26 March 2020
On 25 March, Huang Changyong, President of Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), was invited to attend the special online gathering of the Shanghai Book Fair - Power of Reading to interpret the post-epidemic admissions examination for art majors and online art education from a professional perspective.
In view of the special situation as a result of this year's COVID-19 epidemic, the Ministry of Education has recently made adjustments to this year's admissions examination for art majors, encouraging colleges and universities to take the way of examinees submitting portfolios and receiving online video interview etc, and to organize the on-site examination that must be carried out after the national college entrance examination (Gaokao). As one of the most important art universities in China, STA has always been a focus of attention concerning the admissions examination for art majors. As for the detailed new rules for this year's admissions examination for art majors, Huang Changyong said that the school would officially announce them in a few days. But on the whole, four majors, including playwriting, theatre education, radio and television directing, film and television photography and production, will be admitted directly according to the Gaokao scores this year. However, this year, the eight pure art majors, including theatre and film acting, musical acting, directing for theatre, film and television, broadcasting and hosting, Chinese dance, ballet, ballroom dance and choreographer, which have been most competitive in the past years, will adopt the form of submitting portfolio videos and online examination for the preliminary examination, while the callback and final callback will still be conducted as in-person private examination. Huang Changyong said that the specific plan will be announced in a few days, hoping that candidates can carefully prepare the portfolio according to the requirements of the school. He also said that this year's callback and final callback may be more stringent on candidates, and the duration will also be longer.
At present, there are about 3800 colleges and universities in China, including about 2000 colleges and universities with art majors. It is estimated that 1.15 million candidates will take part in the examination for art majors this year. According to Huang Changyong, the measures concerning this year’s examination for art majors launched by the Ministry of Education in response to the epidemic situation are actually a reform of China's examination for art majors and a transformation of China's art education. Generally speaking, different schools have launched different schemes at present, but it is a general trend to have increasingly higher academic requirements. This year, many art colleges and universities have cancelled the private admissions examination and further improved the academic requirements. Huang Changyong believes that in fact, to some extent, this is to make up for some shortcomings and weaknesses of our country’s art education. In terms of STA, the four majors to be admitted according to the Gaokao scores generally have very high academic requirements. And, the other eight majors that require major-specific examinations will also look to achieve the balance between the results of major-specific requirements and academic requirements.
During the post-epidemic period, in addition to the overall reform of examination for art majors, the daily teaching of STA has also changed greatly. From the beginning of March, all major-specific courses of STA have been taught online, realizing the full coverage of all colleges and departments. This is very difficult and challenging for the teaching of art majors, which is mainly based on practice and training, but Huang Changyong said that there are also many good surprises. The COVID-19 outbreak may revolutionize higher education. According to Huang Changyong, internet, artificial intelligence and big data will enter higher art education on a large scale through this special situation. In the past, many teachers did not use these technologies in their teaching, but there has been a breakthrough in this aspect now. It is reported that after the epidemic is over, the online courses will still be retained at STA.
As the epidemic situation in China improves, the time for STA’s campus re-opening is approaching. Huang Changyong said that optimistically speaking, graduating students would be the earliest to return to school for the preparation of their graduation performances. However, the specific plan will be formulated and publicized pending the comprehensive consideration of situations in all aspects concerned.
