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University entrance examinations have been an annual highlight of China's academic history since being restored 30 years ago. This fact has never been more important as this year with a record 10 million candidates getting ready to face their future from Thursday on. Only half of them will be successful though since only 5.6 million college places are on offer.

 

Xin Huadong, a cadre in east China's Shandong provincial government, credits the college entrance examination ago for single-handedly changing the course of his life and offering him more than a future as a humble farmer.

 

Due to the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese universities stopped enrolling students from 1966 to 1976. The exam was restored in 1977, when 5.7 million candidates competed for a measly 220,000 places in the nation's institutes of higher learning.

 

Nearly 60 million Chinese have taken the college entrance exam in the past three decades, leading 10 million to further education have actually enrolled.

 

But, 30 years on, the college entrance exam has become a controversial topic for education experts, students, parents, and teachers.

 

"You can't judge a person's ability just from a piece of paper," said Ren Lijian, a professor from Nanjing University in east China's Jiangsu Province.

 

He said that the examinations had exacerbated the lack of originality among Chinese students, already stifled by a system based around learning things by rote. Education departments are stuck in the mud, struggling to find ways to ensure fairer access to higher education while fostering creativity and independent thinking in the student populations.

 

To give more people access to higher education, China started expanding university rolls but Ren has derided this move, scoffing that "it took China just eight years -- from 1999 to 2007 -- to turn a college degree from something special into something more or less mass produced."

 

Education Minister Zhou Ji, who advocates the expansion of university rolls, maintains that opening the doors of China's universities has led to a broad improvement in the country's human resources. Ministry of Education stats show that 4.13 million people graduated in 2006, up from 1.08 million in 1998. This figure is set to rise to 5 million this year.

 

To cater for more students, many universities have taken out major bank loans to expand their campuses. Currently, over 50 university towns are under construction in China, most of which are functioning on bank loans.

 

Some experts worry that Chinese universities may face repayment troubles when the bailiffs come knocking in 2008."Some universities may find themselves unable to repay their loans. Large, beautiful classrooms doesn't necessarily attract good teaching staff, and yet that's the key component of a good university," said Ren.

 

For the moment, college entrance exams will remain an immutable part of China's social and educational landscape.

 

However, in his government work report this year Premier Wen Jiabao said that more emphasis should be given to the quality of higher education, and that college enrollment numbers should be stabilized.

 

"I hope the universities are listening," ended Ren.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2007)