China busts illegal entrance exam as part of ongoing national education crackdown
- Education authorities have urged parents to adopt ‘zero tolerance’ for illegal enrolment
- Chinese authorities continue to rein in the excessive academic burden placed on students by the country’s highly competitive education system
A total of 45 students from across Sichuan province, southwest China, sat the test on Saturday to compete for a spot at a top school in the provincial capital Chengdu, but were sent home mid-exam after police raided the hotel where the exam was being held following a tip-off, the West China City Daily reported on Monday.
Since last year, local governments have released policies to replace entrance exams with lotteries for admission at schools covering grades 1 to 9, the 9-year compulsory education period, in an attempt to cool down heated competition for China’s top schools.
Each student in the Chengdu hotel was charged 400 yuan (US$62) to sit the exam and would have paid an extra 9,000 yuan (US$1,412) if successfully admitted to the school, the report said, quoting the Chengdu municipal education bureau.
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The bureau said the police are still investigating who the organisers were, but the raid followed a tip-off from a member of the public that “a tutoring organisation” was organising the test.
One woman who was present to oversee the exam participants claimed she didn’t know who the employer was and was only doing it as a side gig.
The bureau urged parents to adopt a “zero tolerance” attitude to illegal enrolment as Chinese authorities crack down on the excessive academic burden placed on students in the country’s competitive system and to equalise educational resources.
As ordered by the Ministry of Education, from last year, both public and private schools in the compulsory education period across China would start their enrolment processes at the same time, and private schools would pick students via a random computerised system when they receive more applications than planned.
“This means that any school, private or public, can not organise any type of activity for student selection. So any interview or written test would be illegal,” said Xiong Bingqi, vice-president of 21st Century Education Research Centre.
This rule was followed by tougher measures in August when the central government banned all for-profit tutoring for young children and started strictly monitoring the amount of homework given to students.
Believing that the whistle-blower is a student’s parent, Xiong said the Chengdu case exemplified a new clash that’s evolving between parents who support the reform and those who don’t.
“Under a student assessment system based solely on grades, few parents would have the courage to actually reduce their children’s school workload. They would show support when their kids’ interest is not affected, but when it is, they would certainly say no,” he said.
