Why does the high school entrance examination make parents and schools "physically and mentally exhausted"?
2024-08-08
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There is a gap in the number of students admitted to popular middle schools, and the score lines of top schools have plummeted. This year, Nanjing’s middle school entrance examination season has seen frequent “surprises” in admissions——
Why do high school entrance exams make parents and schools "physically and mentally exhausted"?
On July 19, the third batch of admissions for Nanjing's high school entrance examination was completed, and the city's high school entrance examination work came to an end. Looking back on this year's high school entrance examination season, it can be said that there were many upsets - some popular high schools had a gap in enrollment, and the score lines of some top schools plummeted. There are many reasons for this, and one of the important reasons is that all kinds of enrollment information that is difficult to distinguish between true and false is like a torrent that engulfs candidates and parents, making them lose their direction. Trapped in it, candidates, parents, and school staff are all exhausted physically and mentally.
Some lectures focused on "keeping the score" and neglected rights and interests: candidates ranked around 3,900 were in danger of "slipping"
"Thinking about it now, it was really thrilling!" Nanjing citizen Sun Yiwei couldn't help but sigh. His child scored 633 points in this year's high school entrance examination, ranking around 3,900 in the city. According to the "2024 Nanjing High School Entrance Examination Guide", there are about 66,000 junior high school graduates in Nanjing this year, and the city's junior high school graduate enrollment rate is expected to reach more than 99%. 633 points is a good result, but before Sun Yiwei and his child had time to be happy, they almost encountered the "slip" of the first batch of volunteer applications.
After the scores came out, Sun Yiwei took his child to attend the recruitment briefing of his favorite school. The school's admissions teacher said that with this score, the child could go to either of the two campuses of the school and could enter "a certain 985 class." Nanjing's first batch of high school entrance exams set three parallel choices. The teacher encouraged Sun Yiwei's child to fill in the first two parallel choices for the two campuses of the school, "more stable." Sun Yiwei and his child filled in the choices as suggested, but were dumbfounded when the admission score came out - the score line of the two campuses was not reached, and the child could only go to the school filled in as the third choice.
Sun Yiwei is still terrified: "My child's near failure to be accepted was somewhat related to the school's recruitment propaganda. The 'confident statement of the school' made us blindly confident. Looking back, the one who was most affected was actually the child himself. He will always have regrets in his heart."
During the interview, many parents the reporter met were able to skillfully relay the school's usual rhetoric: "Based on the latest application data, your score is fine for our school, please feel free to apply", "You can come to the school to sign a contract, and we promise to put you in the best class", "The score line of a certain middle school will increase this year, don't take risks, apply to our school, and we guarantee that you can get into the best class"...
The reporter visited and investigated and found that there are three types of problems in filling out the application form that give parents a headache:
First, the number of "experimental classes" is dazzling. Many schools have "base classes" and "intensive classes", and some schools even promise certain students that as long as they apply to the school, they can enter a certain class. "Schools set up so many classes with different names, most of them are just to "store water" for enrollment," said a school admissions officer.
The second is "joint application for new and old campuses". Some popular schools have both old and new campuses, and they have introduced "mutual guarantee for enrollment between different campuses", promising that if some candidates "jointly apply", they can return to the main campus to study even if their scores are not high enough for the main campus. This is very attractive to parents, but different campuses have different enrollment codes, and joint application means that the two campuses of a school will squeeze out two places for parallel volunteers. If you fail, the only remaining volunteer will "take all the places".
Third, the privacy of candidates has been leaked on a large scale. In the name of seeking cooperation, the reporter found the educational institution "365 College Entrance Examination Network" that broadcast live on the social platform. The other party said that it had previously contracted the school enrollment promotion business and had mastered the information of almost all the parents of students in Nanjing schools, with an accuracy rate of up to 60%. In addition to calling parents directly, the institution will also sell the parents' information to schools in need. This is why many parents receive a large number of enrollment sales calls.
