Although higher education institutions have been given the right to recruit 5 percent of students outside of the college entrance exam, the implementation of this policy has generated enormous corruption in the recruiting process due to the lack of transparent and fair procedures. Some universities have taken the initiative to give up the 5 percent recruitment out of concern for their reputation.

Failure to guarantee the fairness of the process has fueled a call to withdraw universities' rights to recruit outside of the college entrance exam.

My opinion is that we should not terminate our trial because of new concerns otherwise we would never achieve progress in reforming the system. The correct attitude is to stimulate reform with reform. To be exact, to ensure the fairness of the out-of-exam recruitment, third-party representatives, which could include students' parents, the media, teachers and education authorities, could be invited to take part in open recruiting procedures. If this could be achieved, abuse of power could be avoided. There would be no reason for worry even if universities could totally recruit outside of the college entrance exam.

A student's right of choice is respected around the world. China has put forward a people-oriented governing principle, which should be interpreted by a student-oriented management approach in schools and universities.

Under the current recruitment schemes, prestigious universities without exception mainly consider admitting students that consider them as the first choice, which means if a student fails to be recruited by the university of his or her first choice, they stand only a slim chance of going to a prestigious university. This system has created the phenomenon that some students with good scores in their college entrance exams fail to be recruited by any university.

In terms of major selection, in order to make sure that their ideal university can recruit them, most students fill the column asking whether they agree to be transmitted to another discipline with the answer yes. However, since competition in some disciplines of prestigious universities is fierce, a large proportion of students will be switched to other disciplines eventually.

There is a survey that says about 40 percent of university students don't like their major. Besides faulty curriculum designing and irresponsible professors, another important reason is that many students did not choose their major in the first place.

I think only the materialization of a right to choose for students can stimulate universities to improve their services for excellent recruits. A noticeable change in the last few years is that universities from Hong Kong, which were given the right to recruit high school graduates from the mainland years ago, are competing with top universities on the mainland for top graduates. In view of this situation, Peking University and Tsinghua University have upgraded their services by outlining academic paths and providing handsome scholarships for outstanding students they recruit. This was hardly imaginable several years ago.

In the phase of the planned economy, the government basically covered individuals' university education expenses. In some sense, going to college was a privilege granted by the state. However, in the current market economy the tuition fee is paid by individual families and the recruitment rate had risen from less than 5 percent to over 50 percent. Under such circumstances, students absolutely are entitled to the right to choose rather than quotas based on state plans created under the planned economy. I think this could be an important institutional disadvantage underlying China's backward higher education.

You suggest using the tool of comprehensive evaluation in recruiting. However, many people worry that it is too subjective and could cause unfairness in implementation. What is your comment?

Comprehensive evaluation of college applicants is one of the best parts of foreign higher education institution systems. However, China is still largely a society dominated by personalized networks of influence while the construction of a society of integrity and rule by law is still underway. In view of this, in our reform plan we suggest that comprehensive evaluation should be used as a recruitment reference rather than a decisive standard.

What is the ultimate goal of college entrance exam reform?

The ideal situation is that colleges and universities can flexibly recruit based on a national entrance exam. That is to say, they should not use one standard to measure all applicants and should give students of different situations more choices.