This coldest time of the year brings the most difficult time of the year for students and parents — entrance exam season. The two-day unified college entrance exams for national and municipal universities ended on Jan. 18. Over a half a million young people took the unified exams, with even more taking private university exams in the following weeks.
While some innovations in this massive social undertaking have been introduced, the system remains largely unchanged. That is unfortunate since the entrance exam is at the heart of many ongoing educational problems.
To take just one, last year had the highest sick leave rate ever for elementary, junior high and high school teachers. Nearly 8,000 teachers took leave, with over 60 percent citing psychological problems as the reason. Stress, overwork and parental complaints are the main culprits, but they stem from the overall pressure to get as many students as possible to simply pass entrance exams, regardless of what they actually learn.