Vocational school's soft exam shows it's time for a shake-up

ONE OF the end-of-term test papers of a vocational school in Zhengzhou, Henan province, began with three questions that contained their answers. The municipal education bureau said that the school lacks quality control of exam papers and is investigating. Southern Metropolis Daily comments:

The three questions at the beginning of an end-of-term exam in Zhengzhou Technical College were: Question 1: In which year was the world's first underground railway built in London? Question 2: In which city was the world's first underground railway built in 1863? Question 3: Which country is the first in the world to have an underground railway?

Everybody can see how ridiculous they are.

The local education bureau has not reached a final conclusion yet, but many people suspect that the teacher who drafted this exam meant to let his students pass so as to cover the poor quality of education provided by the college.

Such speculation is not without reason because the case is not the first of its kind.

Last May, three students from Lanzhou Jiaotong University complained in an open letter to their dean that more than 80 percent of their test questions were the same as those of the previous year. They also complained that was because many students hardly learned anything during the term and the teachers wanted to cover this up.

Many colleges and vocational schools are very strict when enrolling fresh students, but as soon as the students enter the schools, they tend to let the students easily graduate and get a diploma.

Besides, different colleges and vocational schools lack competition with each other. As a result, even if a college sets loose graduation standards, it won't suffer a credibility crisis. That is the essential reason why many college teachers and deans hardly care about education quality.

Only thorough reform can put an end to this.