An Interview on Changes in Chinese Education After the “Gang of Four”

1977 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 815-824 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Pepper
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Middle School ◽  
Entrance Examination ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Chinese Education ◽  
College Entrance Examination ◽  
College Entrance ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject

The following is an abbreviated account of a three-hour interview with Chang Hsüeh-hsin of the Higher Education Bureau of the Education Ministry in Peking. The interview took place on 19 July 1977. My purpose in requesting it was to discover the policy changes that were being contemplated by the new Chinese administration in the controversial field of education. Few concrete details on the subject had appeared in the press up to that time, although renewed emphasis on science and technology, together with travellers' tales and other informal sources of information, all suggested that major changes were in the offing. Comrade Chang confirmed that such changes were underway, although not finally decided upon. The announcement by People's Daily on 22 October that the college entrance examination would be unified and that all candidates should be senior middle school graduates or the equivalent, indicates two decisions taken after the interview.

Suggestions on the Arithmetic Question

1925 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 333-340
Author(s):  
David Eugene Smith
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Entrance Examination ◽  
National Committee ◽  
College Entrance Examination ◽  
College Entrance ◽  
High School Curriculum ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right

The National Committe on Mathematical Requirements served, through its report, to stimulate inquiry on the part of those who know something about the problem of mathematics in the secondary school. The commission appointed by the College Entrance Examination Hoard, through its report, confirmed the important findings of the National Committee, and did much to eliminate the obsolete material in the high-school curriculum and to substitute therefor a more modern type of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. It will take some time for schools and teachers to adjust the courses in mathematics to meet the recommendations of these bodies, to eliminate the over-drill, to cast out the useless part of the work in the elementary operations, and to realize that trigonometry is a part of algebra and that it can be made much simpler and more interesting than much of the drudgery (as the subject was commonly taught) that it replaces, but the leaven is working and the outcome will be on the right side. It takes time to develop the idea that we should seek quality instead of mere quantity, but our younger generation of teachers is coming rapidly to realize the significance of this idea in a subject, for example, like algebra. The reform would proceed more rapidly if it were not that nearly all of our current tests include a considerable amount of material that has been recommended for elimination by all who have given the subject serious thought. As Professor Upton has recently remarked in the Mathematics Teacher, schools often feel compelled to teach subjects that are obsolete, and possibly even to recognize forms that are incorrect, because of the carelessness shown in preparing many of these tests.

Organizing the 'Meritocracy': A History of the College Entrance Examination Board

1972 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schudson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Entrance Examination ◽  
College Entrance Examination ◽  
College Entrance ◽  
Entrance Exams ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Examination Board

As higher education has opened to more and more students, the standardized tests of the College Entrance Examination Board, which regulate access to it,have attracted considerable attention. And for good reason: in the past two decades,job opportunities in the white collar and professional worlds have expanded much more rapidly than the number of blue collar positions.1 Because higher education is taken as prerequisite to the white collar and professional ranks, more young people have focused their ambitions on college entrance. College entrance exams arouse deeply felt anxieties, for it is important not only to go to college but to the "college of your choice." Higher education has differentiated as it has expanded, and colleges are distinguished from one another not only in curricular offerings but, perhaps more important, in status. Status is closely connected to how high a college's standards for admissions are, how"selective" a college is. The more selective private colleges, along with a few prestigious state universities, have the most active pipelines to graduate and professional schools, business, and government. For some students, a high score on the "College Boards" may open opportunities they had only dreamed of; for others,a low score may close doors they had counted on walking through.

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