A top university in northwest China has scrapped English tests as a prerequisite for graduation, rekindling a heated debate about the role of the world’s lingua franca in the country’s education system after years of rising nationalist sentiment under leader Xi Jinping.
In a notice Wednesday, the Xi’an Jiaotong University in the capital city of Shaanxi province said students will no longer need to pass a nationwide standardized English test – nor any other English exams – to be able to graduate with bachelor’s degrees.
The announcement caused a stir on social media, with many praising the decision and calling for more universities to do the same.
“Very good. I hope other universities will follow suit. It’s ridiculous that Chinese people’s academic degrees need to be validated by a foreign language (test),” said a comment with more than 24,000 likes on microblogging site Weibo, where a related hashtag attracted more than 350 million views Thursday.
Passing the College English Test, a national standardized exam first held in 1987, has been a graduation requirement at the majority of Chinese universities for decades – although the government has never made it an official policy.
The common practice underlined the importance Chinese universities placed on English – the world’s predominant academic and scientific language – especially when the once-insular and impoverished country was opening up and eager to catch up with the developed world after the turbulence of the Mao Zedong era.
But in recent years, some universities have downgraded the importance of English, either by replacing the national College English Test with their own exams or – as in the case of the Xi’an Jiaotong University – dropping English qualifications altogether as a graduation criteria.
perhaps you cannot even imagine what that is, which is exactly my point… you have suffered under a repressive regime, and are unaware of its effects on you and your loved ones… it’s very sad to see from the outside…
the Chinese people have always been wise and strong… it’s unfortunate that their government is so weak and incapable… measures like this one at the University are always a sign of weakness…
and frankly it’s amazing you bring up German in this context… the entire world stopped learning to speak it precisely because they began behaving in this way… it became shameful to speak German… German speaking immigrants in the US wouldn’t allow their children to learn it at home… my own grandmother was one of them…
the Germans all speak very fluent English now, like everyone else…
and England and the US remain open countries…
hi Canada and Australia we love you too
I have suffered under a repressive regime? You mean the USA? It is very sad to see indeed, but not in the way you think. I’ve got news for you: a lot of people around the world are tired of the USA’s shit but you don’t notice because you don’t think you’re affected by the USA’s repressive global world order. In fact, you probably don’t even think it exists and that the USA only stands for truth, justice, and democracy.