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The MOE held a press conference on October 16 to introduce two documents jointly released by the General Offices of CPC Central Committee and the State Council, entitled, Opinions on Enhancing and Improving Physical Education in Schools in the New Era and the Opinions on Enhancing and Improving Aesthetic Education in Schools in the New Era. Wang Dengfeng, Director-General of the MOE’s Department of Physical, Health and Arts Education, Fan Di’an, President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Chair of China Artists Association, Chen Peijie, President of Shanghai University of Sport and Deputy Director of the National Higher Education Steering Committee for Physical Education Teaching, attended the conference, while MOE spokesperson Xu Mei served as moderator.
Wang stated that, as explained in the documents, it was imperative to put physical and aesthetic education high on the agenda of local governments, encourage social support to physical and aesthetic education in schools, and make the quality of physical and aesthetic education in schools and the physical health, sport skills as well as humanistic and aesthetic sensibility of students part of the assessment of educational development and the performance evaluation of local governments.
Wang said that, these documents gave more weight to physical education in high school entrance exams, increasing its visibility and impact in assessing students’ performance. The required scores on the PE test would be gradually raised to the same level as those of Chinese, Mathematics and English on high school entrance exams. To date, there was only one province, Yunnan, that had given PE classes the same weight as academic subjects on high school entrance exams. Building on such practices and experiences learnt, research would be conducted soon on quantifying the emphasis on PE test in college admission. He also said that, aesthetic assessment had been included into the general standards for high school enrolment and would be promoted on a pilot basis to cover the whole country by 2022.
According to Wang, 4 provinces had made test results of art subjects part of the scoring system for high school entrance exams, while another 6 provinces and 12 municipalities had started to incorporate student performance in art subjects into the scoring system of high school admission using a 10-40 point grading scale. As the pilot efforts of Yunnan had proved very useful, all the other provincial regions were urged to add tests of students’ aesthetic abilities to the high school entrance exams by 2022. In addition, assurance measures would be put in place, including risk management and accidental injury insurance covering on-campus physical exercises and art activities, secured funding, and larger publicity efforts.