Despite repeated orders from the education authorities, there are many signs that the momentum of the "paper" competition for primary and secondary school students is unabated.
From the doctoral supervisor to the primary school student competition, to the master's defeat in the junior high school student science and technology innovation competition, as well as RFID technology, Monte Carlo algorithm, glioma stem cells, etc., many primary and secondary school students' science and technology innovation competition award-winning projects have been too "over-outline", and were once suspected of being a group of adults participating in the competition, that is, "proxy war".
Screenshot of the winners of the 39th Shanghai Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition
Some judges of the science and technology innovation competition pointed out that the number of participating students has increased significantly in the past two years. Taking the Shanghai Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition as an example, as the city's largest and largest youth science and technology competition, the number of applicants reached a new high of 15,000, an increase of 11.2% over last year.
However, as early as 2018, the Ministry of Education clearly stipulated that the competition and the results of the competition should not be used as the basis for enrollment in primary and secondary schools, and various measures and documents have been introduced since then.
When the promotion of higher education is "decoupled" from the competition, what are these participating primary and secondary school students "rolling"?
01 The baby is tired and the parents are tired
"Everyone is tired to death", after accompanying the child to end a live competition of "empty model" (aerospace model), Zhejiang parent Xixi sighed.
Ono, a child of the Xixi family, is in the fifth grade this year, and has been participating in air model competitions at all levels since last year, and has successively won district and municipal awards within a year, and has been shortlisted for the provincial competition; At the same time, Ono will also participate in a "3D modeling" related competition, and is considering participating in a maker competition.
Preparing for the competition occupies almost all of the children's spare time, and parents also have to take turns to accompany the competition. Sometimes I send my children to participate in outdoor training early in the morning, and I accompany them for a day.
The cost of time is high, and the investment of money is also a lot.
According to Kaka, a parent in Beijing, Mike, is a senior high school this year, and he has participated in the competition since the third grade, and in the primary school stage, the competition-related expenses are more than 100,000 yuan. For example, in 2017, in order to participate in the "National RLC Robot Engineering Challenge", more than 13,000 yuan was spent on competitions and training alone, as well as 20,000 yuan/year training fees.
For some parents who are obsessed with winning awards, investment is even more "uncapped".
Xiao Chun, a parent of a primary school student in Beijing, enrolled her child in a mathematics competition held by an overseas institution and a "white list" science and technology innovation competition this year, and the online exam relied on cheating, and the science and technology production was arranged by a "teacher", charging 115-150 yuan per class hour, which can be called "spending money to buy a certificate".
Xixi also complained that in a certain musical instrument competition, it was an unknown association that stamped the certificate, and a "special gold award" was created on top of the "gold medal".
The Ministry of Education has repeatedly emphasized that the compulsory education stage (kindergarten to primary school, primary school to junior high school) should strictly implement the "entrance examination without examination", but in reality, there are still "secret examinations" and "secret examinations" in different regions in the "small to junior high school", so that some parents have to use various competition awards to "brush resumes".
As a "person who has come over", Kaka from Beijing pointed out that the awards of Olympiad mathematics, letter Olympics, musical instruments and other competitions are "helpful" when "junior high school", even if it is a non-whitelist competition, even if "the gold content is not very high", it will be written on the resume of further education.
The so-called "non-whitelist" competitions, that is, illegal competitions outside the "white list" of the education department, that is, "black competitions", such as "Olympiad English Competition", "Hope Mathematics" and "JEA China", are illegal competitions notified by the Ministry of Education.
However, in order to enrich their resumes, some parents "take it all in black and white", that is, "white list" and "black competition" with both hands. Sometimes, knowing that the "black competition" is very wet, but because the students around him are "all taking the test", they are also forced to "roll" the certificate.
02 A new "shortcut" to the college entrance examination?
Of course, some parents of primary school students pay attention to "long-term planning" and prepare for the high school entrance examination in advance.
