal. In 2009, a similar order was issued again, demanding that schools not give any form of exams and associating admissions with students winning prizes in subject contests. In 2013, the Ministry of Education issued similar orders once more—and again in 2014.
The fact that such orders continue to be issued shows what little effect their predecessors have had. To show compliance, schools and local governments may have stopped formal and open exams, but they have invented new forms of exams or conducted exams without calling them entrance exams. In 2010, a group of middle schools in Sichuan were reported for holding a “scholarship exam,” which was to be used for admissions decisions.15 In 2009, a middle school in Shanxi Province used a commercial tutoring service to conduct its admissions exam. Children who wished to attend the school had to pay to receive tutoring and participate in the exams. The training service could recommend students to the school, and of course, the school happened to admit only students recommended by the service. This type of joint venture has become a popular way for schools to identify the best students and increase revenue, all while evading government scrutiny. A joint venture might offer out-of-school tutoring in the Math Olympiad, English, and other “special talents.” These tutoring programs also serve as a selecting mechanism for the middle schools. In addition, while schools are banned from using written exams, they can still conduct interviews, which have become another form of testing.16
A 2013 study conducted by the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a Chinese nonprofit think tank, found fifteen different ways for students to advance from primary to middle school in Beijing. Officially there should be only one way: residency in the district. “Invisible and alternative forms of exams have defeated the ‘advancing without exams’ policy,” the study concludes.17
“Thus, more than a decade's history of prohibition orders from educational departments has been a history of ineffective orders,” notes a report in China Weekly after reviewing numerous attempts to curtail the power of testing in Chinese education.18 How is it possible that in such a tightly controlled, authoritarian society, the omnipotent government has been unable to kill the witch of testing?
Another Witch That Refuses to Be Killed
Lessening academic burden has been another area of repeated, intensive, yet impotent reforms. The damages caused by an excessive academic burden have long been recognized. Efforts to curtail the time devoted to academic studies and relieve the pressures of school work began in the 1950s, prior to the Cultural Revolution. The first order issued by the Communist government after it took control of China was in 1955, merely six years after the founding the People's Republic of China, or New China.
“The main issue is the excessive amount of homework and testing,” noted the Chinese Ministry of Education in 1955. “Students are so occupied with homework and tests that they have to get up early and go to bed late. They cannot even take a nap at noon and must work on Sundays. They are in a constant mode of anxiety and intense pressure.” This excessive academic burden resulted “in very bad consequences and severely damaged students' physical and psychological well-being…because they are occupied with rote-memorization…the quality of learning is hard to truly improve.” After listing the damages caused by this burden, the Ministry of Education asked that schools take immediate corrective actions to reduce homework and cut back the frequency of testing.19
In subsequent years, except during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese central government has issued about nine similar orders. But the reality has been an increase of academic burdens, not a reduction. Students today are more pressured and spending more time on academic studies than ever before. Nevertheless, the government remains determined to address this issue. So in 2013, the Ministry of Education issued an almost identical order, fifty-eight years after the first one. The 2013 order identified ten actions that schools are required to take:20
Transparent admissions. Admission to a school cannot take into account any achievement certificates or examination results. Schools must admit all students based on their residency without considering any other factors.
Balanced grouping. Schools must place students into classes and assign teachers randomly. Schools are strictly forbidden to use any excuse to establish fast-track and slow-track classes.
“Zero-starting point” teaching. All teaching should assume all first-grader students begin at zero proficiency. Schools should not artificially impose higher academic expectations and expedite the pace of teaching.
No homework. No written homework is allowed in primary schools. Schools can, however, assign appropriate experiential homework by working with parents and community resources to arrange field trips, library visits, and craft activities.
Reducing testing. No standardized testing is allowed for grades 1 through 3. For fourth grade and up, standardized testing is allowed only once per semester for Chinese language, math, and foreign language. Other types of tests cannot be given more than twice per semester.
Categorical evaluation. Schools can assess students using only the categories of exceptional, excellent, adequate, and inadequate, replacing the traditional 100-point system.
Minimizing supplemental materials. Schools can use at most one type of material to supplement the textbook, with parental consent. Schools and teachers are forbidden to recommend, suggest, or promote any supplemental materials to students.
Strictly forbidding extra classes. Schools and teachers cannot organize or offer extra instruction after regular school hours or during winter and summer breaks and other holidays. Public schools and their teachers cannot organize or participate in extra instructional activities.
A minimum of one hour of physical exercise. Schools are to guarantee the offering of physical education classes in accordance with the national curriculum, physical activities, and eye exercise during recess.
Strengthening enforcement. Educational authorities at all levels of government shall conduct regular inspection and monitoring of actions to lessen students' academic burden and shall publish their findings. Individuals responsible for academic burden reduction are held accountable by the government.
As determined as China's government can be, few scholars and parents believe this new order would have any better outcomes than its predecessors. Schools might show token compliance, but the students' burden would not decrease. For example, a school might assign less homework, but parents would then add more. Schools might reduce class time and testing, but parents would send their children to private tutors. In fact, the transfer of burden from within the school to outside the school has been a historical phenomenon. “Whenever the government asks schools to reduce academic burden, tutoring companies are the happiest because more parents come to sign up for their children,” observes Xiong Bingqi, deputy president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute.21
Here again is the paradox: China's supremely powerful government has been unable to realize its simple wish to reduce the academic burden on students. Actually that's not entirely true, because during the Cultural Revolution, China had no academic burden problem. But that relief came at a high cost: no quality education and massive destruction of educated individuals and educational institutions. As soon as China returned to traditional education, the academic burden returned and quickly became excessive. Now it only seems to get more powerful, despite widespread resentment of its pressures and strong governmental efforts to control it. Why?
The Prisoner's Dilemma
The Chinese government's educational reforms have been compromised by the very people and institutions they were intended to benefit: students, parents, teachers, and schools. Students an
d parents have long suffered from excessive homework and testing, as have teachers and schools. Talk to any parent, child, and teacher in China, and you will find that very few like the Chinese education system, and an overwhelming majority wants change. But faced with the proposed changes by the government—the very changes the people have demanded—they refuse to cooperate. They are stuck in a game of prisoner's dilemma.
The prisoner's dilemma is a situation in which two individuals choose not to cooperate, even when cooperation could benefit both of them. The classic description of the dilemma is that two individuals are caught for committing a crime and held in separate cells so they cannot communicate with each other. The police offer them each a deal, and they have to make their decision independently. The deal gives each individual four options:
If A confesses and B denies committing the crime, A goes free and B goes to prison for ten years.
If B confesses and A denies, B goes free and A goes to prison for ten years.
If both A and B confess, both go to prison for six years.