Reform can bring

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the resumption of the national college entrance examinations, or gaokao. Reintroduced in 1977 after the “cultural revolution” (1966-76), the exams have changed many people’s lives. Four decades ago, only 4 percent of the students taking gaokao got admission to colleges. Today, the percentage is about 80 percent in some areas, with the gross enrollment rate nationwide being more than 40 percent.

But with the passage of time, it seems gaokao’s power of giving people a better future is weakening.

International experiences show that higher education can drastically change people’s lives in developing regions and less-developed regions, while attending college is not the only choice of people in advanced societies. The declining attraction of gaokao is the inevitable result of China’s rapid social and economic development. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect a majority of the college students to get the same opportunities and benefits that the successful 4 percent students got four decades ago.

People should realize that the standard of gaokao and the college admission procedure have not changed much in the past four decades, even though the number of examinees has increased from hundreds of thousands to about 10 million, which could hinder China’s education reform as well as the students’ overall development.

Most of the gaokao examinees labor with single-minded focus to get high scores. But high scores can only get them admission to a college, without necessarily helping them get good jobs or build brighter careers. As the examinees increase in numbers and become more diversified, the contradiction between the requirements of and the path to people’s healthy