Hero's college admission sparks debate

• Source: Global Times
• [10:12 July 15 2010]
• Comments

By Chen Xiaoru

The recent admission of a student by Jiao Tong University without asking him to sit an entrance exam due to his status as a "Good Youth" in the Sichuan Earthquake has once again sparked debate about the policy to give preferential treatment to Sichuan Earthquake heroes.

Li Yang, who was hailed as a hero for holding the drip feed of a classmate who was trapped in rubble and awaiting rescue in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, was admitted to Jiao Tong University without sitting the entrance exam, China Youth Daily reported Wednesday.

The news was soon picked up by online news portals and received over 1,000 posts from users of popular portal 163. com, over half of which said the admission was unreasonable.

"It's not fair. Higher education is still a scarce resource in China. A lot of students work hard for more than a decade to get into universities, and especially those good ones. But Li just held a bottle for several hours and got admitted," said one forum poster on 163.com.

Li and 49 others who joined in the disaster relief work were given the titles of either "Good Youth in Quake Relief" or "Little Hero in Quake Relief" in 2008 by the Ministry of Education. Four of them were soon sent to prestigious universities, such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, without sitting the entrance exam.

Xiong Binqi, a professor from Jiao Tong University, told the Global Times that the university is following the orders of the Ministry of Education.

"Universities are given the right by the Ministry of Education to admit those little heroes without examinations, and thus it is proper and legal for Jiao Tong University to do that," said Xiong.

However, some students support Li.

"Everyone can learn from books, but not all are morally respectable. We should give him a chance," said Fan You, a Shanghai student who took the college entrance exam this year.