The annual ordeal for high-school graduates, known as the national college
entrance examination (gaokao), was played out on a grand scale this past week.
It is a ritual that dates back 1,500 years or so - a truly Chinese record
that is in no danger of being topped by any other country.
It is supposed to be a level playing field where almost 10 million teenagers
this year vie for what is basically a certificate of being better than half the
population their age.
The odds have been increasing in the past three decades. When I sat for it
back in 1978, the enrolment ratio for my school was maybe 1 in 50 or so. That
should have made me feel like a smarty. But I didn't.
Many of my classmates who, I was sure, were smarter failed or got into less
sought-after schools. As a result, our roads diverged but, thanks to a spurt of
entrepreneurship made possible by the reform policies, some of them came out
ahead despite lacking "proper" credentials.
What I mean to say is, this system of selecting the brightest for the
institution of "proud sons of heaven" is at best a loophole-ridden sieve that
often fails to separate wheat from the chaff and at worst a smothering bag for
real talent.
It depends heavily on memorization of cut-and-dried snippets of textbook
knowledge that most youngsters tend to gobble up without chewing and tasting. If
anything, it is a fertile ground for conformity.
And if you've paid attention to reports of migrating exam-takers, you would
know that the game is rigged in favour of big cities. Most colleges and
universities - and the best - are located in metropolitan areas and enrol a
disproportionate number of local students.
With the exception of the hinterland ethnic minorities, someone living in a
poorer province has less chance of squeezing into the same school as someone
from a richer one, given they score the same. In other words, kids in
resource-deficient areas are not compensated for the state's inadequate
investment in education, but are penalized for it.
It may sound paradoxical, but I'm not for abolishing the gaokao system. For
all its quirks and partiality, it is one of the few mechanisms of meritocracy
that we have.
And they are improving on it. For example, unconventional essays for the
writing part of the language test no longer fall through cracks automatically.
Some are even commended for originality. And now, even the topics are
open-ended.
We can freely admit we hate gaokao, but do we have something better to
replace it? What about a face-to-face interview, which should enable recruiters
to gauge more accurately the potential of applicants, especially their EQs?
But sadly, it will also open a floodgate of corruption as impressions are
more malleable than gaokao scores. Do you think that, given the same level of
aptitude, someone with no social connections and no financial recourse will get
the same treatment as someone whose parents can pull a few strings?
All the bad things you hear about gaokao are very true, and I can add some
more to the list. But it's also a system that some brilliant kids from ordinary
family background are able to break through.
Fortunately, there are now more channels for success than the "lone-plank
bridge" of college education. Education can take a variety of forms, and being
force-fed textbook golden rules are not necessarily the ideal for everyone. The
world is full of people who fell off the plank and ended up in the sea of
self-achievement.
Unfortunately, we still have this tradition of extolling gaokao scores and
ranking people by the schools they are accepted into. Shouldn't we be eulogizing
those who have made it big without going to the "brand-name schools," or even
obtaining a college diploma? They are the ones who possess so much street smarts
that they are then processed into theories by business school professors.
Complaints aside, I want to say to all the gaokao students: if you achieve a
high score and get admitted into the school of your choice, my congratulations;
but if you don't live up to your parents' expectation in a one-size-fits-all
test, it doesn't mean you're a failure. There are so many things about you that
gaokao cannot test, and you may well excel without participating in a flawed
educational structure.
E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 06/10/2006 page4)