The school's initiative stems from "passivity": "competing" for students, otherwise it will "fall behind"
Parents are helpless, and schools are not relaxed either. The popular school Nanjing No. 13 Middle School Taicheng Campus "unexpectedly" had no students; Nanjing No. 29 Middle School had an admission ranking of 2,782 last year, but this year it dropped to 16,058, and there was a "gap" in the number of students... On July 8, the admission scores of various schools in Nanjing Education Admissions Examination Institute were released, which sparked heated discussions on various social platforms.
Last year, the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Opinions on Implementing the Action Plan to Expand and Improve the Quality of Basic Education in the New Era", which is committed to deepening the supply-side reform of basic education and further expanding the "cake" of high-quality education resources. It also proposed promoting the diversified development of general high schools and supporting a number of regions and schools with better foundations to take the lead in carrying out pilot projects of characteristic school-running.
"The country emphasizes the construction of distinctive high schools, encourages a hundred flowers to bloom, meets social needs and increases the attractiveness of schools. But returning to reality, for schools, the core competitiveness of enrollment still lies in the source of students and the destinations of graduates' further studies." In an interview, a person in charge of a school's admissions office said, "In the final analysis, it is still necessary to use the advantages of teachers and the destinations of graduates' further studies to 'impress' the parents of high school entrance examination candidates, so as to recruit more high-scoring candidates and form a 'virtuous circle'." He believes that what parents are most concerned about is still how many points their children can get in the college entrance examination after three years of study. "Parents' anxiety and the atmosphere of society have driven schools to follow the 'papers' and compete with the 'papers' in the high school entrance examination enrollment. In the end, whoever does not build their own 'moat' for enrollment is likely to 'fall behind' and affect the development of the school."
Parents' ideas and social atmosphere are the soil, and this year's "famous schools" enrollment expansion plan has objectively become a "catalyst" for the competition for students. The reporter compared this year's and last year's Nanjing City High School Entrance Examination Guidelines and found that this year's general high school enrollment plan increased from 40,327 last year to 42,807, a net increase of 2,480 people. Many popular high schools have expanded enrollment: Nanjing Normal University Affiliated High School expanded enrollment by 80 people, Jinling Middle School's two campuses expanded enrollment by 90 people, Nanjing No. 1 Middle School's two campuses expanded enrollment by 100 people, and Zhonghua Middle School's two campuses expanded enrollment by 100 people... School enrollment expansion will undoubtedly allow more students to enjoy quality education, but the number of "high-scoring" students is always limited, which has also intensified competition among schools. The school's score line is closely related to the volunteer application situation. The annual change in admission ranking is not uncommon in enrollment, but the "gap" reflects the "uncertainty" of the enrollment environment to a certain extent.
Self-media seeks personal gain in order to gain traffic: false information is rampant and anxiety about applying for the exam spreads
Before filling in the application form, parents and candidates will measure the correspondence between the school's strength and characteristics and their own scores and interests, and recruitment publicity is the main source of information for candidates and parents. During the interview, the reporter found that self-media that adheres to the principle of "traffic is king" has become the "main force" of recruitment publicity on social platforms. The various specious so-called heavy information it releases is a "mixed bag", making the recruitment environment more complicated.
"Nanjing High School 2024 'Battle Report' Quick Look!" The reporter recently discovered on a video platform that an account released the admission information of various high schools in the name of "High School Entrance Examination Consulting Expert" during the high school entrance examination. "985 admission rate 46.8%" "211 admission rate 72.4%"... On June 24, the Jiangsu college entrance examination results were announced, and the high-scoring students of various high schools immediately became the focus of self-media reports. Two or three days before the college entrance examination results were released, some self-media released the "online version" of the high-scoring statistics of each school's college entrance examination, and ranked the number of high-scoring students in more than ten well-known high schools in Nanjing. Jiangsu has clearly stipulated in 2022 that under the background of "double reduction", it is necessary to resolutely overcome the tendency of one-sided pursuit of enrollment rate, and it is not allowed to use enrollment indicators to assess lower-level governments, schools, and teachers. It is strictly forbidden to publish, publicize, and hype the "top scorers" of the college entrance examination, high-scoring candidates and enrollment rates; the education department also keeps the candidates' score information confidential. The reporter asked where the data came from, and the other party said that it was compiled by the parent committee of some schools.
