College entrance exams should be unified as part of a streamlined university application process, civil groups said yesterday.
Representatives of the Alliance on Obligatory Education, National Alliance of Parents Organization and several municipal parents’ associations gathered outside the Ministry of Education to protest what they called an overly complicated admissions system that sacrifices students’ interests.
Alliance on Obligatory Education convener Wang Li-sheng (王立昇) said that the six-month admissions cycle prevents students from focusing on regular coursework during their final year of high school as they prepare for two rounds of standardized testing.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Wang said that the interests of students from disadvantaged backgrounds are particularly harmed because their families cannot afford to pay for the counseling and support needed to effectively strategize a course through the complicated three-phase process.
University admissions occur in three rounds, beginning with school recommendations, followed by an individual application process and a final round based on test scores. Students are subjected to a round of standardized testing before the individual application process, with a separate test in the final round.
Wang said that the high percentage of students being admitted through the individual application process disadvantages students from poorer backgrounds, because they get less opportunity to acquire the experience and communication skills needed to excel in the crucial interview phase.
The groups called on the Ministry of Education to conduct the three admission phases simultaneously, unifying standardized testing into a single round, while giving students greater flexibility to choose the subjects they are to be tested on.
The portion of students admitted based directly on test results should also be doubled to more than 60 percent, the groups said.
Other demands included a call for the ministry to speed up reform implementation, while making provisions for the admission of gifted or disadvantaged students, such as adding points to disadvantaged students’ test scores.
The groups also called for universities to establish a centralized admissions offices and standardize the interview process across departments.
Ministry of Education official Huang Wen-ling (黃雯玲), head of the Department of Higher Education, said that the ministry has already made a preliminary decision to unify the two rounds of standardized testing, adding that the current process has negatively affected the quality of students’ education during their final year of high school.
Huang said that changes will likely not be implemented until 2021, with most details as yet undetermined.
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