Since the first round of the new college entrance examination reform was launched in Zhejiang and Shanghai in 2014, the country has been steadily advancing in stages and regions.
In 2017, as the second batch of pilot provinces and cities, Beijing, Tianjin and Luqiong began comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination and welcomed the first batch of "3+3" new college entrance examination candidates in 2020.
In 2019, the eight provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Hebei, Chongqing, Liaoning, Fujian, Hunan, and Hubei, as the third batch of new college entrance examination reform pilot provinces and cities, adopted the "3+1+2" plan, and will also usher in new ones in 2021. The "first show" of the college entrance examination.
This round of college entrance examination reform is student-oriented, from the perspective of respecting students' interest and expertise, giving students more choices.
However, in the college entrance examination in the second batch of pilot provinces and cities this year, the grading subject caused some controversy and confusion.
The addition of "1" (physics or history as a required subject) in the third batch of the 8 provinces college entrance examination program has again raised questions about returning to the old path of arts and sciences and restricting candidates' right to choose.
The new round of college entrance examination reform continues to advance with controversy. How should we stick to the original intention of the reform and ensure fairness and science?
1 Pilot projects in different provinces and stages to give students more choices
In this round of college entrance examination reform plans, the reform of examination subjects and content is one of the important contents.
The 3 subjects other than mathematics are compulsory subjects, while the other 3 elective subjects are chosen by students.
In the first batch of reform pilot areas, Shanghai chooses 3 subjects out of 6 subjects, while Zhejiang chooses 3 subjects from 7 subjects. This gives students 20 and 35 choice combinations, which reflects respect for students’ choice, respect for their interests, The reform orientation of specialty development.
The second batch of reform pilot provinces and cities followed Shanghai’s 6-select 3 subject selection plan, namely the "3+3" model. The first "3" is for 3 subjects other than Mathematics as the subjects of the college entrance examination, and the second "3" is Choose 3 subjects from the 6 subjects of material, chemistry, history, and land administration as selected subjects for the college entrance examination in the high school level test, and count them into the total score by means of grades.
Taking Beijing as an example, the "3+3" model is divided into two types of subjects: unified college entrance examination and graded examination.
The subjects of the college entrance examination in 2020 are Chinese, mathematics, and foreign languages, each with a maximum score of 150; the high school level examination, the test subjects are ideological and political, history, geography, physics, chemistry, and biology. The candidates choose 3 door.
According to the "converted scoring plan", the graded test scores are divided into 5 grades from high to low, among which A grade accounts for 15% of the candidates, B grade 40%, and C grade 30%, D grade accounts for 14%, E grade does not exceed 1%.
Xiao Zhan, a student of Yuanpei College of Peking University and a 2020 college entrance examination candidate in Beijing, said that the new college entrance examination model has enriched the choice of subjects and can reduce the pressure of taking the exam to a certain extent, because not everyone is suitable for the combination of traditional liberal arts or traditional science subjects. Choosing graded examination subjects fully respects students' interest and is more beneficial to the long-term development of students.
The third batch of reform pilots, 8 provinces and cities, have made adjustments on the basis of the second batch of "3+3", adopting the "3+1+2" model, which stipulates that the selected subjects must have one of physics or history. Subjects, the other two subjects can be chosen from the remaining subjects. This mode provides candidates with 12 choices.
As the third batch of reform pilot areas, Li Jinxiu, director of the third grade of senior middle school in Benxi City, Liaoning Province, said that under the "3+3" model, many people do not choose physics. "3+1+2" circumvents this and is more scientific.
From the current point of view, the new college entrance examination reform still provides students with some options.
"Take our school as an example. In the past, it was divided into arts and sciences, and about 300 people chose liberal arts out of 1,000 students in the school, but now there are more than 400 people who choose to study geography and more than 400 people who choose to study politics."
2 Selecting subjects and assigning points brings challenges
The reform of the new college entrance examination has also brought challenges to schools, teachers, parents, and candidates.
The selection of the new college entrance examination will inevitably lead to the reform of middle school teaching, first of all, the class system.
The shift system places higher requirements on the school's teachers, venues, and management.
School principals in many pilot provinces and cities told Banyuetan reporters that the difficulties brought about by the new college entrance examination include insufficient classrooms, some surplus teachers, some are generally in short supply, teacher establishments cannot keep up, low enthusiasm, and the intersection of teaching and administrative classes Management is difficult, etc.
The head of a certain middle school in the south said that although the “3+1+2” has narrowed the scope of students’ choices, they still face the difficulties of teachers and classrooms to varying degrees.
Some urban schools are small in size, and it is difficult to provide an extra classroom; some schools have limited history and political teachers, and there are difficulties in teacher deployment.
Although there are theoretically 12 subject combinations, some rural schools may only provide students with three or five choices. Urban schools with better conditions can satisfy 7 to 9 subject combinations.
In an interview, the Banyuetan reporter found that although the original intention of the reform was to allow students to choose test subjects based on their own interests, in practice, a considerable number of students, parents or schools are more likely to avoid competition and get high scores. In the future, choose courses from a utilitarian perspective such as good employment.
Xiao Zhang, a senior in a senior high school in Northeast China, said: "Looking at the current environment, the number of students applying for physics is the most. There are also some students who are not good at high school, but they feel that science is better for employment and there are more majors to apply for." Student Xiao Li said that many students in his class originally wanted to choose geography, but later changed to biology, because it is said that there are more people reporting biology in the whole province, and it is easier to enter the top 15% and get A level.
