Justice and Corruption  

In 2000, the most remarkable problem related to education is the rarely seeing large-scale cheating in college entrance examination. Meanwhile, increasing promotion of charges by colleges and universities evokes nationwide repercussions. All these make educational justice a significant problem in educational development in China. If justice of educational system and policies were not ensured, right of receiving education of most people without power would be impaired. This will damage not only development of education itself but also social justice.

1. Cheating in College Entrance Examination Disclosed

There are three major cases of cheating in college entrance examination disclosed by media in 2000: 1) Large-scale and severe cheating in college entrance examination in the First Middle School of Jiahe County of Hunan Province. The examination rooms are in a state of chaos, similarities are found in answer sheets and a total of 203 examinees are involved in the cheating. Involving so many examinees and producing so bad effects, it is an event first seen in Hunan Province since 1977. 2) Cheating in college entrance examination in Dianbai County of Guangdong Province by using pagers rented or bought from stores of telecommunication facilities. People conduct cheating through transmitting answers to pagers brought into examination rooms by examinees. As a result, similarities were found in answer sheets of 33 examinees. 3) Cheating in selection of referrals of candidates for studying in colleges and universities in the First Middle School of Longhui County of Hunan Province. Amongst 14 students recommended, 13 are unqualified. Of the 13, 2 are sons of President and Vice President of the school and other 11 are sons or daughters of county- and under-county-level officials.

In addition, newspapers and magazines successively disclosed other cases of cheating in examinations. In Jiangxi Province, 99 examinees were found to conduct cheating independently exhibiting as conditions such as asking other people to take examination, taking forbidden materials into examination rooms, using telecommunication tools to cheat and writing name on answer sheets etc. In Yichun and Shangrao of Jiangxi Province, cases of cheating in college entrance examination by using pagers to transmit answers and asking other people to take examination were found. In entrance examination for adult colleges and universities held in middle May of 2000, invigilators found several dozens of people taking examination for others at 30 examination sites. In fact, cases of cheating in examinations for adult colleges and universities are higher in number than those in common college entrance examination. Of which, most of them are that people taking examinations for others. In Chongqing, 47 people taking examination for others were caught on-spot in this year's examination for academic title promotion. In the examination for employment of civil servants organized by the State Industrial and Commercial Administration in this June, large-scale cheating occurred in examination site of Dexin Municipal Industrial and Commercial Administration of Jiangxi Province. Examination rooms are in chaos and at least 60% of examinees are involved in the cheating.

In summary, cases of cheating in college entrance examination in the First Middle School of Jiahe County of Hunan Province, Dianbai County of Guangdong Province and Longhui County of Hunan Province are not single or independent events. On the contrary, they are just a tiny part disclosed by media. It is reasonable why people all over China are astonished by them. Though the nationwide uniform college entrance examination has various shortcomings, it has been commonly accepted by Chinese people for its most important and essential advantage of justice and high efficiency. The idea of "universal equality in terms of scores attained in examination" provides the fundamental defense for social justice and credibility for competence-recognizing criteria. This system of college entrance examination that has been regarded as the most justified is being invaded by corruption. On one hand, expansion of education scale and year-by-year increase of examinees and admission quota of colleges and universities surely result in more difficulties in organization and monitoring of the examination. On the other hand, cheating in examination has become a "prevailed and scale" scenario in some regions because of placing undue emphasis on the proportion of the graduates who are admitted to schools of a higher level and being driven by economic benefits, strongly challenging educational justice and reform at present.

