Report of the State Council on the Reform of the Examination and Enrollment System (Full Text)

Report of the State Council on the reform of the examination and enrollment system

——At the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress on October 21, 2023

Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress:

Entrusted by the State Council, I would like to report to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the reform of the examination and enrollment system.

The reform of the examination and enrollment system is a major reform in the field of education. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to it, and General Secretary Xi Jinping personally presided over the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee to deliberate and approve the reform plan of the examination and enrollment system, and made a series of important instructions and instructions. In 2014, the State Council issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Examination Enrollment System" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), launching the most comprehensive, systematic and profound reform of the examination enrollment system since the resumption of the college entrance examination. Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang have repeatedly made clear demands. With the close cooperation of the Ministry of Education in implementing the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Cyberspace Administration of the CPC Central Committee, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and with the joint efforts of all parties, the reform tasks set out in the Opinions have been basically completed. Now, I would like to report on three aspects.

1. Progress and effectiveness of reform

Since 2014, 29 provinces have been guided in five batches to launch the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination, forming an examination and enrollment model of classified examinations, comprehensive evaluation, and multiple admissions, and improving the institutional mechanism for promoting fairness, scientific selection, and strong supervision, and basically establishing a modern education examination enrollment system with Chinese characteristics.

(1) Improve the distribution method of enrollment plans, and promote equal enrollment opportunities in regions and urban and rural areas. The first is to increase the acceptance rate of college entrance examinations in the central and western regions and provinces with large populations. We will continue to implement the cooperation plan to support enrollment in the central and western regions, and tilt the increase in the national enrollment plan towards the central and western regions. The second is to increase the number of students from rural areas and former poverty-stricken areas who are admitted to key colleges and universities. We continued to implement a special program for key colleges and universities to recruit students from rural areas and former poverty-stricken areas, with a total of nearly 1.1 million students enrolled. The third is to improve the school policy for the children of migrant workers in urban areas. As of 2023, 96.6% of the children of migrant workers in urban areas during the compulsory education stage are enrolled in public schools and enjoy the government's purchase of private school degree services, and a total of 2.07 million migrant children have taken the local college entrance examination since 2013. Strengthen the comprehensive management of "college entrance examination immigrants", and strictly review household registration, student status, and actual attendance.

(2) Reform the enrollment methods of primary and secondary schools, focus on solving the problem of school choice, and achieve the same direction as the "double reduction" policy. The first is to promote compulsory education without examinations. Guide all localities to scientifically and reasonably delineate school enrollment areas in accordance with the principle of "school zoning for enrollment and students enrolling students in the vicinity". In places where the allocation of educational resources is not balanced, we should steadily promote multi-school zoning and random allocation of places to enroll, and greatly reduce the enthusiasm for school choice. The second is to promote the reform of the high school entrance examination in an orderly manner. Establish an enrollment and admission model based on the results of the junior high school academic proficiency test and combined with comprehensive quality evaluation to guide the all-round development of students. The junior high school academic proficiency test is open for all subjects, and the graduation examination and the entrance examination are "two tests in one" to reduce the number of examinations. The syllabus of the high school entrance examination has been cancelled, and the quality of the propositions for the high school entrance examination has been continuously improved. The third is to strictly regulate the order of enrollment. Strictly implement the provisions on admission to compulsory education without examinations and the policy of "citizens recruiting together", students must not be selected through examinations or disguised examinations, and all kinds of competitions, examination certificates, honor certificates, training certificates, etc. must not be used as the basis or reference for enrollment and enrollment, and truly ensure that the number of applicants in private compulsory education schools exceeds the enrollment plan, and under the supervision of the relevant departments, implement computer random admission. Completely cancel sports, art specialties and other high school entrance examination bonus items. Implement the territorial enrollment policy of ordinary high schools, and allocate the enrollment indicators of some high-quality ordinary high schools to junior high schools in the region.