For example, the Ministry of Education explicitly prohibits the addition of extra points in the high school entrance examination competition, but some key high schools have "science and technology specialty students" quotas, and some colleges and universities have corresponding policies for the competition in the "Strong Foundation Plan" and "Comprehensive Evaluation".
Science and technology innovation competitions have become the "admission ticket" for special enrollment of some high schools
However, most children are not suitable for the race route. According to Yang Mei, an education consulting practitioner in Chengdu, due to the "deceptive" results of primary schools and the fact that training institutions take advantage of poor information about further education, they will exaggerate to parents the "benefits" of allowing children to participate in competitions. "After years of observation, no more than 5% of the people can really achieve results in the competition."
Even if a child is good at competition, in the eyes of parents, it is just "icing on the cake" when it comes to going to school.
Xixi complained that the local high school entrance examination policy "changes every year", "I don't know which direction it will go", and for some "niche" competitions, a school will open one or two places, "It doesn't make much sense to pin your hopes on such a narrow channel, it's better to prepare for the high school entrance examination."
The principal of a public K12 school in Chengdu pointed out in a previous interview that some high schools have science and technology innovation specialty classes, and students will be assessed accordingly, "but they will never use the award of a science and technology innovation competition as a necessary condition." In the enrollment brochure of a high school in Beijing, the high school entrance examination scores of students with science and technology specialties account for 60% of the total.
In high school, only a few top "competition students" can be escorted. Kaka said that after the child Mike won the first prize of the "Xinao" provincial level in his first year of high school, he did not dare to take the risk of rushing to the "National One" and decided to suspend the competition for one year to prepare for the college entrance examination. "If you don't have relatively high grades, you won't be admitted if you take a 'strong base'."
However, for children with real special talents, competition is not a "good way out".
Yi Mi, a parent of a junior high school student in a city in Guangdong, introduced that a local key high school will sign a contract in advance with students with competitive talents, among which some students have low total scores and rank more than 200 in junior high school grades, but because of their excellent mathematics, they were admitted to the school in advance, "You can only rely on competition to go to the end, otherwise you can't read high school." ”
03 Return interest to interest
Of course, the competition is not without its benefits for further education.
In addition to the "bonus" of the award, Xixi found that the mathematics and physics knowledge learned in the process of preparing for the competition will be "fed" back to the in-class learning; And for the sake of interest, children are more motivated to learn.
But the original purpose of the competition should not be just "for further education". Respondents generally pointed out that students who have won many awards in competitions are often interested and talented in their own right. "It is not advisable to simply use the competition as a shortcut to higher education", "It will be difficult for children to go in the future by relying on the award obtained by tutoring".
However, some parents' painstaking efforts can also be understood, afraid that the "genius" will be delayed, worried that "Puwa" will fall behind, and participate in the competition everywhere, also for "multiple tracks and multiple roads". However, education is not simply "addition", let alone pulling out the seedlings to help them grow, and what is suitable is the best.
Blindly "rolling" in the wrong direction is not only not beneficial to children's growth, but also makes the marginal benefit of "rolling" diminishing, wasting time and money in vain.
In recent years, the Ministry of Education has become more and more determined to cut off the interest chain of "training-competition-further education", and has made more and more efforts to balance the educational resources of primary and secondary schools and crack down on "pinching" enrollment. This year, many parents found that many middle schools in Beijing have canceled their open days. Without resumes and interviews, various competition certificates will gradually lose their usefulness in further studies.
As Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, once pointed out, in order to manage the competition and reverse the "utilitarian education concept", it is necessary to establish a new educational evaluation system, reduce the utilitarian color of interests and specialties, and let interest truly return to interest.
After all, if all evaluation indicators are turned into exams, routines, involution, and children are "rolled" into "standard configurations", then it is not only the competition that will be alienated, but also the children themselves.
With the advent of the AI era, how to make our children have sustainable competitiveness and adaptability may be the real question that educators should think about, rather than what class to apply for and what competition to participate in.
(At the request of the interviewee, Xixi, Ono, Kaka, Mike, and Yimi are pseudonyms in the article)
Source: "CCTV Network" WeChat public account