Steps taken to ensure all students sit spring exam

The Tianjin Educational Admission and Examination Authority has postponed the spring college entrance exam due to the COVID-19 epidemic, according to a statement released by the authority on Wednesday.

The examination, originally scheduled for March 19, was planned to be postponed to May 21 but now has been pushed back to June 12, the authority said.

Different from the national college entrance examination held in the summer, the spring exam is for both secondary vocational students and high school students.

From 2018 to 2021, around 15,000 to 17,000 students took the exam in the city annually, while the number for the summer exam was around 50,000 to 70,000, People's Daily reported.

It has become an important part of the city's college entrance examination system.

Starting from May 29, candidates must accurately and truthfully record their daily health status and travel history, as well as the information of those living with them, the statement said.

Candidates will be allowed to enter the exam room only after submitting their information sheets and they will have to wear disposable surgical masks during the whole exam process.

Some special sites will be set up for candidates in extraordinary circumstances, ensuring every student will be able to sit the exams, the authority said in a statement on Thursday.

Candidates infected with the virus and still able to sit the exam will be placed in a ward in Tianjin Haihe Hospital to take the exam, with medical staff monitoring their physical condition throughout the process.

The contacts of infected cases, people with red health codes as well as those placed under quarantine and in locked-down zones will take the exam in individual rooms in designated hotels.

There will also be some independent test sites with standard test rooms available for candidates in other circumstances of quarantine or medical observation.

Shen Yi, vice-president of Tianjin Bohai Vocational Technical College, told China Daily that the exam in spring is important for students from secondary vocational-technical schools to enter higher learning institutes, and in particular, the majority of them have the opportunity to enter vocational colleges to further their studies.

"We are upbeat that the students who take the exam to be enrolled into the vocational colleges will have good prospects in the job market in light of China's rapid growth of vocational education," he said.

Zhang Ying, a mother of a student at Tianjin No 54 Middle School who is preparing for the spring exam, said, "The arrangement for separated test spaces will relieve the pressure on both the students and the parents."

On Thursday, Tianjin announced another round of citywide nucleic acid testing for its 13 million residents to be conducted on Saturday.

Residents are urged not to leave their communities until the results are released.

Tianjin reported seven new locally transmitted cases and 26 asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, according to the city's health commission.