(3) Reform the subjects and evaluation methods of the college entrance examination, and lead the reform of the way high school people are educated. The new college entrance examination is based on the candidates' unified college entrance examination results and high school academic proficiency test scores, and refers to the comprehensive quality evaluation of admission, which not only guides students' all-round development, but also pays attention to cultivating interests and specialties. The first is to improve the high school academic proficiency examination system to ensure the basic academic quality of high school students. All 14 high school courses stipulated by the state will be included in the high school academic proficiency test, and students will be guided to study each course seriously. Second, the new college entrance examination implements some optional subjects to promote the development of students' interests and specialties. The new college entrance examination adopts a 3+3 or 3+1+2 selection mode, in addition to Chinese, mathematics and foreign language as compulsory subjects, the optional subject combinations have been changed from the original "comprehensive liberal arts" and "comprehensive science" to 20 or 12 subject combinations, so as to promote the integration of students' knowledge structure, arts and sciences. The third is to establish a comprehensive quality evaluation system for high school students, highlighting the process evaluation. All localities have established a unified provincial-level comprehensive quality evaluation information management system, objectively recording students' growth performance, strengthening public announcements, and reflecting the all-round development of students' morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor. Colleges and universities use the evaluation results as an important reference for enrollment such as the Strong Foundation Program. The fourth is to promote the overall linkage of the new college entrance examination, new curriculum, and new teaching materials, and bring new changes to the education ecology. The General Office of the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Reform of the Education Methods of Ordinary High Schools in the New Era", guiding the reform provinces to carry out course selection and class selection to different degrees in light of actual conditions, and the teaching mode has changed from "walking in unison" to "personalized". Carry out life planning education for students, and guide students to choose courses and examinations, and grow into talents.

(4) Reform the content and form of the examination, and realize the transformation from "testing knowledge" to "testing ability and literacy". The first is to strengthen the implementation of the fundamental task of establishing morality and cultivating people in the proposition of the college entrance examination. Integrate the examination of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era into the test questions, and build a content system for a comprehensive examination of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor. The second is to highlight the key competencies and core literacy examinations. Enhance the applicability, exploration and openness of test questions, and guide students to construct knowledge, cultivate ability and improve literacy in independent thinking and solving practical problems. The third is to strengthen the connection between examination and education. According to the proposition of high school curriculum standards, reduce the income of mechanical brushing, and guide teaching to return to the curriculum standard and the classroom. Fourth, strengthen the proposition capacity building of examination institutions. Strengthen the guidance of independent propositions for the selection of subjects in the new college entrance examination provinces, organize the training of proposition teams, carry out test question evaluation, and continuously improve the proposition ability.

(5) Optimize the structure of enrollment majors and explore the paradigm of cultivating top-notch innovative talents in basic disciplines. The first is to increase the enrollment scale of science, engineering, agriculture and medical majors. Guide colleges and universities to continuously expand the enrollment scale of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine majors through incremental tilt and stock adjustment. The second is to start the implementation of the strong foundation plan. In order to better serve the major strategic needs of the country, the implementation of the Strong Foundation Plan will be launched in 2020 to explore multi-dimensional assessment and evaluation methods based on the unified college entrance examination. After entering the school, students will develop a separate training plan and explore the bridging training of undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees. The 39 pilot colleges and universities recruit more than 6,000 people every year, and the quality of students has been fully affirmed by all aspects. The third is to explore the unconventional selection channel for top-notch innovative talents. Special programs such as the Tsinghua University Mathematical Sciences Leading Talent Training Program and the Peking University Physics Outstanding Talent Training Program have been set up to promote the selection and training of top-notch innovative talents.

(6) Establish and improve the vocational education college entrance examination system, and promote the classification examination and selection of technical and skilled personnel. The enrollment of higher vocational colleges and universities is relatively separated, and the evaluation method of "cultural quality + vocational skills" is implemented, breaking the model of one college entrance examination paper for all students. In recent years, the proportion of the number of students admitted to the vocational education college entrance examination in the enrollment scale of higher vocational colleges has increased from about 20% in 2014 to more than 60% in 2023, becoming the main channel for enrollment in higher vocational colleges.

(7) Reform the examination enrollment management mechanism, and solidly promote the management of examinations and recruitment in accordance with the law. The first is to reduce and standardize the extra points in the college entrance examination. Two rounds of college entrance examination bonus point reform have been carried out, 5 types of national college entrance examination bonus points have been cancelled, and all 95 types of local bonus points have been gradually abolished, further reducing the value of bonus points. Accurately determine the range of bonus points for ethnic minorities. The second is to strengthen and improve the enrollment of arts and sports. Vigorously promote the provincial unified examination for art majors and the national unified test for sports, strict examination standards, strictly control the colleges and universities and majors that organize school examinations, and reduce the burden of students' examinations. Improve the evaluation model of "cultural quality + professional ability", and steadily increase the performance requirements of cultural courses. The third is to improve the unified enrollment and admission methods. Promote all provinces to implement the implementation of the college entrance examination results after the announcement of the volunteers, to reduce the blindness of the volunteers. Implement the parallel voluntary submission method to increase the two-way choice of candidates and colleges and universities, and improve the volunteer satisfaction rate. Smoothly promote the reform of admission batches. Fourth, strengthen the supervision and management mechanism. Tighten the cage of the system, promote the listing of "organizing cheating on exams" as a criminal act in the "Amendment (9) to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China", and formulate and issue the "Interim Measures for the Handling of Violations in College Admissions" and other disciplinary provisions. In-depth implementation of the "Sunshine Project" for college admissions, and strict implementation of the "Ten Disclosures" of enrollment information. Intensify the supervision of enrollment, and seriously investigate and deal with cases of violations in examination enrollment. Fifth, improve the examination security system and emergency response mechanism. Strengthen departmental coordination mechanisms, strictly prevent examination fraud, and establish a standardized system for examination security. In the college entrance examination, about 10,000 disabled candidates are provided with Braille test papers, hearing aids, large character papers and other examination facilities every year. Actively respond to severe tests such as sudden epidemics and disasters, improve the emergency response mechanism, and achieve "all the exams" and "safe college entrance examinations".

On the whole, this reform takes the promotion of the healthy development of students, the scientific selection of all kinds of talents, and the maintenance of educational fairness as the starting point and the end goal, insists on cultivating people with virtue, meets the needs of economic and social development for diversified and high-quality talents, and carries out an overall and systematic reform of the examination and enrollment system. The first is to fully implement the party's education policy and promote the all-round development of students' morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor. From the setting of examination subjects to the reform of examination content, the examination of candidates' morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor is fully reflected, and the implementation of quality education in primary and secondary schools is better guided. The second is to adhere to the correct education orientation, and shift the evaluation of students from a single score to a comprehensive evaluation. The new college entrance examination has established an evaluation system of "two bases and one reference", which not only examines the knowledge base and thinking ability, but also pays attention to the students' usual learning and growth, and cultivates students' sound personality. The third is to insist on teaching students according to their aptitude and guide students to develop their personalities in combination with their interests and specialties. High school is a critical period for students' personality formation and independent development, and it leaves room for students' personality development by providing a variety of elective subject combinations. Through different channels such as the Strong Foundation Program, Art and Sports Enrollment, and Vocational Education College Entrance Examination, we provide suitable growth and development paths for students with different endowments. Fourth, adhere to the ability orientation, and pay attention to cultivating students' thinking quality and key abilities to adapt to the future society. Guide secondary education to prepare students for future growth and development. Fifth, adhere to fairness and justice, and better promote educational fairness with the fairness of recruitment. Comprehensively strengthen the construction of the examination enrollment system, improve the supervision and restraint mechanism, implement information disclosure, and continuously promote the fairness of examination enrollment opportunities, open procedures, and fair results.

The reform of the examination and enrollment system has achieved positive results, thanks to the far-sightedness and foresight of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, and the top-level design, planning and deployment from the strategic height of the overall cause of the Party and the country, drawing a "blueprint" for the reform; Thanks to the concerted efforts of the Ministry of Education, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Cyberspace Administration of the CPC Central Committee, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments, they have given full support in terms of public opinion guidance, condition guarantee, emergency response, etc., and enhanced the systematic, holistic and collaborative nature of the reform; Thanks to the attention and support of local party committees and governments, the main responsible comrades of the party committees and governments of 31 provinces have personally studied the reform plan, deployed and promoted the reform work, and provided a strong guarantee for the implementation of the reform; Thanks to the initiative and hard work of local education departments, admissions and examination institutions, schools and teachers, a close and coordinated work system has been built.

Second, the situation and challenges faced

This round of reform of the examination enrollment system is a major reform planned and deployed by the Party Central Committee and personally decided and guided by General Secretary Xi Jinping. However, the reform of the college entrance examination involves a wide range of interests and complex interests, and it is impossible to achieve it once and for all, and each stage is a process of limited goals and steady progress, and it is necessary to maintain historical patience and determination, seek progress in stability, gradually improve, and persevere and work for a long time. At present, compared with the requirements of the CPC Central Committee to build a strong country in education, comprehensively improve the quality of independent training of talents, and the expectations of the people to receive better education, we are still facing some new situations and new challenges, and there is still a long way to go in reform.

(1) The comprehensive reform guarantee of the college entrance examination in the central and western regions needs to be further strengthened. At present, there are still 17 provinces where the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination has not yet been implemented, and the central and western provinces and provinces with large populations are still facing many difficulties and challenges in the process of promoting the reform. In some places, the funds, facilities and other conditions needed to promote the comprehensive reform of the college entrance examination have not yet been put in place, and some middle school classrooms, teachers, and teaching resources are facing shortages. After the reform, the high school academic proficiency test will be independently proposed by the provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), and the proposition capacity building of the provincial examination institutions needs to be strengthened urgently.

(2) The reform of the education method of ordinary high schools needs to be further deepened. The new college entrance examination, new curriculum, and new textbooks put forward higher requirements for teachers' ability, and some weak school teachers are still accustomed to traditional teaching methods, and need to change from knowledge transfer to ability and literacy cultivation. The reform has strengthened the selectivity of courses, examination subjects and majors, and some middle schools lack teachers and curriculum resources, and the professionalism and effectiveness of high school life planning education need to be improved. Course selection and class selection have increased the difficulty of class arrangement and student management, and put forward higher requirements for some weak schools.

(3) The relevant mechanism of examination enrollment needs to be further optimized. How to better use comprehensive quality evaluation under the premise of ensuring fairness and justice still needs to be further carefully explored. The selection and training evaluation mechanism of top-notch innovative talents needs to be improved, and how to provide students with "soil" for innovation and development without affecting the basic market, so that potential students can get immersion training, and strengthen the integration of selection, training and evaluation, still needs to be further studied and carefully explored. The content and form of the vocational education college entrance examination need to be further optimized, the corresponding industries of vocational education are extremely wide, the skills required by each industry are very different, the relevant technical skills and equipment are updated quickly, and the scientificity and safety of the practical examination organization are facing challenges.

(4) The external environment for the reform of the college entrance examination is still complex and severe. There is still a long way to go to establish a correct educational evaluation orientation, and some localities have one-sided pursuit and illegal publicity of the college entrance examination admission rate, and some counties, districts, and middle schools still have utilitarian and short-sighted behaviors, and the "champions" of the college entrance examination and related teachers are heavily rewarded. Examination-related training institutions bring greater risks and hidden dangers. Some institutions concoct topics to create anxiety, and some carry out false enrollment propaganda and sky-high fees, seriously disrupting the order of examination and enrollment. With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, the methods of cheating in exams have been renovated, and the forms of cheating have become more hidden.

3. Consideration of the next step

The Ministry of Education will thoroughly implement the important instructions and instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in accordance with the overall deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on the construction of a strong country in education, strengthen the direction of reform, maintain strategic focus, constantly summarize and improve measures, and promote the examination and enrollment system to be more mature and more stereotyped, so as to provide strong support for the construction of an education evaluation system with the participation of multiple subjects, in line with China's actual situation and with world standards.