Xiao Zhao, a student from the School of Mechanical Engineering of Tsinghua University and a candidate for the 2020 college entrance examination in Beijing, said that although the new college entrance examination reform has given high school students greater choice in subjects, to be honest, high school students still have a relatively limited understanding of themselves. In fact, the young students don't really like or love the subjects, they still choose subjects based on the ideas of teachers, parents and the university's professional requirements as before.
Some schools worry that students can’t make choices themselves, or the teachers are not rich enough, they still teach according to the traditional subject combination.
The recent Beijing New College Entrance Examination has caused some parents and students to worry about the fairness and scientificity of the grading system.
Some parents in Beijing believe that the level of scoring (grading) is affected by the number of candidates taking part in the elective exam together. Once candidates abandon the exam for individual subjects, the original score distribution of the elective group may be extremely negative. At this time, the grade scores of many intermediate and upper level candidates will be much underestimated than they should be.
The level of scoring (grading) is greatly affected by the difficulty of the question.
A parent gave an example: Suppose there are 48,000 college entrance examination candidates in Beijing, of which 8,000 are selected for subject A. If one of the test candidates finds that the difficulty is moderate, and there are 480 people who take the full score, then the 481th person with 99 points in the test will follow the current The scoring rules for grade points will be assigned to A4 grade with 91 points. At this time, the gap between 99 points and 100 points is enlarged by the grade conversion points.
If subject A is very difficult, the highest score of candidates for this subject in Beijing is 95 points, and there is only one person, the second is 89 points, then the first and second places will also be assigned A1 grades 100 points, which brings about the strange phenomenon that a large number of high-scoring students with different scores have the same score, which is difficult to distinguish.
A college entrance examination candidate in Beijing this year said that from the final college entrance examination scores, the scores of the 2020 class are obviously higher than those of the previous class, and the scores are more densely distributed and the degree of distinction is small. This is related to the graded examinations. The grade assignment can only show the academic advantages of the head students, but not the true level of all students, which increases the pressure on the middle students.
3 Where is the path to continue to deepen reform?
Liu Jian, dean of China Education Innovation Research Institute of Beijing Normal University and chief expert of the China Basic Education Quality Monitoring and Collaboration Center, believes that the new college entrance examination has increased students' freedom of choice at the high school stage, including freedom of choice of courses and freedom of examinations.
"For China's high school education, it is better for high school students to have choices than no choice." Liu Jian said that the project-based learning at the high school stage allows students to develop their hobbies, specialties and potentials, which is very important for students.
In his opinion, reduce the proportion of common compulsory content, increase the selection of high school courses and college entrance examinations, learn to choose in the selection, discover personal interests, hobbies, specialties, and potentials in the selection, and plan their future life in the selection This is the development trend of international basic education and the necessary way for the country to train high-quality talents. It is related to the future competitiveness of the entire country.
Liu Jian said that in a sense, stimulating the innate curiosity and thirst for knowledge of young people is the only way to achieve a powerful country with talents.
In fact, the provinces that are the first to try are all exploring ways for reform and accumulating feasible experience.
For example, the third batch of "3+1+2" pilot programs are adjustments and optimizations based on the first two batches of pilot programs.
An empirical study conducted by the Peking University Examinations Institute shows that since the reform of the Jiangsu college entrance examination, physics under the "3+3" model has been cold, and the mathematical level of Jiangsu students after entering the university has shown an increasingly obvious downward trend. Among the top students of the International Olympiad in chemistry, chemistry, etc., it is gradually hard to find Jiangsu students.
Therefore, the third batch of pilot provinces and cities imposed certain restrictions on students' right to choose, and physics became one of the required subjects.
Zhong Binglin, the former president of the Chinese Education Association, said that this adjustment respects the development of student interests and expertise on the one hand, and on the other hand solves the problems that exist in the reform process, and each province will try.
Regarding the question of whether adding physics or history as one of the compulsory subjects is back to the old path of arts and sciences, some experts believe that in the past, there were only two choices for students in arts and sciences. Now “3+1+2” is still Provide students with 12 choices, this is progress.
Zhong Binglin said that the premature division of liberal arts and sciences in high school will result in imperfect knowledge system, and make up classes when entering university, which will affect the quality of talent training.
Every reform measure is full of controversy. This is understandable. The key is to make a scientific judgment and make a correct choice.
Many educators believe that after the implementation of the new college entrance examination, students entering the school to choose subjects, stratified teaching, group learning, and class teaching have become a normal state.
my country's education is quite different. There are regional differences, urban-rural differences, and inter-school differences. We must respect this reality and explore diversified.
There are currently three different models of full walking class, middle walking class and small walking class, which can be explored according to the specific school conditions of the school.
Experts said that the direction of the reform is right, and the problems encountered in the implementation process can be further demonstrated and researched, such as the degree of difficulty of the examination, the time point of the examination, how to guide students in choosing subjects more scientifically, and the assignment of points to the examination. How to be more scientific and comparable, how to further ensure its fairness in comprehensive quality admissions, how to pay attention to a series of issues such as vulnerable groups.
In short, the college entrance examination reform must adhere to the original intention of the reform, and do not return to the old path of exam-oriented education after the change.
Source: "Ban Yue Tan" Issue 21, 2020
Half a month to talk about reporters: Zheng Tianhong, Wei Mengjia, and Wang Ying