Girl, 14, on fast track to Peking University

BLR · Nov 27, 2009

Girl, 14, on fast track to Peking University

www.chinaview.cn 2009-11-26 08:01:59

Fourteen-year-old Hong Xinge is besieged by reporters in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, on Tuesday after becoming one of the first students in China to be offered a new way into the prestigious Peking University. Hong earned a recommendation from the headmaster at Tianyi High School for an interview at the institution. She was the youngest of the 90 students who received such nominations nationwide. (Photo: China Daily/Chen Liang)

by Cao Li

BEIJING, Nov. 26 -- A 14-year-old female student from Jiangsu province is poised to step from the textbooks into the history books after she was tipped to enroll at one of China's top universities, thanks to a pilot program aimed at improving the country's university entrance system.

Hong Xinge, from Tianyi High School in Wuxi, is believed to be the youngest of 90 students nationwide to receive nominations from their headmasters to attend Peking University.

She submitted her application on Wednesday.

The next step for the prodigy will be an interview at the world-renowned institution.

The 90 students selected to take part in the pilot program come from 10 provinces around China, as well as the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing.

Students who do well in the interview will stand a much better chance of getting into the university because they will not need to score as high as others in the university entrance exam.

The reform of the university entrance process being piloted by Peking University offers a backdoor into the university for exceptional students who might not necessarily do well in the entrance exam. The reform is aimed at ensuring quality students are not overlooked simply because of their performance in the national university entrance exam.

A teacher surnamed Zhou, who helped Hong with her application, said: "Hong Xinge has not only high grades, but also a good personality."

She is extremely good at teaching herself, Zhou added.

Schoolmaster Shen Maode told Yangtze Evening News on Tuesday that Hong scored well in international proficiency tests. She earned a 7.5 in the IELTS test, a 106 on the TOEFL test and got a maximum score in her United States SATs.

Hong excels at Chinese and English and, at her tender age, is already working on her first novel. Classmates pointed out that she is an all-rounder, having won awards for long-distance running and Latin dancing, the paper said.

Hong told the paper she hopes to study finance at Peking University and eventually start her own business.

Zhou said: "She is an excellent student and may not have a problem entering Peking University even without this recommendation."

The experiment at Peking University gives qualified high school headmasters the chance to recommend exceptional students. On Nov 16, the university released a list of 39 high school headmasters nationwide authorized to take part.

While some education analysts hailed the pilot project as reform that might greatly improve the university entrance system, some have said it might lead to fewer opportunities for students from less respected high schools that have not been invited to take part.

A survey conducted by leading Chinese web portal sina.com showed 10,046 out of 14,227 people surveyed were against the new idea. Most said the recommendations were unfair on other students.

Xue Yong, a Peking University alumni who is now an assistant professor at Suffolk University, told Qianjiang Evening News the experiment could be dangerous if it is abused.

But Qu Jun, former deputy director of Shanghai municipal education commission and now a legislator, said the experiment represents much needed change to the existing university entrance system, which has been criticized for years.

"We have been talking about reform for years," he said. "We won't know if it works or not if we never start."

Tang Shengchang, headmaster of Shanghai High School, said the pilot program may lead to additional reforms.

He urged the public to be patient and wait to see whether the idea works.

"It will take time for us to recognize students who are creative and talented in certain subjects but who may not be able to enter top schools because of the harsh entrance examination," Tang said.

(Source: China Daily)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/26/content_12540279.htm

ralphrepo · Nov 27, 2009

LOL, Chinese affirmative action... IN CHINA... I guess this is one way for the PRC government to give people the perception of equality.

DragonBuster · Nov 27, 2009

wow, i just realize i suck after reading this,

Tony · Nov 28, 2009

Isn't Peking University like the only prestigious university there?

