The idea behind high-score repetition is out of date

  According to media reports, the Chongqing Municipal Education Commission issued a notice stating that regular high schools are not allowed to hold repetition classes, cannot jointly hold repetition classes with social organizations, cannot hold repetition classes in the name of schools in training institutions, and cannot recruit repeat students.

  The prohibition of public high schools from enrolling repeat students is actually not a new rule. As early as 2002, the Ministry of Education explicitly required public high schools in various places not to use the school's normal educational resources to hold high school graduate repeat classes, and not to recruit high school graduates to re-enter classes.

After 2008, this regulation was further tightened, and all public high schools across the country were required to ban repeat classes and recruit senior third-year repeat students, otherwise it would be a violation of the regulations.

  Not only Chongqing, in the past two years, many places in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan have issued similar regulations.

This may indicate that the phenomenon of public high schools recruiting repeat students may be widespread or resurgence. Of course, it may also be organized by public high schools or recruit repeat students in the name of private high schools, but use public resources to organize teaching.

  In social discussions, some students and their parents interpreted the prohibition of public high schools from enrolling repeat students as a misunderstanding, which is actually two different things.

China's college entrance examination system allows social candidates to register, and of course, it also allows students who have unsatisfactory college entrance examination scores and reported voluntary errors to choose to repeat. This policy has not changed.

The highest number of repeaters of the college entrance examination in China reached nearly 20% of the number of college entrance examination applicants. In recent years, with the increase in the admission rate of the college entrance examination and the advancement of parallel voluntary filing and admission reforms, the number of repeaters has declined.

  The main reason why the education authority prohibits public high schools from enrolling repeat students is mainly because of the use of national resources to charge repeat students, which violates educational fairness.

High school graduates who choose to repeat their studies can go to private schools, off-campus training institutions or self-study.

However, some public high schools recruit repeat students regardless of the prohibition in order to increase the income of repeat classes to make up for the lack of public funds per student and to improve the treatment of teachers.

In addition, some public high schools try to increase the admission rate of their college entrance examination by recruiting high-scoring repeat students, especially the rate of prestigious schools.

Some local education departments also turned a blind eye to this.

However, this does not conceal two basic issues: one is that local governments should guarantee school investment and administer education in accordance with the law; the other is to adhere to the scientific education development concept and not one-sidedly pursue the entrance rate of college entrance examination.

  In the question of repetition, high score repetition is particularly concerned.

Many schools mobilize high-scoring students to repeat their studies, and even set up high-amount scholarships for this purpose. The purpose is no other, but for the achievement of higher education.

In some places, the "3+N" college entrance examination model is even popular. Three years of high school is the foundation, and then the "N" years are used for repetition to advance to a better university and avoid "first degree discrimination."

These practices will undoubtedly stimulate competition for the college entrance examination, and because of this, in recent years there have been voices calling for restrictions on the repetition of the college entrance examination or raising the admission standards for repeat students.

The phenomenon of repetition of high scores is hard to escape the out-of-date concepts such as "only scores" and "only advancement" theory.

To control this phenomenon, in addition to advancing the rule of law and regulating the operation of high schools, we must further promote the reform of education evaluation, and fundamentally guide students and parents to rationally understand the repetition and make proper decisions.

(Author: Xiong Bingqi, Dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute)