Commentary

China Watch

Forum Digests

Columnists

Letters

Recruitment in spotlight

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-24 06:53

Latent rules severely impair social equality and hamper the healthy development of China's education system, says an article on the website of Xinhua News Agency. The following is an excerpt:

The mother of a girl student who failed a recent entrance examination for the Beijing Film Academy exposed an allegedly latent rule in the recruitment process - that candidates will not be admitted unless they spend 300,000 yuan on guanxi or connections. The girl herself insists that she was such a suitable candidate that there was no reason for her to fail the tests.

School authorities made a public reply, saying that a series of monitoring systems were in place during the tests to eradicate the possibility of any underhanded selections.

We don't know whether the charge against the institute is true, but we do know latent rules pervert other artistic tests in China.

Connections and money that lurk behind the tests, and sometimes carry more water than artistic talent. And worse still, latent rules also exist in other college entrance examinations.

The high incidence of latent rules derives from a dearth of educational resources and a lack of transparency during recruitment. Limited quotas become an excellent tool for some to make money and other gains.

(China Daily 02/24/2009 page8)