BLR · Nov 28, 2009

hkm91450 said: ↑

Is Peking University really that prestigious? More prestigious than American Ivy League schools? With those stats, she should just apply to an American Ivy League school, imho. PERFECT SAT @@
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Even a number of Hong Kong's Universities out rank Peking University. If not go to an American university even studying in one of Hong Kong's univerity is great, can take full advantage of better resources offered by the university.

ralphrepo · Nov 28, 2009

BLR said: ↑

Even a number of Hong Kong's Universities out rank Peking University. If not go to an American university even studying in one of Hong Kong's univerity is great, can take full advantage of better resources offered by the university.
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The way I understand the chronic problem with China is the number of "good" schools that are available per student. That is, by proportion, there are a lot less seats available in China per student when compared to the US. Such that in China, a "perfect" student like the OP subject, with "perfect" scores, will still have a tremendously hard time getting into a PRC "name" school. While in the US, she (or such a capable student like her) would have easily been accepted to Yale, Harvard, or MIT.

Something is wrong with an educational system that routinely bypasses such stellar intellectual potential. When "top" students like her, need "affirmative action" or some back door way to gain entry into a good school, that tells me that China is probably wasting a lot of its potential talent in the process.

Dragonslayer · Nov 28, 2009

She certainly earned it and deserved to be there. With her intellectual ability the future China will benefit heaps. These people will help drive their country to prosperity one day.

Despite China's universities are behind the west, but generally the quality of their students are higher due to a larger pool population to select from. Would be nice to have both quality students and quality universities. A few of their universities are pretty good, just not enough of them.

ralphrepo · Nov 29, 2009

I personally find that for this situation to occur in China, it is especially ironic. China as a civilization is often said to owe its longevity (cohesiveness as a culture despite repeated political dissolution), partly because of its historic focus on education. It is generally accepted that because of the 1300 year old imperial exam system (across multiple dynasties), that a broad range of civilization was co-opted into participation of Chinese society and government. People everywhere within the kingdom sought inclusion by striving to sit for the rigorous exams. Thus education was considered to be the only real, legitimate and honest way to get ahead. This cultural imperative persists in just about all Chinese to this day. The Imperial exams were not only tough in the academic sense, but too, in the physical, taking place over several days, where thousands of applicants would test, eat, and sleep, each in a tiny brick cubicle for the entire duration. Cheaters were subject to execution.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Imperial Examination System and Its Vagaries[/FONT]
By staff reporter HUO JIANYING
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]THE celebrity that Jiang Ziya achieved 3,000 years ago lives on, simply in his being regarded as the patron saint of human resources. During his lifetime Jiang worked as butcher, innkeeper, vendor, and fisherman. It was his meeting, at the age of 70, with King Wen of the Kingdom of Zhou that changed both his fate and that of the erstwhile vassal state. Jiang exemplifies the crucial nature of discerning qualities in a person that make them fit for a leadership role.

Early Methods of Official Selection

None of King Wen’s many civilian or military officials struck him as suitable for the task of training troops and devising military strategies. He consequently toured the kingdom in search of a suitable candidate. During his travels he heard of an eccentric fisherman who angled with a straightened rather than a curved hook. Unsurprisingly, he had caught nothing for three years. The reason he gave for this self-defeating approach to making a living was: “I prefer to subsist by straight, than gain by crooked means; I set my fishing pole to catch kings and dukes rather than carp.” King Wen, understanding Jiang’s implicit meaning, immediately set out to find him. In the ensuing talks between monarch and fisherman, the former was greatly impressed with Jiang’s broad knowledge, insight and shrewd analysis of the current political and military situation. Ostensibly a fisherman, Jiang Ziya had obvious political ambitions. He sought to topple the corrupt Shang Dynasty and establish the Zhou Dynasty in its place. King Wen first appointed Jiang Ziya state tutor and later prime minister in charge of both civilian and military affairs. Jiang assisted King Wen, and later his son King Wu, in their establishment of the Zhou Dynasty (11th century -256 BC), which ruled for 800 years.

China was a slave society during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Officials, in common with emperors, inherited their exalted positions rather than being appointed on merit. Jiang Ziya, as a talented commoner that rose to prominence within the nation’s ruling organ, was the first exception to this convention. Had it not been for the wise leadership of King Wen, he would otherwise have remained a social nonentity. Jiang’s appointment signaled a positive change in approach to the selection of court officials. Enfeoffed princes and royal relatives whose power had grown by the late Zhou Dynasty were keen to consolidate their local governance. Doubtlessly inspired by King Wen’s example, there were cases of single aristocrats appointing thousands of scholars solely on the basis of talent and expertise, rather than social status or family background. Known in Chinese as menke (mentors and advisors) or shike (hangers-on), these scholars acted as private advisors and aides to their masters. Although not placed on the official payroll or given official titles, there were some that nevertheless achieved prominence. One example is Fan Sui, who eventually held the office of prime minister of the State of Qin. It was not until the late third century BC of the Han Dynasty that specific rules for the selection of officials were institutionalized.

The Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) had two main methods of selecting its officials. One was through recommendations by local officials; the second was after a direct audience with either the emperor or a high-ranking official. In the former case, local officials, according to the requirements of the central government, proposed candidates that were well read paragons of filial piety, bold enough to offer frank advice and suggestions. The central government made selections after candidates had undergone the relevant examination process. In the second instance, either the emperor or his high-ranking officials personally interviewed more illustrious candidates and appointed them to posts commensurate with their particular skills and talents. These conventions became streamlined in the centuries after the Han Dynasty. Recommended candidates were eventually classified under nine levels corresponding to official ranks. Official posts for the express purpose of selecting and appointing officials also became institutionalized. The latter innovation, however, gave rise to selections that were made on a purely subjective basis. Nepotism and bribery were consequently rife, and only candidates from privileged family backgrounds were appointed to high-ranking posts. This situation changed for the better in the Sui Dynasty (581-618). It was then that the imperial examination system came into force.

Fair Play in a Man’s World

The imperial examination system, or keju/kekao, comprised a pyramid structure of official selection. It incorporated in its early days the local (prefecture- or county-level), provincial and national exams. An in-palace exam, or dianshi, personally presided over by the emperor, was incorporated into the system during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It was the finishing touch to the four-level imperial examination structure that continued until 1905, when the Qing Government abolished the entire system.

Local examinations, known as tongshi or beginners’ exams, were the bottom rung of the examination ladder to officialdom. The so-called xiucai who had passed the tongshi could enter the provincial examinations. The xiucai title was also a certificate of merit entitling the holder to a subsidy or living allowance, reduced taxes, and exemption from corvee labor as well as the convention of kneeling before officials. Seekers of official posts needed to pass the provincial exam before being awarded the official title of juren, but it by no means guaranteed an official post. The more fortunate juren found positions as prefectural or county magistrates. The Board of Rites usually conducted the national exam, or huishi, meaning assembly exam, for which only juren were eligible. Those that passed earned the title of gongshi. It was this select number that qualified to enter the final exam within the imperial palace. The in-palace test was more of a placement contest than an advancement exam. Those that passed were more often than not conferred the title of jinshi and offered official posts. But only the top three – in descending order the zhuangyuan, bangyan and tanhua – were personally appointed by the emperor to high-ranking positions.

The imperial exam system may be defined as fair play in a man’s world. It was open to all men of letters – in the gender sense – and carried no restrictions as regards age or family background. Scores were the sole criterion on which contestants were judged. There was also no limit on the number of attempts at each level of the exam. During the 1,300 years the system was in force it was not uncommon to see the names of young adults, octogenarians and even nonagenarians on lists of juren. In 1775, the 40th year of the Qianlong reign, for example, the names of one nonagenarian, 20 octogenarians and five septuagenarians appeared on the lists of juren from around the country. The imperial examinations, therefore, offered an impartial route to social mobility for everyday citizens.

Historic Role

Only a minority of participants in imperial examinations eventually entered officialdom. But the system fostered an intellectual element within the populace that in turn propelled cultural and social progress in ancient China. During the 1,300 years the imperial examination system was in force it nurtured a zeal for learning that boosted development of government-run and private schools around the country. The keju produced more than 100,000 jinshi and millions of juren. Most of the famous administrators, politicians, thinkers and military strategists in Chinese history originated in the keju ranks. The exam’s emphasis was on liberal arts. In the Tang Dynasty, for example, examinees were well advised to produce examples of their poetry prior to taking the exam. This enabled an assessment not only of their literary grace, but also of their calligraphy. In the practice known as scrolling, examinees would copy their literary works on to scrolls and present them to political, cultural and social personages, in hopes of recommendations to the Board of Rites. Such was the case of the great Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi.