2. Significant Tuition Increase Triggered Strong Social Repercussion

Though more young people get access to colleges and universities thanks to admission expansion, uninterrupted tuition increase once again alarms the educational justice.
According to statistics, colleges and universities nationwide markedly raise tuition fee for students in 2000. The tuition fee is increased from last year's 3,000 yuan per year to this year's 4,500 yuan, increasing by an average of 1,500 yuan. Colleges and universities in Beijing raise tuition fee by 20% this year in line with a document issued by Beijing Municipal Pricing Administration together with Beijing Municipal Bureau of Finance and Beijing Municipal Education Committee. Tuition fee is classified into six grades ranging from RMB4, 200 to RMB6, 000 per year according to ranks of colleges and universities and popularity of subjects. In Shanghai, it ranges from RMB5, 000 to RMB6, 500. In Guangdong Province, average tuition is elevated by 20% for liberal art programs, 43% for science and engineering programs and 20% for those colleges and universities that had been accepted into "Program 211". In 2000, many teacher's colleges and universities begins to collect tuition fee from students studying for a future career of teaching. East China Normal University equals tuition fee to RMB5, 000 pre year for both students studying for a future career of teaching and those not studying for a future career of teaching.

Whether such tuition addition has theoretical and policy bases and is divorced from reality in China? Some investigations show that most of student's parents think that this price is unacceptable. According to an investigation made by SSIC among 1,000 student's parents in Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong, 38% thought the acceptable tuition is under RMB2, 000 per year, 46% preferred RMB2, 001~4,000 per year. That is to say, 84% of student's parents think that the tuition of RMB4, 500 per year is not acceptable. Other investigations indicate that 25% of the interviewees with monthly income of some RMB3, 000 believe that tuition of RMB4, 001~6,000 per school year is more acceptable. Being a population group with medium income in large cities, they are rich people in towns and rural areas (Beijing Youth Daily, August 27 2000). A public opinion poll conducted in Guangzhou reveals that nearly 70% of student's parents believe that the college tuition over RMB4,000 per year is higher and other 30% think that it is OK. Only less than 10% of the interviewees answer "completely acceptable", most of others select "just acceptable" and few of them select "completely unacceptable". This poll suggests that the acceptable average annual tuition is RMB3,400 (Southern Capitals Daily, August 29, 2000). In accordance with the statistics on average income per capita in 1999, the lowest annual tuition of RMB4,200 this year is 72% of average annual income of city residents (RMB5,854) and 190% of that of rural residents (RMB2,210). Together with such actual expenditures as accommodation, food and textbook, the annual expenditure of a college student will exceed total annual income of a city resident and two rural residents. Such an expensive tuition means a heavy burden for not only poor families but also average families.

Furthermore, many colleges and universities offer seats to "tuition-negotiable" students getting scores fewer than the nominative requirements by charging them additional tuition of RMB tens of thousands. Many colleges and universities have priced the disciplinary migration, which is usually RMB tens of thousands. These are of no doubt driving factors for educational corruption.

Higher education, as a quasi-public product, benefits both individuals and society. Nowadays the idea that cost of higher education should be shared by both government and individuals has been commonly accepted. However, it needs detailed studies to determine proper proportion of tuition of higher education paid by individuals. In developed countries, higher education is either completely supported by governments or provided at lower cost. Higher education is almost free of charge in Scandinavian states and EU states. The public colleges and universities in France only collect small volume of registration fee. Furthermore, higher education in East European countries is not or very low charged. In Canada, higher education is charged low but greatly supported by the government. That is to say, higher education in Canada is run and enjoyed by all people. In US, though public colleges and universities charge for tuition fee, the annual fee is only 11.8% of the per capita annual income. In such a scenario, charges for higher education in China are too high.

Orienting to increase of college tuition all over China and phenomena of high charge, unauthorized charges and even "alternative" charging policies in some regions, the Ministry of Education promulgated a charge criteria: annual college tuition shall be only 25% of a school's annual operation cost, annual accommodation fee per student be RMB800~1,000, charging by different standards for students of the same major at the same grade be forbidden and the "alternative" scenario be prohibited. The real problem is that there is no sole standard for calculation and verification of cost for training a college student. Colleges and universities are likely to evaluate the cost higher and all of them declare that their charges are not higher than the so required 25%. Some researchers point out that colleges and universities, as non-profit-making institutions, should not include expenditures for purchasing equipment and constructing buildings into the cost for talent cultivation.

