At 9 a.m. on Sunday, 5.27 million students sat quietly in thousands
upon thousands of classrooms across China, ready to begin college
entrance examination which is probably the most important
examination they will ever sit.
"I
am sure my daughter will do quite well in the exam," said Mr. Zhou
who, like many other Chinese parents, was waiting anxiously outside
the school.
He
said his daughter did not worry about the exams at all, whereas he
himself sometimes was still haunted by the nightmare of sitting his
examination.
"It is not as tough to enter college as 20 years ago as colleges
and universities have begun taking in more and more students," he
recalled, "I think my daughter's generation is much luckier than
mine."
The divergent attitudes to Zhou's college entrance exams and his
daughter's are attributed to changes in China's higher educational
system.
Official statistics available show that 52 percent of Chinese
university candidates could get admitted this year, but in 1981 the
figure was only 2.4 percent.
The reforms in China's higher education have brought tremendous
changes to educational institutes.
In
1999, Tsinghua University announced its merger with the Chinese
Central Academy of Arts and Design. And a few months later, the
Beijing Medical University was officially became the Health Science
Center of Peking University.
The mergers promoted the expansion of the two prestigious
institutions of higher learning, which are on their ways of
becoming world-famous universities with a comprehensive range of
subjects.
Statistics show that from 1996 to 2000, a total of 387 colleges and
universities in China were reduced to 212 through merging.
Moreover, colleges and universities are restructuring and improving
their teaching methods and readjusting their curriculum.
Wang Dazhong, president of Tsinghua University said that while
cutting out 20 percent of total class time, his university has
added to its curriculum more fundamental subjects in the fields of
mathematics, natural sciences and humanities. The move is designed
to "train students to be good all-rounders," Wang said.
With China's integration into the world economy, specific courses
like MBA and MPA are heavily subscribed in universities. To train
students with market-oriented knowledge and expertise has now
become a way for Chinese colleges and universities to reform their
teaching systems.
Meanwhile, the reform in China's higher educational system has
brought higher salaries and better conditions to university faculty
staffs. Government departments have also carried out activities to
draw more talented Chinese from home and overseas to work for
China's colleges and universities. The proportion of faculty to
student has reached 1:14, close to the world's average.
A
few weeks ago, a draft law on the promotion of non-governmental
education was submitted to the Standing Committee of the Chinese
National People's Congress (NPC) for deliberation. The draft stated
private schools should enjoy the same rights as public ones.
According to official statistics, by 2000 there were 1,280
non-governmental higher educational institutes altogether with
981,700 students on campus. And experts predict the future
promulgation of the law on private education will provide more
chances for Chinese people to undertake higher education.
With the wide spread of information technology, higher education is
also available in China's hinterland areas. Through projects like
remote education, it is accessible to the people around the
country.
It
is true that the Chinese people still have to compete for the
chance of entering colleges and universities, and this will remain
unchanged in the foreseeable future. But it is also undeniable that
competition for higher education has changed much from that of two
decades ago. It is thought the higher education system will give
Chinese young people an increasing number of opportunities.
(Xinhua News
Agency July 8, 2002)