Trimmed back

chemistry and biology, has also been amended.

Apart from students who are selected by the national Olympiad training team who will represent China in the international Olympiad, other winners at the national or regional level can no longer gain admission to college without taking the gaokao.

All provinces and regions across China also canceled extra points for regional winners. Seven provinces canceled extra points for national winners and 17 provinces reduced the extra points for national winners from 20 points to 10 or below.

The preferential policy was launched in 2000 to encourage students to develop their talents in both mind and body.

In 2010, the Ministry of Education also released a notice with several other ministries, requiring all provinces and regions to review and reduce the events that offer extra points to students with science or sports talent.

After the new policy took effect this year, the number of students taking advantage of extra points dropped from 50,000 to 30,000.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said the policy is a positive move. But he expressed some concerns.

“It can reduce corruption related to the preferential policy and reverse the trend of more and more Chinese students studying to get the extra points. But what if students give up developing their talent after they realize that these skills can no longer bring them extra points and put them in a better place in the gaokao?

“Under such circumstances, a better solution is to set up a multi-evaluation system that enables colleges to enroll students not just on the basis of their performance in tests,” he said. Contact the writers at zhaoxinying@chinadaily.com. cn and sunxiaochen@chinadaily. com.cn