Status of English

To clear the misconception over his remarks on the reforms in the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, Gu Mingyuan, a professor at Beijing Normal University, has said the fact that social agencies will assess the English language prowess of students is not the same as removal of English from gaokao. Accordingly, more detailed rules will be applied to ensure the reform proceeds well, says an article in Huaxi Metropolis Daily. Excerpts:

Students can take the English assessment tests held by social agencies several times a year and choose their highest score to be included in their gaokao results. In addition, a new grading system will be used for English; for instance, 90 and 91 will be part of the same grade in the final assessment. More importantly, different colleges will require different grades and thus offer various options to students for admission.

But to ensure that the reform does help lift the pressure of studies from students, the Ministry of Education should take measures to ensure that some schools don't ignore the teaching of English just because it is no longer a mandatory subject in gaokao or students are not forced to attend more after-school classes to get better scores. If this happens students will be under greater pressure to excel in English.

The ministry also has to guarantee that the English grades students need to enroll in universities are not hard to define, and Peking, Tsinghua and other top universities don't continue to demand high English grades for admission. It will be a great loss for such universities if otherwise brilliant students cannot get admitted just because they are weak in English. On the other hand, it will be unfair for such students not to get admission to top universities.

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(China Daily 05/21/2014 page9)