(LI SHIGONG)

In late October, the Ministries of Education and General Administration of Sport of China jointly issued a document, asserting the importance of physical education (P.E.) in middle schools, and proposing the inclusion of P.E. in the Gaokao, or China's college entrance examination.

It is a fact that health conditions among Chinese youth have been declining in recent years, ranging from poor vision to obesity. In 2011, only 10 percent of Beijing's senior middle school students met the P.E. qualification level for overall health. This is an alarmingly low rate for the young people.

How to reverse this situation? The authorities' standing point is to urge senior middle school students to undergo physical exercise by making P.E. a Gaokao subject.

During the annual "two sessions"—National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, this March, there were already proposals that P.E. should be treated equally with Chinese language, English, mathematics and other Gaokao subjects. This time, the proposal is more specific.

While some people support the idea as an effective method to strengthen students' health and well-being, others argue that a P.E. entrance exam would merely add to students' heavy schoolwork burden.

Conducive to better health

Wu Guoping (www.hangzhou.com.cn): It's a great idea to internalize P.E. into the Gaokao. It will urge some schools that do not care so much about students' overall development, particularly their health situation, to pay more attention to their sports activities. Today, schools tend to overemphasize the importance of academic work, and even ignore students' health conditions. Without good health, how can students perform well in academic work?

In the middle school I work for, it's no problem if P.E. is made a Gaokao subject. Every year, freshmen graduating from our school perform well in physical tests done by the provincial education system. We require that students have at least one hour per day for physical exercises. P.E. classes and morning exercises are part of our routine. Apart from students' sports meetings, teaching staff's sports meetings are also more often held for teachers and the school staff. As a result, the whole school is warming up to a more active lifestyle.

Liu Jin (Nanfang Daily): If P.E. is made a Gaokao subject, it will help to improve students' physical condition very quickly. We have already had such examples. After P.E. is internalized into examinations for senior middle schools, health of junior middle school students improves very quickly. However, we know that to make P.E. a Gaokao item is a difficult decision. Still under the current education system, anything related to Gaokao is very much stressed, so once P.E. is directly linked to the test, schools will surely pay much more attention to it, and students themselves will also like to spend more time doing sports.

Liu Genping (Nanfang Daily): Some people think that to make P.E. a Gaokao subject is too interest-driven. However, we have to admit that after so many years of examination-oriented education, not only schools, but students are also becoming profit- and interest-driven. Students tend to spend more time on subjects that will be tested in the Gaokao and less time on subjects that will not. Thus, to make P.E. a Gaokao subject will not help to fundamentally improve students' physical condition in the long run. What students need is more time to do sports and build the habit of taking more physical exercises in daily life. If students are given more opportunities to get close to nature and to do sports outdoors, their academic performance will also naturally improve.

Education authorities hope to use examination as a leverage, to adjust the present situation and to direct people's attention toward P.E. Although it is not the perfect choice, at least it can remind some schools to pay more attention to P.E. and to students' physical condition.