University Enrolment in the People's Republic of China, 1977‐1981: the examination model returns

Abstract

On October 21st 1977, a year after the death of Mao Zedong and the arrest of the radical Gang of Four', the Chinese Ministry of Education announced a shift in basic educational policy which was to reverberate throughout Chinese society and which today remains both a powerful force and a controversial issue in China. Beginning with the class entering colleges and universities in early 1978, the Ministry announced that students would be enrolled in tertiary institutions based on scores from a series of annual, competitive entrance examinations to be taken by university applicants each summer. For the first time since 1965, admissions to Chinese colleges and universities would be based wholly on academic, rather than political, criteria. The announcement by the Ministry of Education was a development of major importance, affecting not only the Chinese educational system, but also the changing relationship of education to politics in the world's most populous nation, and the shifting family and social background of students attending Chinese tertiary institutions. This report, based upon extensive field research conducted in the People's Republic of China in 1980 and 1981, describes the system of university entrance examinations re-instituted in 1977 and the process of university enrolment in the post-Mao period, and analyses the effects which these new admissions policies have had on the social background distribution of Chinese university students, the changing patterns of authority held by Chinese academic institutions and governmental bodies over educational administration and the enrolment process, and the effects of the enrolment process on the admission of women to tertiary institutions. The circular issued by the Chinese Ministry of Education in late October of 1977 marked an end to the university enrolment process of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when students were admitted to tertiary education only after at least two years of factory or agricultural labour following secondary school. During the Cultural Revolution, enrolment was based on the recommendations of local Party leaders, workers, and peasants, and the criteria for admission to tertiary curricula stressed the candidates' political commitment and labour record rather than academic achievement [1]. The shifts of late 1977 marked a return to enrolment policies which had been in effect in the first seventeen years of Communist government from 1949 to 1966, prior to the Cultural Revolution. Most importantly, the shifts signified a sharp turn in Chinese education policy, a retreat from the egalitarian emphasis on political training, practical work experience, and popularisation of educational programmes which had been a symbol of the Cultural Revolution. The re