The story of Fang Zhongyong, written more than 1,000 years ago by Chinese writer Wang An'shi, has served as a ringing reminder for educators at the School of the Gifted Young at the University of Science and Technology of China.

Wang's fable tells of a 5-year-old boy named Fang Zhongyong who showed surprising talent for poetry. But his father, instead of providing for the boy's education, exploited his son's talent and popularity to make a buck. Eventually, the boy lost his talent. The fable teaches young people to concentrate on their studies instead of relying on their innate abilities.

But educators at the school have used the story as a source of motivation. For the past 30 years, the school has made it a point of reforming its teaching methods and especially its admissions requirements to allow students to gain early admission to the school.

"For three decades, the School of the Gifted Young at the University of Science and Technology of China has been the testing ground for experiments in early college admission in China and we have never stopped reforming (our methods)," said Chen Yang, executive dean of the School of the Gifted Young.

Early testing ground

In 1974, Tsung-Dao Lee, the Nobel Prize winner in physics, wrote a proposal suggesting to the central government that it select gifted young people to receive a college education. 

"When the 'cultural revolution' (1966-76) ended, China was in full-blown crisis, out of which the most severe crisis was the suspension of the development of youths - except for the cultivation of ballet dancers and table tennis players," Lee wrote in a letter published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006.

Inspired by the way ballet dancers trained, Li advised the government to select talented youths around the age of 13 to enroll in college to train to become scientists.

The idea worked. By 2013, of the 2,700 students that have graduated from the School of the Gifted Young, 91 percent have gone abroad for postgraduate studies; 210 are college professors; four are serving as academicians at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in the United States, six are American Physical Society fellows and two are US National Academy of Sciences fellows.

"In recent years, there has been lots of criticism that gaokao (China's highly competitive college entrance exam) has destroyed creativity. The reason that students from the School of the Gifted Young have higher achievements in the sciences might be that they did not stay in high school for such a long time. They didn't repeatedly do exercises that they were already good at," said Chen Yang, the executive dean.

"Students are given the chance to have access to real scientific research at an age when they are still too curious to think about the boring side of doing science. They are so obsessed with the magic of science that they make persistent efforts in research," he said.

Keep reforming

To encourage students to freely explore the sciences, the school set some precedents in China's education reform.

In 1987, the School of the Gifted Young pioneered independent recruitment. Instead of simply ranking applicants by their gaokao scores, the school put more value in their interviews as the main determinant in admissions.

"From the interview, the professors are able to see the applicants' willingness to engage in scientific research," said Chen.

The applicants' gaokao score, as a minor criterion, gave recruiters a reference to decide whether the student was prepared for the university.

Today, gaokao scores are still the only criterion for admission in most colleges in China, except for a few independent recruitment programs that began in 2003.

The school also initiated what it called "liberal education" in 1987 in which students spend their first two years on fundamental learning and the other two years on professional knowledge. The program was widely adopted by Chinese universities after 2000.

During the late 1990s, the school piloted mentorship programs where prestigious scholars were invited to provide guidance for students.

"The mentorship programs bring personalization into education. The students are encouraged to choose their mentor according to their research interests and progress," Chen said.

But in recent years, as the education system in China has evolved, the school has faced new challenges.

"Parents and society have more diverse needs now. And students don't just want to become young scientists. They want to become a young businessman or a young politician," Chen said.

"The idea of education has changed a lot. In the past, we were educating scientists, but now we are making changes bit by bit, from our admission criteria to the mentors we recommend to students."

chengyingqi@chinadaily.com.cn

ChinaDaily 2013-11-28