In addition to publishing so-called high-score information, the proliferation of false information is also one of the manifestations of self-media disrupting the order of the entrance examination. The reporter noticed that in the "Nanjing High School Ranking List" released by some self-media, the "first-class rate" data of the same high school in the same year vary greatly. For example, in the Nanjing high school rankings published by "Nanjing Career Planning Teacher Xiao", the "first-class rate" of a certain school is 76%, while in the "Nanjing Four-Star High School First-class Rate" published by "Xiaojing Consulting", the "first-class rate" of this school is as high as 96%.
A middle school principal told reporters that they were also deeply harmed by self-media. "Many self-media use fake mock exam and college entrance examination data to make analysis videos and create an image of education experts. However, the data in these videos are false and inflated, and the analysis is not objective. They often praise one and criticize another, causing panic and anxiety among candidates and parents, and also misleading them and affecting their judgment of facts. In the face of this information, candidates and parents are likely to be misled by self-media, which will affect their application, and this will force schools to spend more energy on enrollment promotion." The principal said that schools currently feel powerless because they are being coerced by self-media.
In the "melee" of the high school entrance examination, schools and parents were "caught up" in it. Self-media, with strong commercial "ambitions", took the opportunity to "increase pressure" on anxiety and promote vicious competition. Reporters found that some self-media, under the banner of "exam experts", "carried out private goods" in live broadcasts to "hype about" the partner schools, while charging parents high admissions application consultation fees, which can be said to be "making money on both ends".
All parties strive to make the high school entrance examination return to rationality: control the ineffective commitment and standardize the enrollment order
The various problems that have arisen in this year's high school entrance examination are both "chronic problems" that have continued for many years and new problems that have emerged under the current situation. In the interview, experts generally believe that the change of some social concepts is a gradual process, but the rights and interests of candidates should be protected and the enrollment process should return to rationality.
Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, reminded that during the high school entrance examination application period, the pre-admission commitments made by the school have no legal effect. The education authorities should strengthen the control of enrollment methods such as signing agreements to guarantee admission, impose appropriate penalties on violators, and standardize the enrollment order. "Candidates and parents should be aware that during the school enrollment promotion stage, they can only give an estimated score line with reference value, not an accurate score line, and the school will not be responsible for the candidates' application errors." Xiong Bingqi believes that limited parallel applications will lead to certain risks, and there is room for further reform of the application method.
In fact, other provinces and cities in China have already introduced new measures for the reform of the secondary school entrance examination, which may serve as a "stone from another mountain". This year, Zhuhai City will include all public secondary vocational schools in the city in the same batch of regular high schools for parallel enrollment, to enhance the development potential of secondary vocational education; it will also set all public and private high schools in the same batch for enrollment, so that the number of volunteers in the first batch will increase from 10 to 14.
In response to the problem of "setting the tone" by self-media, some provinces and cities have launched special rectification actions. For example, the Chengdu Municipal Education Bureau and the Chengdu Municipal Party Committee's Cyberspace Administration jointly launched a four-month special rectification action on the 2024 enrollment network environment this year, accepting reports of illegal publicity of school rankings, grade rankings and admission rates, illegal offline transactions, and hyping education hot spots to attract traffic, and other behaviors, and exposing and handling them.
"Good students equal good college entrance examination scores. This utilitarian view of educational performance is still deeply rooted." Industry insiders believe that the government, schools and society should work together to create a healthy atmosphere for talent cultivation, and with greater determination, guide schools to focus on improving the quality of education and developing their own characteristics, rather than scrambling to "grab students" like "grabbing business." "Otherwise, competition between schools will ultimately sacrifice students' right to education."
Xinhua Daily·Jiaohuidian reporters Cheng Xiaolin, Li Ruizhe, Yang Pinping and Zhang Lin
