Students attending the independent artistic test of Shandong University of Art & Design in February 2018. Photo: XINHUA 

The Ministry of Education recently suggested possible ways to reduce how many majors require schools’ independent artistic tests. Furthermore, colleges should encourage their applicants to submit work via the internet and organize online interviews. For majors with higher standards of professionalism that require face-to-face interviews, the primary exams are suggested to be held online and that in-person interviews to be postponed until the college entrance exams are held.

At present, nearly 2,000 Chinese colleges and universities offer degrees in art. The country expects a total of 1,150,000 applicants in 2020. At this crucial juncture, the artistic exam faces unprecedented changes.

Suspension

Recently, Wei Jianghui, an arts student from Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, has been studying from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. Having passed the provincial exam, she has been spending most of her time on academic work targeting the gaokao since March.

This is Wei’s second year taking the artistic examination. At the beginning of 2019, like other arts students, she took her suitcase and travelled to different cities to sit tests organized by different schools. She traveled to Shenyang, Dalian, Shijiazhuang and other places for eight examinations. Four exams were held in Shijiazhuang, so she “stayed there for almost a month.”

Discussion about simplifying schools’ artistic exams is nothing new.

On Dec.11, 2019, the Ministry of Education announced plans to straighten out art academy enrollment so that only about 30 colleges dedicated to art education and a dozen of multi-disciplinary comprehensive universities would be allowed to organize independent artistic tests starting from 2020. This would also mean that other majors concerning fine arts and design would no longer hold independent artistic tests, instead utilizing the results of the provincial level artistic exams.

After the outbreak of COVID-19, Wei was still waiting for the independent test of Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication. Most of the schools that would continue to hold independent artistic tests were renowned academies. However, they had already postponed the exams many times. Such schools included the Communication University of China, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing Film Academy and National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts.

On March 12, however, the Ministry of Education issued the abovementioned notice, meaning schools’ on-site independent artistic tests will take place after the college entrance examination that often falls in June. Also, many major reforms will still be coming. Schools are working on solutions and their admissions offices plan to announce relevant information as soon as possible.

“According to the scale of this year’s artistic examination, if parents who accompany the applicants are included, China will see about two million people travel for schools’ independent artistic tests. If the flow of these two million people is the same as past years, it will undoubtedly have acute consequences, as the struggle against the epidemic has come to the crunch” said Hu Xiangdong, director of the Measurement and Evaluation Research Center at Central China Normal University.

A staff member at the Ministry of Education said the new methods have created greater convenience for the applicants and their families, because they have saved many candidates and their families from frequent travel across the country, cutting their expenses on transportation, accommodation and other items.

Application, selection

With the ministry’s notice, arts students can now wholeheartedly concentrate on their academic studies. However, worries about reforms to the artistic examination still exist. Some people may ask, are these changes in the artistic examination just an expedient measure to halt the epidemic? Or do they reflect a long-term trend?

“School’s independent artistic tests have been problematic for years due to inefficiency, excessively large scale, a sizable redundancy with the provincial artistic exam and public skepticism as to its fairness. The reduction of the exams’ scale is not merely a compulsory measure for the sake of epidemic control. The move conforms to the general development of the admission of arts students,” Hu said.

Hu held that the reform is likely to categorize the yikao as a unified provincial exam with schools’ independent artistic tests being only for a few majors. Students must pass the provincial unified exam and reach a certain score before applying for schools’ independent artistic tests. This pattern of preliminary selection can effectively reduce the excessively immense scope of applicants.

To date, apart from a few majors in Henan Province, most unified provincial exams across China have been completed, the results of which can be considered applicants’ professional test scores. Regarding the current situation, most art academies will utilize the results of the provincial examinations, but things are different for some famous art colleges.

In February, Li Xiangqun, president of the LuXun Academy of Fine Arts, said in an interview that if art academies use results of joint provincial exams as final scores, “it will be unfair to many applicants. Also, art academies have varying requirements. Students who have outstanding performance in the joint provincial exams may fail to meet the requirements of a specific college.”

In this regard, the Ministry of Education has encouraged art colleges that plan to organize schools’ independent artistic tests due to high standards of professionalism to conduct preliminary selection through off-site assessment methods such as the submission of works and online face-to-face interviews.

However, Wei remains concerned because “for fine arts, there is a great discrepancy between observing a piece of artwork through electronic scanning and seeing it with the naked eye.” She worried that this change “would notably impact the test results.”

In fact, in recent years, some universities have actively explored methods for submitting works and online video interviews in regard to the recruitment of art majors and high-level art troupes. Their explorations over the past few years have accumulated replicable and promotable experiences and practices. These universities have conducted continuous follow-up surveys of the students selected this way. The outcome has proved these measures to be reasonable and effective.

Fairness

To date, eight schools have released the latest plans for artistic examinations, including the Communication University of China, Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central Academy of Drama. Submissions of work, online interviews and other techniques that have never been used on a large scale will appear in this year’s artistic tests. With this remote examination, the main concern is about how to prevent cheating.

The Ministry of Education required that art academies formulate solutions to guaranteeing a fair off-site assessment. Applicants are prohibited from editing their works before submission. Technical measures such as face recognition can be applied to upgrade identity verification. Other measures include random question selection and real-time communication. After the first academic term begins, art academies should reevaluate and retest all the admitted students within three months.

“Even if some people may still think there will be flukes, they must understand that cheating can be easily detected by the monitoring system. Besides, once the submitted works and information do not match the on-site test results, students will lose the opportunity to attend exams for one or several years. Who would dare to take this risk?” said Chen Zhiwen, a member of the expert panel under the National Education Test Steering Committee.

Also, students in underdeveloped areas might have difficulties registering for or participating in the exams because of the changes in the artistic examination. The art academies were asked to ensure a level playing field for all applicants.

“The requirement aims to make sure that the majority of applicants stand on the same starting line. It is an abiding project to hone and optimize the art-major admissions system, which calls for a quality monitoring system to track and digitize schools’ independent artistic tests,” Hu said.

This article was translated from Guangming Daily.

（Edited and translated by MA YUHONG）