EDUCATION experts believe university admissions reforms announced two years ago are now ready to be implemented, after 27 universities recently said they would implement the changes to use high school students’ comprehensive evaluation information in deciding next year’s intakes.

Shanghai and Zhejiang will pilot the central government’s scheme which calls on universities to consider three extensive elements in their decision-making, extending the selection process beyond just exam scores. The three elements are test results for all subjects, scores in the gaokao unified college entrance exam and the school’s evaluation of a range of student qualities, including academic performance, awards, research work, morality, health, interests, special skills and social practices. The first two elements are the “basis” and the third is classified as a “reference.”

Online platform

Shanghai’s Education Commission last year established an online platform for high schools to record information about their students so that the details can be centrally accessed. The Fudan, Shanghai Jiao Tong, Tongji and East China Normal universities said they would use the information for all their enrolment programs. Some universities had already implemented similar schemes independently before the reforms were expanded to all universities and the commission established a centralized process and data base under its leadership.

“Students will no longer have to submit separate resumes or other materials as they did before in our comprehensive evaluation and independent enrollment programs to show their strengths,” said Ding Guanghong, director of the admissions office of Fudan University. “We will submit the list of applicants to the education authority to register the information in the unified system and distribute that to our professional interviewers before interviews.”

As the information in the official system has all been verified by schools and publicly displayed, it is regarded as objective and credible. Interviews will be carried out based on the information, so cheating is risky, admissions officials say.

“We welcome the information as it offers a whole picture of each student’s comprehensive development in the past three years, from performance in academic study and extracurricular activities to experiences in research and social activities, and from individual interests to special skills,” Ding added.

Tongji admissions office director Liao Zongting said the new system was also expected to lighten the load on university officials. “Some previous students had submitted too many materials to us and really added our workload,” he said. “We’ve seen students’ resumes as thick as books, but actually some are useless to us. But from next year, we will see standardized materials classified in different dimensions and it will be really easier to read through and helpful for us to understand the applicants well.”

The online portfolios will also be used in admission via gaokao as references for universities to make decisions, such as judging which student with equal scores are more appropriate for the university or the major. Liao also said that the university will suggest students change majors if the data suggests their first choice is not suitable.

Jiao Tong and Tongji said they monitor students’ development through university and modify admissions systems accordingly, in a scientific manner.

Shanghai Education Commission deputy director Jia Wei said the new system is “a breakthrough in educational reform” and would improve fairness and help Chinese education move from score-oriented to focusing on students’ well-rounded development.

“The new college admission scheme actually is changing the process from selecting general students to selecting individualized persons, highlighting students’ interests, personal development, innovative spirits and practical skills,” Jia said. “And when universities take all these information into account in enrolment, it will force our high schools to reform their education concepts and systems.”

Lu Jing, the vice director of the Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences, agreed the use of the official online portfolios would move the reform of gaokao and quality education, which China has been emphasizing in recent years, from concept to a practical and operational level. “We all know we need quality education for students’ all-around development, but we didn’t know how to achieve the goal,” she said.

Higher requirements

She said the reforms set clear and higher requirements for high school education as all kinds of strengths are important in the new admissions scheme, no matter if it is cognitive performance such as test scores or non-cognitive qualities such as research ability, social responsibility, artistic and sports skills. “Schools have to provide more opportunities to learn and practice capabilities in discovering and solving problems,” she said. “It should not be taught merely in class, but also in complicated situations.”

“Academic scores are not the only basis to judge education quality,” Lu said. “The quality is reflected in the whole process and students’ behaviors, ability and morality. It will free students from burdensome study and give them more independent time, space and choices to develop their own comprehensive development via exploratory thinking, practices and social activities.

“We need to redefine good children. They are not always those obedient and quite ones with a strong memory and good at answering questions, but those with curiosity and who like questioning and discussing with others, those who have their own understanding about problems and can express their own ideas creatively, and those who never give up when encountering troubles and are good at solving problems in cooperation with others.”

She said university procedures would become more professional and targeted, improving the matching of students and their interests and strengths to the requirements of majors.

High schools had already started adapting and some students welcome the changes, saying it makes studying more interesting and colorful.

At Shanghai Shixi High School, capable students are allowed to study textbooks in advance by themselves and granted exemption from related classes to use that time for their own research or activities.

Xu Ruitong, who will graduate from the school next year, said she had been given an exemption from physics classes and spent the spare time on research, such as construction technologies in the Beiheng Tunnel in Shanghai and the history of a chime clock in a park near her home. She had also compared parks in Chengdu and Shanghai to see how traditional culture was differently integrated with modern culture in the two cities. “The research not only helped me to learn research methods and thesis writing but also expanded my vision from merely textbooks,” said Xu.

Another group in the school attended a model car race called “F1 in Schools.” They designed dozens of models and won a major championship with a model that ran 250 meters in 1.03 seconds, said Ye Sijia, the team manager and a second grader. “Although the research had influenced our academic study, we think it’s worthy as it gave us experience totally different from class learning,” she said. “We not only apply knowledge we learn via classes and self-study to do research and modify our designs of car models to make them faster, but we also made posters and an exhibition booth by ourselves to display our products to judges and talked to companies to raise money for our program.

“None of the skills could be learned simply from class.”