At its 101th founding anniversary, Chinese prestigious Fudan University tried a new method to enroll 300 freshmen by interviewing.
More than 1,200 senior high school graduates, out of nearly 6,000 applicants, have got the precious interview opportunities. A 75-minute interview by a five-member group for each student will lead to the conclusion: Is the student wanted by Fudan?
Backed by the State Ministry of Education, two universities in China's economic powerhouse Shanghai have become "trailblazers" for national university entrance exam this year, and the other university is Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Educational experts wish interviewing, the new form of college entrance exam, will release the pressure of once-a-year national college entrance examination which falls on June 5 to June 7, and is attended by approximately 8 million high school students.
Scores of the single exam has been the only resort for all Chinese universities to select their freshmen.
Zheng Fangxian, director of the enrollment office of Fudan University, told Xinhua:" Even the perfectly designed test paper could hardly detect the comprehensive quality of an examinee which includes learning potential, moral ethics, social communications and practical ability."
In the interview, Jiang Lin of Shanghai Xingzhi Middle School was asked,"In the market economics, customer is the god, and do you think such relationship also exists between teacher and student?"
"You can hardly find any prepared answers to such question," Jiang recalled the exam, and said it was the most tough question for her during the interview.
"It's impossible to make any preparation for the interview because the examiners were not restricted by any knowledge scope directly from textbooks, while focusing on the 10 plus years learning attitude of the students," said Jiang.
China has kept on promoting "quality education" around the country in the past few years, aiming to liberate students from "exam oriented education" prevailed in the past decades.
The so-called quality education encompass ample contents including healthy bodies and steady psychological character, besides profound knowledge learned in classrooms.
The exam-oriented education has equipped Chinese kids with techniques of dealing with various exams, but people have found that the young generation learned far from enough concerning their future life and career as well.
"It's hard to implement quality education in middle and primary schools because the 'national college entrance exam baton' has not changed its direction," said Yang Xiaowei, an expert with the East China Normal University.
Yang believes that the reform launched by Fudan will efficiently promote quality education in middle and primary schools, as well as setting an example for other university on student enrollment reform.
Fudan University plans to enroll 300 students by interviewing this year, all of whom are from Shanghai, accounting for 10 percent of the freshmen it will enroll this year.
In 2005, more than 8 million Chinese students participated in the national college entrance exam.
Many other universities have showed great interests to the new form of enrolling students by interviewing instead of scores on paper-based tests. However, Zheng noted that in the future period, national entrance exam remains the main form for Chinese universities to select freshmen.
(Xinhua News Agency April 6, 2006)
