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Chinese and foreign educational experts are praising China's plans to overhaul the country's college entrance exam and university enrollment system.
The plan, outlined on Sept. 4, aims to improve fairness and transparency and ease the intense pressure on students.
Usually held in early June, the national exam, called "gaokao," is the sole entrance criterion for most colleges. The reform will be the biggest change to the national college entrance exam since it was reintroduced in 1977 following the Cultural Revolution.
According to the plan, students will be able to submit their scores in three subjects taken throughout high school, including biology, chemistry, geography, history, physics and politics. These scores will be submitted together with mandatory scores from exams in Chinese, math and English. Students may retake their English proficiency test once and submit the better score.
The changes will be piloted this year in Shanghai and Zhejiang Province, then rolled out nationwide by 2017.
"Reform is a must for China's higher education, though it will take time to figure out the most suitable way and implement concrete measures," Liu Shusen, deputy dean of the School of Foreign Languages of Peking University, told Xinhua.
According to Liu, about 500,000 high school graduates went abroad for their bachelor's degrees, and this year it is estimated that 600,000 students, or about one-tenth of the country's graduates, will not take China's college entrance exam.
"China should take immediate and substantial measures to minimize the brain drain," Liu said.
"We should give adequate consideration to cultivating talent as well as paying attention to fairness," Liu added.
The People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China, ran an article on Wednesday saying that reform will provide more freedom for middle and high school students in planning their futures.
The article, written by the Principal of the Beijing National Day School, Li Guixi, said "we cannot solve all problems at a time, but the reform plan will be conducive to improving students' overall quality."
On Tuesday, Australian Education Minister Christopher Pyne gave a speech at Peking University and said that higher education reform is a shared commitment.
"As China undergoes its educational reform, Australia is also engaging in its most exciting changes in higher education in 40 years. It is a shared commitment to quality education," he said.
David Walker, professor and BHP Billiton Chair of Australian Studies at Peking University, praised the reform as "very impressive" and "exceptionally good."
Walker, also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, has traveled between the two countries for educational research since 1993.
"The reform will lead to a more flexible pattern and improve China's higher education, which will also be important for Australia to build closer ties with universities across China," said Walker.
