Quality not quantity

Here is some encouraging news for the 9 million children who are sitting the annual college entrance examinations today and tomorrow: at least 75 percent of them will be enrolled in an institute of higher learning.

As the number of students sitting the exams has decreased for the fourth straight year, shrinking by 1.4 million since 2008, there are more opportunities for this year's test takers, especially as almost all higher learning institutions are offering a bigger enrollment program.

But this does not necessarily mean the exams will be a piece of cake. For those students who have their sights set on an elite college, such as Peking University or Tsinghua University, it remains a make-or-break deal.

Although nurturing billionaires should not be the primary function of any university, the 2011 list of billionaire-producing universities in China, released by the China University Alumni Association, seems to justify the students' ambition as top universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University top the list.

The government is resolved to build a first-class education system for China. But we need elite education at all levels of learning. A quality education system requires elite skills training as well as an elite university sector.

Undoubtedly the most important development in the country's higher education in recent years has been its seemingly inexorable expansion.

However, expansion has, to some degree, undermined the quality of higher education because governments have sought to increase the number of students and the schools have sought greater profits.

The binary system of higher education that would have served China well has been ignored. The country has failed to strike the right balance between vocational trade and skills training and higher education. At a stroke the vocational colleges of advanced education have been transformed into universities.

Efforts are needed to modernize training and the industrial awards system by recognizing skills and competencies, rather than just college or university degrees. The push for skills training can be a valuable effort in producing employees able to meet the requirements of the modern workplace.

But as the doors of higher learning institutions have been pried wider open to them this summer, the students don't have to worry. Go tiger, kids.

(China Daily 06/07/2012 page10)