Colorful years

During the turbulent and unsettling Cultural Revolution, the entire society was swept up in a massive wave of change.

One of the areas most significantly affected is the education system, particularly the higher education admissions system, which has undergone a dramatic transformation.

The political environment at the time was complex and rife with intense clashes of ideologies and power struggles. At the same time, the education system inevitably became part of this political storm.

Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it no longer focuses solely on the transmission of knowledge and the cultivation of talent, but rather on carrying out its work closely around the needs of political movements.

Therefore, in order to achieve the grand goal of enabling workers, peasants, soldiers and other grassroots people to enjoy higher education opportunities, a policy of epoch-making significance was born - that is, "recommendation of workers, peasants and soldiers to go to university".

This policy was like a lightning bolt that shattered the previously peaceful educational landscape, completely overturning the traditional model of using exam scores as the sole selection criterion.

According to this policy, each grassroots unit has the right to recommend workers, peasants, soldiers, and other grassroots people within its unit who meet specific conditions to pursue further studies at universities.

These recommended candidates do not need to take a rigorous entrance exam; they only need to go through layers of screening and review by their respective units to obtain a valuable ticket to enter the university.

Such measures have undoubtedly broken the long-standing monopoly of higher education resources by a small number of intellectuals, opening a door of hope to the halls of knowledge for those from impoverished backgrounds who harbor dreams.

Many of them finally had the opportunity to escape from heavy physical labor, enter spacious and bright classrooms, and touch the pulse of science and culture with their own hands.

However, like everything else, this policy, while bringing positive effects, has inevitably also caused a series of problems.

First, the lack of a unified, standardized, and rigorous assessment mechanism has led to significant fluctuations in the quality of education. Sometimes, students recommended for university have weak foundational knowledge and struggle to keep up with the pace of university courses.

Secondly, due to the overemphasis on political background and class status, the importance attached to academic ability and professional competence is relatively insufficient, resulting in a decline in the overall academic level.

Furthermore, due to limited recommendation slots and interference from human factors, the principle of fairness has not been fully guaranteed in practice.

Deep in his heart, Congcong deeply understood that adopting the grassroots recommendation model to allow workers, peasants, and soldiers to study on university campuses undoubtedly provided children from impoverished families with a valuable opportunity to receive a fair education, especially higher education. Such a measure was of great significance and deserved full recognition and praise.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that, due to the limitations of historical conditions and the complex and diverse nature of human beings, any policy will have both advantages and disadvantages in the actual implementation process, and it is almost impossible to achieve perfection.

For example, when the imperial examination system was first established in ancient China, its original intention was indeed to open up a path for students from poor families to obtain official titles and enter the government through hard work.

However, as time went on, some problems gradually emerged. Due to the uneven distribution of basic education resources among different regions, many children from impoverished families were unable to receive a good basic education;

Furthermore, powerful and aristocratic families secretly manipulated the examination process and talent selection power of the Imperial Examination Hall, using various means to seek personal gain and engage in fraud. As a result, despite the existence of the imperial examination as a seemingly fair path to upward mobility, very few students from humble backgrounds were actually able to successfully pass the examination and achieve academic success.

The college entrance examination system can be seen, to some extent, as an upgraded version of the imperial examination system. However, even after a long period of implementation and improvement, it still cannot completely get rid of the various drawbacks left over from the imperial examination system.

As the college entrance examination system has been in place for an extended period, some of the problems it has brought about have gradually surfaced. Among the most prominent of these are the increasing rigidity of social classes and the growing unfairness in the distribution of educational resources.

Under this system, students from different social backgrounds and with significantly different economic conditions often find it difficult to obtain equal opportunities to compete.

Families with more resources and advantages can provide their children with better learning environments, extracurricular tutoring, and other support, thereby increasing their competitiveness in the college entrance examination; while relatively poor or disadvantaged families may be at a disadvantage due to the lack of these necessary conditions.

So, is there a more scientific and reasonable way to select talent? Congcong firmly believes the answer is yes. However, because it involves the vested interests of powerful groups and those with vested interests, they obstruct new reform plans in every way and are unwilling to easily make changes or try them.

These people are afraid of losing their existing privileges and advantageous status, so they do their best to maintain the current college entrance examination system, even though they know that it has many flaws and shortcomings.