Bai understood the meter of ancient poems at age five. By the time he had reached his teens he was writing exquisite poetry. Before taking the national exam, he took a scroll of his poems to the capital city of Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) to present to Gu Kuang, a renowned poet of the time. Influenced by his visitor’s young age, Gu, made a pun on the name Juyi, which in Chinese means to settle down and make an easy living, when he remarked, “It’s probably not easy to settle in Chang’an, as the price of rice here is high.” But after unrolling the scroll and glancing at the first poem he soon changed his tune. It was Grass on the Ancient Plain – Farewell to a Friend, one of Bai’s masterpieces that is still widely read and appreciated. Gu’s next remark was, “Such a talent for poetry will certainly make it easy to settle in Chang’an.” Gu subsequently hosted a banquet in honor of Bai Juyi, and invited the capital’s literati. It made Bai an overnight literary celebrity. Imperial examinees that had passed the in-palace exam and become jinshi were thin on the ground during the Tang Dynasty. A well-known maxim of the time states that in the normal course of a man’s life he, “...becomes a jinshi at age 50.” Bai Juyi, at age 29, was the youngest of the 17 jinshi that had sat and passed that year’s huishi. Bai sustained his reputation as an upright, incorruptible and accomplished administrator throughout his official career.

The Tang Dynasty is regarded as the golden age of Chinese poetry. More than 49,000 poems by 2,300 Tang poets are still widely recited today. In addition to enabling a large number of competent officials to enter the foreground of the contemporary political stage, therefore, the Tang Dynasty imperial exams also engendered generations of gifted poets and men of letters that took Chinese poetry to its zenith. As the imperial exams focused almost exclusively on Confucian classics, they helped popularize Confucian education and establish Confucianism as one of China’s three pillars of wisdom.

Decline

It was in the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), that the imperial exams changed format and adopted the rigid, eight-legged style of essay writing. Examinees were expected to adhere closely to this format while, “assuming the tone of their ancient predecessors.” A strict number of characters was also allotted to each of the eight “legs.” This inflexible approach continued throughout the succeeding Qing Dynasty, to the detriment of its cultural, social and educational development. Malpractice in imperial exams, such as bribery, also became rampant. Gu Yanwu, a celebrated Qing Dynasty scholar, declared the eight-legged practice as “more disastrous than ‘book burning’” (the purge of Confucianism ordered by Qin Shihuang, first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, when Confucian books were burnt and Confucian scholars buried alive). The Qing Dynasty’s decline matched the deterioration of the imperial exam system. By the late 19th century, the system’s failure to produce competent officials was being cited as the cause of successive domestic and diplomatic crises. Officials began sending imperial memorials to the throne, imploring it to “abandon the imperial exam system and operate modern schools instead.” The Qing Government issued a decree in 1905 announcing the suspension of imperial exams. This marked the end of the 1,300-year-old system. The 1911 Revolution ended the Qing Dynasty six years later. The merits and demerits of the keju system, however, remained an historical topic. Sun Yat-sen, father of China’s democratic revolution, spoke of the keju (in his Five-Power Constitution) as “the best ancient system for the selection of talented people in the world.” Western scholars commend the keju system as the “fifth invention of ancient China,” in addition to the compass, gunpowder, papermaking and printing. The positive role that the keju system played in China’s history is clearly evident in its literary treasures, as well as in the legacies of its masters of statecraft and military strategy.

Source: http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2008/e200802/p54.htm
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Entitled: Examination hall with 7500 cells, Guangdong [1873] Attribution Unk [RESTORED] (Original is from Wiki's page on Imperial Exams)

The comment made in the OP about the potential for abuse is worrisome. Given the penchant for corruption in China; in a few years from now, if this program is then filled with students whose parents are politically connected, then we know what had happened. That is, instead of this being a helpful plan to allow honest and deserving Chinese get ahead, it would have been stolen by corrupt officials to only help themselves or their families. Thus, based on the track record of the PRC government, my bets will be on the latter, that is, people will eventually be found abusing the system. Maybe we need to bring back the old imperial punishments for cheaters, ie. execution.

Girl, 14, on fast track to Peking University

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