Who Benefits from Chinese Minority Bonus-point Policy of College Entrance Examination

• In Event: UREAG Global Village Panel 2

Proposal

Objectives/Purposes
The additional score policy for college entrance examination, is an important supplement to the unified examination system, that has been a matter of discussion for people all walks of society in China (Shaw, 2015; Park, 2013). The bonus points is a preferential policy that is awarded to students from the disadvantage groups, purpose is to close the gap in the education attainment, which is the result historical inequality (Woock, 1988; Breneman and Astin, 1982). The Bonus Point policy helps minority students in their college entrance examinations. This is based on the care system which is specifically for students who identify to be minorities, originate from border areas, and rural/remote (mountain and pastoral) areas. This policy has certainly helped students from minority backgrounds which has made way for remarkable results for the past years (Kurzweil and Martin, 2005). However, China's Bonus score policy for minority candidates is based on the premise that the economic foundation of ethnic minorities is poor and the education attainment level is not equal to the Han nationality. Therefore, compensation is given in the entrance examination for higher education. However, China's economic situation has changed tremendously in recent years, and ethnic minorities have gradually opened up large differences. There is also something called the “free rider” policy. Some members who have political, economic and cultural advantages enjoy preferential policies because of their special national identity. At the same time, geographical disparities and poverty have become important constraints to the development of education. In this social context, the policy-added points of the minority college entrance examination will impact ethnic minorities in the diaspora. This study attempts to analyze the effect of the minority college entrance examination scores for higher education opportunities for candidates with identities. The study includes a comparative analysis of the results of the college entrance examination and the scores of the Han nationality in the X province.

Perspectives
The study aims to find if there is reverse discrimination in the bonus points policy for college entrance examination. The Bonus point policy is a similingly fair policy, but critiques claim it is an unfair policy. For the Han candidates who live in the same area with minorities and receive the same education as that of the non-Han national candidates. The policy has raised questions about the admission process of Han candidates who were originally in a disadvantaged position in the past. This had led to unfair complaints in the new region. This problem also exists in other countries. For example, Affirmative action in the United States is a preferential policy for ethnic minorities, it has a positive effect on improving discrimination against African-American students (Killenbeck, 1999). Some people pointed out that affirmative action in the United States is more beneficial to African-American and Hispanic students, but Asian and white students are excluded. Compared with African-American students, even Asian students have a higher score but the chances of admission are much smaller(D'Souza,1992). At the same time, relying on affirmative action to improve the situation of minorities does not solve the problem fundamentally, and even brings emotional opposition to the mainstream group (Arcidiacono and Peter, 2005). If there are some adjustments or cancellations in the relevant policies, will it have different effects on different students(Grodsky and Kurlaender, 2010).Therefore, this study hopes to obtain the opportunities and academic achievements of higher education under the dual influence of minority students and Han students in the college entrance examination policy and the college entrance examination admission rules.

Methods and Data Source
This study used a quantitative research method. The college entrance examination results and admission colleges of students in X province from 2009 to 2015 is used as data. According to the ethnic group, the students are classified into Han, Zhuang, and other ethnic minorities. According to the type of the region and the extra points, the students are further divided into three categories: enjoying national bonus points, enjoying local bonus points, and not enjoying extra points. Taking time to make vertical comparisons, we can dynamically compare the benefits of minority policy-based bonus points to different groups. At the same time, the implementation of the 2015 college entrance examination points adjustment policy as a demarcation point, the performance and admission of students of different status in 2015 and prior to 2015.

Results
The preliminary results of the quantitative survey show that: (1) The influence of minority policy-related extra points on different groups is quite different. The policy-added points of ethnic minorities bring greater benefits to urban minority students, the benefits sometimes, exceed Han students; but the benefits to minority students in poverty-stricken areas are much smaller, and even more points cannot make up for the growing gap between regional education. (2) There are huge differences within minority groups. The Zhuang nationality, the five ethnic minorities living in the five urban areas and the ethnic minorities outside the five urban areas have different policy points, which bring different benefits to the ethnic minorities. In addition, the Zhuang people in the ordinary county have become weak and neglected groups in the policy. (3) Since the Ministry of Education introduced the reduction and standardization of the relevant documents for the college entrance examination in December 2014, the admission of non-provincial colleges and universities in 2015 does not recognize local bonus points, which is accepted for Han candidates who have benefited from the local bonus policy. Both acceptance rate and Performance rate have negative impact. The results show that the minority candidates who really need to take care of the minority have not obtained much benefit from the minority bonus point policy. The Han students from remote areas are the ones who benefits from the Bonus point policy, this is in contrast to the poor students from remote area. At the same time, because the education gap between urban and rural areas is one of the important reasons for the education gap, the Han nationality in minority areas, especially in poverty-stricken areas, has become a vulnerable group.

Authors

• Kunfeng Pan, Renmin University of China

• Wenfan Yan, University of Massachusetts Boston