The annual ordeal for high-school graduates, known as the national college entrance examination (gaokao), was played out on a grand scale this past week.

It is a ritual that dates back 1,500 years or so - a truly Chinese record that is in no danger of being topped by any other country.

It is supposed to be a level playing field where almost 10 million teenagers this year vie for what is basically a certificate of being better than half the population their age.

The odds have been increasing in the past three decades. When I sat for it back in 1978, the enrolment ratio for my school was maybe 1 in 50 or so. That should have made me feel like a smarty. But I didn't.

Many of my classmates who, I was sure, were smarter failed or got into less sought-after schools. As a result, our roads diverged but, thanks to a spurt of entrepreneurship made possible by the reform policies, some of them came out ahead despite lacking "proper" credentials.

What I mean to say is, this system of selecting the brightest for the institution of "proud sons of heaven" is at best a loophole-ridden sieve that often fails to separate wheat from the chaff and at worst a smothering bag for real talent.

It depends heavily on memorization of cut-and-dried snippets of textbook knowledge that most youngsters tend to gobble up without chewing and tasting. If anything, it is a fertile ground for conformity.

And if you've paid attention to reports of migrating exam-takers, you would know that the game is rigged in favour of big cities. Most colleges and universities - and the best - are located in metropolitan areas and enrol a disproportionate number of local students.

With the exception of the hinterland ethnic minorities, someone living in a poorer province has less chance of squeezing into the same school as someone from a richer one, given they score the same. In other words, kids in resource-deficient areas are not compensated for the state's inadequate investment in education, but are penalized for it.

It may sound paradoxical, but I'm not for abolishing the gaokao system. For all its quirks and partiality, it is one of the few mechanisms of meritocracy that we have.

And they are improving on it. For example, unconventional essays for the writing part of the language test no longer fall through cracks automatically. Some are even commended for originality. And now, even the topics are open-ended.

We can freely admit we hate gaokao, but do we have something better to replace it? What about a face-to-face interview, which should enable recruiters to gauge more accurately the potential of applicants, especially their EQs?

But sadly, it will also open a floodgate of corruption as impressions are more malleable than gaokao scores. Do you think that, given the same level of aptitude, someone with no social connections and no financial recourse will get the same treatment as someone whose parents can pull a few strings?

All the bad things you hear about gaokao are very true, and I can add some more to the list. But it's also a system that some brilliant kids from ordinary family background are able to break through.

Fortunately, there are now more channels for success than the "lone-plank bridge" of college education. Education can take a variety of forms, and being force-fed textbook golden rules are not necessarily the ideal for everyone. The world is full of people who fell off the plank and ended up in the sea of self-achievement.

Unfortunately, we still have this tradition of extolling gaokao scores and ranking people by the schools they are accepted into. Shouldn't we be eulogizing those who have made it big without going to the "brand-name schools," or even obtaining a college diploma? They are the ones who possess so much street smarts that they are then processed into theories by business school professors.

Complaints aside, I want to say to all the gaokao students: if you achieve a high score and get admitted into the school of your choice, my congratulations; but if you don't live up to your parents' expectation in a one-size-fits-all test, it doesn't mean you're a failure. There are so many things about you that gaokao cannot test, and you may well excel without participating in a flawed educational structure.

E-mail: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/10/2006 page4)