Tsinghua professor quits to urge flexible recruitment
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-03-29 10:43

China's graduate school recruitment system should be more flexible, says an article in Beijing News. An excerpt follows:

Chen Danqing

Chen Danqing, a world-renowned painter and a professor at the Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University, has reportedly submitted his resignation to the university to show his disagreement with the current system for selecting students.

For four consecutive years, Chen has failed to recruit even a single graduate student.

Some, with excellent performance in their major, could not take up places because of their failure in an English language exam.

His resignation has sparked a nationwide debate about some of the long-established practices associated with graduate school recruitment.

Higher education student selection has been widely rebuked for its rigidity, which has barred many genuinely gifted students.

Graduate school and university recruitment are based on the same measuring mechanism - examination.

This simplistic and inflexible talent-choosing mechanism ignores important characteristics of students from different educational backgrounds.

Generally speaking, a student's talents and knowledge cannot be fully recognized through a mechanically-arranged examination.

Direct communication with their potential tutor would allow students to better demonstrate their abilities. Tutors should be given more say when choosing their students.

However, for the moment students' destinies are strictly determined by their grades.

The examination-dependent recruit-ment mechanism is unable to distinguish between the artistic flair and creativity of prospective art students.

Additionally, the system limits tutors' say in choosing their students.

The uncompromisingly strict requirement on second language ability has blocked many talented students from entering higher education institutions.

While those who studied English should be failed if their language skills are not good, the same requirement should not apply to candidates in other fields.

The student recruitment system should take both the tutor's opinion and student's talent into consideration.

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