In order to help poor students complete their college study, the study-aid loan discounted by government has been implemented all over China this year, which features no guarantee, simplified procedures and lowered threshold, and allows payback of principal and interest within four years after graduation. Therefore, the loan is welcomed by all college students. However, provisions concerned regulate that only students in colleges and universities attached to various departments and commissions of central government are eligible for such discounted loan. More poor students in local and private colleges and universities are not offered the access to such loan. In addition, banks worry that there are some risks for taking back the loan because of absence of a nationwide network of credit system.

3. Injustice in Educational System and Policies

People have made and are making full-range review and exploration on current college entrance examination and educational system in addition to cases of cheating in college entrance examination to seek a more impartial educational system.

1) Regional differences in admission threshold: The current uniform college entrance examination is impartial in form ? people are equal in front of score. However, determination of the admission threshold in various provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions is based on their respective plans of admission. Meanwhile, plans of admission in provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions are formulated according to principle of giving priority to urban-residence examinees that had been formed under planned economy other than average distribution of examinees. As a result, significant differences in admission threshold among different regions exist, further worsening city-countryside educational imbalance. For example, in 1999, the admission threshold in Hubei and Hunan set for science and engineering programs launched by key universities is respectively 106 points and 77 points higher than in Beijing; that for liberal art programs, 78 points and 90 points respectively.

2) Recommendation of excellent graduates and conferring of "three good" and "specially-skilled" students: Disclosure of case of graduate recommendation in Longhui County's First Middle School in Hunan Province evokes people's introspection on system of graduate recommendation and specially-skilled student conferring. The former access to colleges and universities offered to excellent students is becoming a shortcut of cheating and dark-box manipulation for some people with power in this social environment with some severe corruptions. Addition of comprehensive examination for referrals seems useless for effective prevention against such situation. Therefore, many experts, parents and students call for canceling this system. Heilongjiang Province is the first to cancel it. Another similar system is to add scores for those graduates once entitled as province- or prefecture-level "three good" students, excellent student cadres and specially-skilled students etc. In fact, cheating in graduate recommendation is usually implemented in conferring of these titles to some students. Educational corruption is seriously contradictory to intrinsic intents of this policy, which are to teach students in accordance with their aptitude, prevent "one examination deciding one's whole life" and expand autonomy of colleges and universities in admission. These make us realize the severity of moral crisis as well as particularity and necessity for conducting educational reform in such an environment.

3) Computerized sortilege in upgrade of primary school graduates to junior middle schools: In order to propel competence education, alleviate competition for going to higher schools and reduce student's study burden, the entrance examination for junior middle school has been canceled in large- and medium-sized cities and no junior middle school programs are offered in key middle schools. In Beijing and Shanghai, computers are used (computerized lots drawing) to determine which junior middle school a primary school graduate should study in. It is of no doubt that this policy is of good original intention hoping to gradually bridge gap between key schools and disadvantageous schools and maintain fairness in compulsory education. However, the reality is that gap among schools is still marked. For the purpose of avoiding being randomly allocated to disadvantageous schools and enjoying better education, parents are comparing their power, social background and money after disappearance of score competition. Those schools with higher quality charge high in names of joint construction and financial support etc. As disclosed by some parents, in Beijing, the financial support is respectively RMB50,000, RMB40,000 and RMB30,000 for class I, class II and some other schools. For those "public-run & private-supported" schools, this figure is even higher (China Youth Daily, July 17, 2000). This means that expenditure of one student for going to study in such a junior middle school is higher than that for going to study in a university. As the government strictly limits conferring of private schooling license and emphasizes schools "should not be profit-oriented", those public schools enjoying advantages in resources are openly making great profits and become profit-making master-hands. Their purpose of schooling changes obviously. These are regrets for people who are longing for fairness of education.

