Wu Guangqiang

    THREE days in early June every year is a time of expectation and nerves for millions of high school seniors and their parents across China, for in those three days the focus is on the annual National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) or gaokao.

    It’s a fateful moment. For a poor farmer’s son or daughter from an underdeveloped rural village, a place in a university possibly means a bright future in a city and a turning point for the whole family. For an urban graduate however, a ticket to a university education is no longer a long shot after years of enrollment expansion, the biggest dream is to enter one of China’s most eminent universities so that he may join the elite after graduation.

    For most Chinese youth, the NCEE is their only chance. It was particularly true 34 years ago in 1977 when it was resumed after a 10-year stoppage due to the devastating “Cultural Revolution.”

    However, the NCEE, along with the Chinese education system itself, has been widely criticized over the years. As the single yardstick to measure the academic aptitude of test-takers, the NCEE has changed little, still entirely focused on students’ ability to memorize a host of facts and numbers instead of on their creativity. What is worse, the increasingly heated competition for better scores has been pushing test designers to make test problems more and more complicated and obscure. How obscure? Ask Lin Tianhong, and he will tell you what he thinks of the NCEE.

    Lin is assistant chief editor of China Weekly. Having learned that an article he had written years before was used in the Chinese exam paper in Fujian, out of curiosity, he attempted to tackle the problems based on his own writing. To his dismay, he could at best score 50 percent according to the criteria. “The problem writer was so ‘great’ at giving strained interpretations to my own story that I don’t know how to answer such problems,” he sneered. Lin is not alone in lamenting the rigidity and creativity-stifling effect of the NCEE. A graduate of Chinese language and literature myself, I can’t help but be saddened by the use of standardized multiple-choice problems on appreciation of masterpieces in Chinese tests.

    Speaking of the Chinese education system, Chen Danqing, a well-known oil painter and art critic, who resigned as a professor at Tsinghua University in 2005, was more out of powerlessness than anger. He has repeatedly slammed the absurd practice requiring all students — including art students — to meet such one-size-fits-all standards. Some applicants hoping to study with him were rejected despite their exceptional talent in art; and their artistic future was ruined simply because they failed an English test. China must be the only country that requires art students to pass an English test.

    While public opinion is divided on many social issues in China today, there is little disagreement on one issue: There is something wrong with education. Almost right after entering kindergarten, Chinese children start their long trudge toward the destination: the NCEE. Sadly, a millennia-old tradition of rote learning is still dominant in knowledge acquisition. Therefore, during years of being crammed with knowledge, much of it of questionable usefulness, children have their imaginations killed, and creativity and originality give way to repetition and copycatting. Worst of all, years of tedious mental labor wear out enthusiasm for further study, and many reduce themselves to slacking off and even becoming idle drifters after they enter college.

    The proof of the NCEE’s limitations are in the facts: Last year, China Daily released the results of a study tracking 1,000 top NCEE scorers over 30 years. Not one, the paper reported, went on to have an outstanding career.

    Given the fact that the NCEE, for better or worse, is still the fairest and most humane way to distribute China’s scarce educational resources, we still have to live with it. However, this doesn’t mean we can rely on it forever without any change or breakthrough. Bold experiments such as what the South University of Science and Technology of China is doing should be encouraged. Any attempt to preserve outdated practices will do harm to the future of our nation.

    Speaking of education, Hodding Carter, an American journalist and author, commented: “There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.” We will fail to give both to our children if we refuse to reform.

    (The author is an English tutor and a freelance writer. He can be reached at jw368@163.com.)