Zhejiang College Entrance Examination Adjustment: What are the policy changes? What specific adjustments have been made?

The college entrance examination is a very important exam for many students, and policy reforms and adjustments also have a great impact on the university. Recently, Zhejiang’s college entrance examination was adjusted: What are the policy changes? What specific adjustments have been made? Let’s take a look below.

In accordance with the deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, since 2014, Zhejiang Province, as one of the first pilot provinces in the country, has undertaken the task of piloting the comprehensive reform of the national college entrance examination together with Shanghai. In the past five years, three rounds of college entrance examination admissions have been completed.

The comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination is an exploratory reform with no precedent to follow, so it needs to be tried out first and explored and improved. Discovering problems and constantly adjusting and improving reform plans is the value of reform pilot projects in itself. Since the pilot, our province and Shanghai have adjusted and enriched the college entrance examination reform pilot plan, providing effective reference for reform pilots in other provinces across the country.

After the English weighted scoring incident at the end of 2018, the provincial party committee and government organized forces to conduct comprehensive research and evaluation on the pilot work of the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Education, they once again studied and improved measures in response to existing problems and contradictions in light of the actual situation of education and teaching. Recently, the provincial government officially issued the "Notice on Further Improving the Pilot Work of Comprehensive Reform of the College Entrance Examination" (Zhejiang Government Document No. [2020] 11), adjusting some policies of the college entrance examination. There are six main measures:

1. The high school entrance examination will be arranged uniformly according to grade and subject. The same grade and the same subject will be tested at the same time. This will be implemented starting with the first-year high school students who will enroll in 2020.

2. The validity period of foreign language and elective subject scores will be changed from 2 years to the current year, and will be implemented starting from the January 2021 exam.

3. The score difference for elective subject grades will be changed from 3 points to 1 point, and will be implemented from the January 2022 examination.

4. The admission process will be changed from three stages to two stages, and will be implemented starting from the 2021 enrollment.

5. Chinese, mathematics and foreign language examination papers will use nationally unified examination papers, which will be implemented from 2023.

6. The vocational skills operation test is a qualification test, which is organized by the province with unified standards and cities and counties. Passing the test is a condition for application. The vocational skills theoretical knowledge test will still be organized uniformly across the province and will be implemented starting from the 2022 enrollment and admission.

The above six measures have different implementation times because they apply to different starting grades. To ensure the smooth implementation of the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination, the provincial government requires party committees and governments at all levels to effectively strengthen organizational leadership and coordinate the implementation of relevant reforms and guarantee measures. At the same time, we must strengthen the conditions for the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination, especially fully consider the actual situation of changes in the workload of high school teachers after the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination, take corresponding incentive measures, and strive to protect and improve the income and benefits of high school teachers. We also call on the whole society to accelerate the transformation of educational concepts, correct the one-sided views on education, talent, quality and political achievements that evaluate education, schools and teachers solely based on academic advancement, and create a good environment for the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination.