Excessive worries
Xiong noted that when education is exam-oriented, it is inevitable for students and parents to pay attention to scores and ranks.
A netizen on zhihu.com said that due to China's large population base and comparatively inadequate resources, people have no other way but to participate in the gaokao, which is fairer than other methods.
But Chu said that scores are not a comprehensive evaluation of their performance at school. "Under such an educational system, parents and students worry too much about grades and ranks rather than learning," he said.
Although the government, in the 1990s, proposed the idea of developing "education for all-around development," both Xiong and Chu felt that this slogan is too abstract and has not been put into practice.
While educational authorities have demanded schools alleviate their students' burden, Chinese parents continue to send their children to extra-curricular and after-school classes in order to avoid "losing at the starting line."
China Newsweek analyzed Chinese parents' worry and students' heavy burden in a recent article. Different from Western parents, most Chinese parents treat their children as their lifeblood, hoping their kids can achieve the dreams they themselves were not able to complete and wishing all their dreams and glory could be realized by their children.
"Chinese parents also think their life experience could be fully transferred to their children, who should only take orders. That's where stress comes from," read the article.
It is notable that such a score-worshipping phenomenon is not unique to China. South Koreans also take college entrance exams seriously, where junior students usually wait outside exam rooms in the early morning hours knocking their heads on the ground to wish senior examinees good luck.
Gaokao reform
Chen said that releasing the burden of an exam-oriented educational system requires evaluation method reform and the establishment of a comprehensive quality evaluation system that does not rank students according to their scores.
China's current talent-selection system is using a so-called "3+X mode" test which requires students to take math, Chinese and English and other elective subjects either in science (physics, biology and chemistry) or humanities (geography, history and politics).
Some believe that this is the fairest way, because it provides a platform that equalizes opportunities for students of all social classes, including those with limited educational resources, to compete together.
But an online survey conducted by People's Daily in 2012 revealed that 53 percent of the respondents (5,882 netizens) believed gaokao is not fair any more, as it uses various test papers and sets different admission scores to students from different provinces.
Xiong said that gaokao reform is now locked into the inequality discussion being raised by media and the public. "Under the single assessment system, which only looks at scores, we cannot break the exam-oriented education. Schools should assess students based on a variety of standards, and students should have various choices," he said.
Both Chu and Xiong proposed an alternative to improve the current educational system by separating exam work and student recruiting. Rather than educational departments, universities should draw up exams by themselves and form their own student-recruiting team to select proper students, Chu proposed.
"At that time, students can find the schools they like. There is no need to rank scores from top to bottom to select talents. Hence, Chinese students can reduce their heavy burdens," Chu said.
As of the publishing date, the Global Times reporter has not found a detailed provision about the propaganda ban. An official surnamed Wang at Weihai educational department of Shandong Province told the Global Times that so far they have not received specific instructions on how the ban will be implemented
Xiong said that the ban should hold the top official of the local educational department accountable if their high school hypes zhuangyuan; if a high school hypes zhuangyuan, its recruiting scale next year should be limited.
