Can the College Entrance Exam Make the World Full of Love? (2011-06-07 02:49:40)
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Tags: Education, Wenchuan, College Entrance Exam, Filled with Love, Touching China, Category: Written for Everyone
The college entrance exam is here. Today, over 9 million candidates will head to the exam venues, capturing the attention of the entire society. I recall an incident involving a foreign friend during the short Dragon Boat Festival holiday. He loves Chinese culture and has visited Beijing multiple times, even developing a habit of watching the nightly news broadcast, which sharpened his political sensitivity. He said, "I came here and found it hard to book a room, originally thinking you were celebrating the Party's birthday. Later, I realized that it was actually because the college entrance exam was happening." He expressed great surprise. Behind the difficulty for foreigners to book rooms lies a surge in various "exam protection actions" across the country, almost mobilizing everyone. Parents go without saying, shifting from forcing their children to study hard towards a people-oriented approach, providing meticulous care. Not only do they actively accompany their children during the exam, but they also stand outside the exam venues under scorching heat for an entire day. Prior to this, they strictly discipline themselves, stopping all entertainment activities as if it were a national mourning day, and booking all the hotels around the exam venues to ensure their children have a place to rest.
Public opinion reigns supreme. Government agencies finally seriously practice the noble principle of serving the people wholeheartedly. Departments such as public security, education, environmental protection, transportation, and meteorology have all joined the "exam protection action," leading to rapid improvements in work efficiency and results. During the exam period, cities voluntarily stop forced demolitions and prohibit nighttime construction work. Taxis no longer refuse passengers, instead forming "college entrance exam protection fleets." "Love-based exams" have become a touching warm current in this era supposedly marked by moral decline. Some drivers even prepare breakfast and wind oil for the candidates. The media even publishes reminders about bringing 2B pencils for the exam.
By excluding a few immoral merchants who exploit the situation by raising prices on exam-related rooms, supplements, and stationery due to a lack of morality in their blood type, the world seems to instantly fill with love. The moving spirit of Wenchuan's earthquake resistance appears to have possessed the college entrance exam. Over these two days of the exam, anyone who still talks about the moral decline, loss of values, or lack of faith in our country will surely make me very upset.
However, the cost of this love is quite heavy. First, after the requirement of two years of grassroots work experience was added for civil service exams, the college entrance exam remains the only fair opportunity for poor children to change their fate, making one exam determine a lifetime more rigidly fixed - despite the frequent phenomenon of graduating only to be unemployed, and despite hundreds of thousands of candidates each year choosing not to take the exam and rejecting the Ministry of Education and the entire society.
Second, the fragility and inefficiency of urban management are evident. Without mobilizing the strength of the entire society, under the current management system and capability, few places seem able to ensure all candidates complete this life-changing exam under normal conditions. Any mishap would affect the government's image or even social stability - fortunately, concentrating superior forces to win decisive battles has always been the advantage of socialist China.
Fundamentally, the lag in overall educational reform is at the root. Educational expert Xiong Bingqi said, "Exam protection can indirectly show that educational reform has not achieved fundamental results; if there were truly multiple exams and diversified admissions, the college entrance exam should tend towards being ordinary." The reality is that the de-administratization effort remains unfinished. The independent recruitment by NATO and Huayue alliances is loud, but suspected of using monopolistic positions to engage in top student recruitment games, invisibly increasing the burden on candidates. Meanwhile, 45 candidates from Southern University of Science and Technology, who attempted to bypass the college entrance exam, were warned by the Ministry of Education.
Finally, I recall my own college entrance exam 24 years ago. I took the exam with a high fever, without parental accompaniment, without a love fleet, and without the meticulous services of various departments, riding my bike alone every day from a distant home to the exam venue. The same thing is, we were all products of examination-oriented education, but different is that most children back then could independently complete this task.
For the increasingly devalued college entrance exam to proceed smoothly, the entire society is paying an increasingly high cost. Why is this so?
An era that suddenly fills with love must be sick. It's very expedient and utilitarian.
Is it that we are unable to love or dare not love during normal times?
Source: (http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4fcb878a01017p8v.html) - Can the College Entrance Exam Make the World Full of Love? _ Shi Shusi _ Sina Blog