(1) Steadily improve the reform support capacity of the central and western regions. Strengthen guidance for provinces where the reform has not yet landed, increase financial support, strengthen the construction of ordinary high schools, and focus on making up for the shortcomings in the hardware facilities and teacher allocation of ordinary high schools at the county level. Improve the teaching capacity of secondary school teachers, and guide localities to do a good job of giving preference to front-line teachers at the grassroots level in terms of treatment and professional titles. Strengthen the capacity building of provincial-level examination institutions, guide all localities to further complete and strengthen the team of provincial-level examination institutions, do a good job in proposition ability training, and improve the scientific and standardized level of propositions.

(2) Deepen the reform of the way ordinary high schools educate people. Guide local governments to coordinate the advancement of new curricula, new textbooks, and new college entrance examinations, and guide schools to rationally arrange curriculum teaching. Strengthen school life planning education and guidance on subject selection, promote the implementation of the student development guidance system in ordinary high schools, and strengthen guidance through the establishment of courses, special lectures, and career experience. Promote local governments to improve the operational mechanism for course selection and class selection, formulate guidelines for course selection and class selection, and improve the efficiency of the use of teaching resources.

(3) Deepen the reform of the content of the middle and high school entrance examinations. In-depth research on the examination situation and teaching situation in various places, and promote the design of test questions to be closer to the actual learning and life of students. Further enhance the examination of students' exploratory and innovative thinking qualities, and improve the scientific nature of propositions.

(4) Deepen the reform of comprehensive quality evaluation of high schools. Promote all localities to further improve and standardize high school students' comprehensive quality files, explore the use of modern information technology such as artificial intelligence and big data to empower evaluation reforms, and increase the credibility and usability of comprehensive quality assessments. On the premise of ensuring fairness and justice, guide colleges and universities to use it in more types of admissions.

(5) Improve the form and content of the vocational education college entrance examination. Promote the overall organization and implementation of vocational skills examinations in accordance with local conditions, and may adopt methods such as provincial-level unified examinations, multi-school joint examinations, and college examinations to strengthen the construction of relevant professional examination centers. Research and formulate vocational education talent training courses and quality standards at all levels, and guidelines for examination propositions, and strengthen the connection between examination and teaching. Strengthen research on the use of modern information technology to empower skills practical examinations.

(6) Strengthen the selection and training of top-notch innovative talents. Steadily promote relevant reform pilot projects, and strengthen the integrated design of selection, training and evaluation. Establish assessment and evaluation based on key competencies and core literacy, and strengthen long-term training and follow-up evaluation. Strengthen the supervision and inspection of pilot schools to ensure that recruitment is fair and just.

(7) Strengthen the governance of the external environment for the reform of the college entrance examination. Concentrate on the management of local and middle school speculation, heavy rewards for college entrance examination "champions" and teachers, and other behaviors. Strengthen the comprehensive governance of training institutions involved in examinations, and must not engage in conduct that interferes with the order of school education and teaching and examination enrollment in the name of examination training. Strengthen forward-looking technical research to prevent exam fraud. Carry out research on national education examination enrollment legislation in a timely manner, continuously improve relevant laws and regulations, and comprehensively improve the governance capacity and level of examination enrollment.

For a long time, the NPC has been very concerned about the education work, has given strong support and careful guidance, and has put forward many valuable opinions and suggestions. The National People's Congress has organized a special investigation on the reform of the examination enrollment system for many times, and today specially listened to the report, which fully reflects the great importance attached to the examination enrollment work, which is not only a spur to our work, but also plays a very important role in deepening the reform of the examination enrollment system, and I would like to express my heartfelt thanks!

We will be guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, earnestly study and implement the opinions of the National People's Congress and its members, continuously optimize relevant policies and measures, and further improve the modern education examination and enrollment system with Chinese characteristics, so as to provide strong support for building a modern socialist country.

Source: Chinese Network

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