Massive expansion of university rolls causes problems for China

University entrance examinations have been a big national event in China ever since they were restored 30 years ago. This year is no different with a record ten million candidates sharpening their pencils in anticipation of the big event starting Thursday.

They will compete for 5.6 million college places.

Xin Huadong, a cadre in east China's Shandong provincial government, said being able to sit for the college entrance examination three decades ago changed his life and saved him from life as a 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.

Xin, one of the 220,000 lucky people, said he was an accountant in a production team in a small town in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, earning 10 points a day, which he converted into salary at the end of the month.

"If it hadn't been for the college entrance exam, I would have spent my whole life like that -- like so many of my peers," said Xin.

Nearly 60 million Chinese have taken the college entrance exam in the past three decades, and ten million have actually enrolled.

For people like Xin, university entrance exams are a way to change your destiny. "I think they are a pretty fair method for capable young people to prove themselves and get a new start in life," said Xin.

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 college entrance examinations have exacerbated the exam orientation which is a fundamental problem in China's education system, and which deprives students of their originality, making them learn things by rote.

Ensuring fair access to higher education and finding ways to emphasize originality and creative thinking among students are major dilemmas for education departments.

To give more people access to higher education, China started expanding university rolls.

"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," said Ren Lijian cynically.

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.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that 1.08 million students graduated from Chinese colleges in 1998, and 4.13 million in 2006. The number is expected to reach five million this year.

The huge number of graduates has created new employment pressures.

"The very day I entered university, I started worrying about a job. I'm not at all confident that I can find something suitable, there are just too many college students around," sighed Liu Qian, a sophomore from Beijing United University, majoring in English.

To cater for more students, many universities had to take out bank loans to expand their campuses or build new ones. There are more than 50 university towns under construction in China, most of which are functioning on bank loans.

Some experts worry that Chinese universities may face difficulties when the banks come calling around 2008. "Some universities may find themselves unable to repay their loans," said Ren.

"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 the college entrance exams remain an inescapable feature of the social and educational landscape.

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

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

Source: Xinhua