4. Increasing Severity of Educational and Academic Corruptions

Education field, as the origin of social morality, should be a piece of pure land. Meanwhile, it is of great importance to rectify social morality and promote social civilization. Remarkable educational and academic corruptions nowadays exhibit as: 1) increasing cheating; 2) bureaucratic erosion and penetration into educational and academic fields.

False certificate and diploma has become a public hazard. According to one report, current number of in-service personnel holding false certificates and diplomas is as high as 500,000~60,000. In Xi'an, amongst 345 teachers registering for examination for a training class of peasant-teachers, 138 have false junior college certificates, or a proportion of 40% (China Youth Daily, November 15, 2000)!

In addition to open purchase of false college certificates and diplomas, there are other kinds of cheating. For instance, five academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences and four doctorate tutors such as Mr. Pu Fuge etc. jointly wrote a letter to Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, in which they disclosed the fact that a certain person called Chen, one of the 2000-cohort graduates of the mater program of Condensed State Physics launched by Department of Physics of Guangzhou Teacher's College (now it has been attached to Guangzhou University, abbreviated as "GTC" thereafter), had plagiarized most of academic results by other researchers in his thesis, and passed the thesis defense in spite of angry alarms. They are very sorry and angry for this and call on departments concerned to investigate and treat this behavior against scientific morality and defend honor of degree conferring system in China (Nanfang Daily, September 15, 2000).

Currently it is fairly serious that integration and cooperation between power and academic certificate and those between money and academic certificate are becoming more and more seamless, representing the so-called concepts of "man with power needing academic certificate" and "wealthy man needing academic certificate". Nowadays, entrance-examination-exempted postgraduate programs are "flourishing everywhere". From August to September, Beijing University itself had launched a dozen of such postgraduate programs in subjects such as Human Resource Management (Department of Psychology), Regional Economics (Department of City and Environmental Sciences) and Business Management (College of Economics) etc. Meanwhile, the university launched nearly 20 short-term postgraduate programs. Moreover, Beijing University also offered such postgraduate programs in Chongqing, Taiyuan and Guangzhou etc. Such programs result in unprecedented flourishing of "public-funded study". In some organizations, it is even declared that section chiefs can attend postgraduate courses and other cadres can only "get bachelor degree on basis of a junior college certificate". Many organizations have formulated respective preferential policies such as giving them time for study and reimbursing, wholly or partially, their expenses needed in study etc. (Beijing Evening Post, September 11. 2000) Some experts have put forward their doubt about this kind of program and believed that just short-term face-to-face teaching other than spending time several or dozens times more than full-time master candidates can not lead to academic level equivalent to their full-time peers. Such program is just like colorful packing of unqualified products and is a kind of cheating or cheating in disguised form. It is not strange at all that some officials get their degrees by seldom attending classes but asking other people to write dissertations for them. Compared with false certificate that has become a public hazard, this kind of real diploma is more dangerous because false components in the diploma are difficult to recognize. This will surely result in devaluation of certificate and diploma, educational and academic degradation, crumbling of teaching and studying styles and decrease of educational credibility, impairing not only education and academic research but also healthy development of society.

During a CPPCC meeting in this March, Wang Shouchang, a member of CPPCC, bitterly attacked various manifestations of academic corruptions: 1) whether in eligibility verification or in selection of tutor for doctoral and master programs or establishment of post-doctoral mobile station, non-academic activities are conducted more or less openly before the evaluation begins. The activities include doorto gift presentation and so-called inviting experts to give lectures, spending large volume of money. 2) People with power can publish books by using public funds to get awards, academic titles, eligibility as doctorate advisors and even various honorary titles. 3) In some regions, some people "sell" their works and articles to those people who want to promote their academic titles and degrees. Since power can optionally go beyond and intervene academic activities, and power equals to academic position, research funds and achievements, it is not strange that researchers and academicians are hurrying into "official circle". This will surely result in significant downslide of academic level in China (Xinhua News Agency, March 5, 2000).}