Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau has decided to suspend the comprehensive quality evaluation system for middle school students after parents complained the system was too complicated and had become a new time-consuming job for students and parents.
The bureau said it will improve the evaluation scheme as soon as possible.
A group of provincial and municipal lawmakers, political advisers, representatives of parents, and teachers, were invited to voice their opinions on how to adjust the comprehensive quality evaluation scheme for middle school students at a meeting held by the bureau Wednesday.
According to a parent identified as “Xuema,” who had previously posted an open letter to the bureau online concerning the evaluation standards, she gave a USB flash drive containing 12,000 messages from parents to Chen Qiuming, head of the bureau, at the meeting.
Chen readily accepted the USB flash drive and immediately asked a staffer to print out the messages, saying that he would read them item by item after the meeting.
Xuema said according to an online survey, a vast majority of parents hope that the evaluation system will be canceled or disconnected from the senior high school entrance examination. If neither can be achieved, at least the evaluation standards should be lowered and the process simplified.
A parent surnamed Jiao said that he would prefer the evaluation system be optimized rather than canceled. He hopes that the bureau can take this opportunity to conduct solid research and eventually come up with a feasible scheme that incorporates ideas from all sides and features local characteristics.
Yang Qin, a deputy to the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress, praised the move of the education bureau to openly solicit opinions. In his opinion, scientific and effective evaluation standards should be formulated to better implement the evaluation system.
Yang disclosed that a special team set up by the bureau will include lawmakers and parents as its members in order to design an optimal evaluation system.
In October 2018, the municipal education bureau issued a comprehensive quality evaluation scheme for middle school students in Shenzhen, which includes five aspects, namely ideology and morality, academic performance, physical and mental health, artistic literacy and practice and innovation.
According to the scheme, the evaluation results serve as one of the important references for high school enrollment. Under the same academic examination results, those who perform well in the comprehensive quality evaluation are entitled to priority enrollment.
However, the scheme has been called into question by many parents for the extra pressure it places on them to compete for volunteer opportunities for their children. A service for helping students to write the comprehensive quality evaluation report was provided online for 5 to 500 yuan (US$0.71-71).