Unfairness of the Favorable Scoring

¶ … Unfairness of the Favorable Scoring Policy in National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in Today's China

The college entrance examination, most commonly the Chinese SAT, is the primary determinant of academic options in china. Reliance on it places a considerable burden on students and often unfairly limits personal vocational and career autonomy. determining influence on an examinee's life and great public concern. Instead, ethical application of standardized educational testing must be used to help elevate the status of those whose life circumstances all but ensures continued lack of educational opportunity in large segments of the population.

Selective grading criteria have aroused great attention in social and educational circle since their first use in the 1950s. Critics suggested that the misuse of educational testing policies has already hampered the "quality education" development and violated the principle of "Equality in education." Mainstream news reports such as one titled "China's top university denies place to a student over ethnicity lies" shocked many people when they were broadcast. He Chuan yang, a top student in Nankai High School with 659 scores in NCEE was denied the admission to Peking University over a cheating scandals in which his father was accused of altering identity information to take advantage of grading criteria for various ethnicities. The father involved was head of local county education office and that only increased the subsequent criticism of the "Mark Adding Policy."

Equality in education has long been considered one of the fundamental principles of equality of opportunity. But the interest of ensuring equal opportunity can justify weighted grading along the reasoning that "so long as individuals are afforded equal opportunities to obtain an education, inequalities in educational results are morally permissible"(Howe, 1994: 2001) .In principle, the favorable scoring policy undoubtedly provides more equal access to opportunities to many truly outstanding high school graduates. However, on the other hand, it may also be susceptible to misuse in ways that provide undeserved unfair privileges to those students who fraudulently manipulate the system in ways that violate social justice and fairness and challenge ethnic and moral values of Chinese people.

A general overview of the NCEE in China must include consideration of the Favorable Scoring Policy, its historical development and modern format. That review discloses seven major problems associated with the favorable scoring policy and describes five specific unfair outcomes that result. Those issues suggest various strategic changes and policies necessary for resolving the ethical and other social negative outcomes.

Review of Literature

A general overview of academic papers analyzing the preferential scoring policy is provided by Lu Jingshan (2006) which examines the concept of "Non-extra-mark examinees "or "Naked examinees." The author asks what the non-extra-mark examinees really needs and stresses that the naked examinees (disadvantaged groups) need systemic educational equality and not just preferential scoring in measurement after the fact. Dongping (2006) echoes that observation.

Generally, most of the available literature concerns whether or not the policy should be abolished. Yuan Haijun and other scholars acknowledge the problems associated with the Favorable Scoring Policy in its current format but support its underlying policy rationale. Much research has been devoted to identifying the root causes of any unfairness inherent in the Favorable Scoring Policy. Xiong Bingqi (2008) concludes that the problems associated with the policy are not inevitable or caused directly by its implementation. Rather, they represent illegal abuse of the system or of official authority. According to Wang Kequn (2006), the equality and fairness of NCEE have been damaged by the "seedbed" of a corruption channel within Favorable Scoring Policy mechanisms. Kequn argues for the eradication of abuse instead of for abolishing a worthwhile policy concept.