28 February 2015
On 28 February, the Year 2015 enrolment examination of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) started formally in the spring rain. In the morning, the relevant functional departments including the party committee’s office, President’s office, disciplinary committee’s surveillance office, student enrolment office and security department all took their places, the STA leadership including Deputy Party Secretary Hu Min, Vice President Huang Changnyong and Vice President Zhang Weiling inspected the examination rooms, the examinees entered the examination areas successively following the instructions, and all aspects of the work in relation to the examination proceeded in good and proper order.
STA strictly follows the spirit of the policies of the Ministry of Education and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission pertaining to the enrolment examination for art students and ensures that the relevant rules and regulations are implemented strictly and to the fullest extent. STA persists unwaveringly in the concept of elite education and adheres to the sunshine policies of “open, justice and fair” and makes its best efforts in the selection and cultivation of more well-talented personnel with great potential in the cultural and entertainment areas for the country. This year, STA will no longer go to set up examination sites outside of Shanghai and, accordingly, the 12,000 plus examinees will attend the examination all at STA from 28 February to 17 March.
The Year 2015 enrolment examination features three key points which are as follows:
1. Increased weighing for comprehensive quality test
In recent years, STA has attached increasingly more importance to the academic scores and cultural quality of the students and made higher requirements on the comprehensive quality level of the students. This year, STA will try out a unified comprehensive quality test of culture and arts in the four majors of broadcasting and professional hosting, theatre and film directing, film and TV photography and production, directing for Chinese traditional opera and increase the weighting of the students’ comprehensive quality test with a view to further improving the overall cultural quality of the students.
According to the requirements of the relevant guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education, STA’s minimum passing scores for admission will not be lower than the minimum admission control scores for undergraduate art programs to be set by the Shanghai Municipality or the province where the examinee belongs to. For all examinees who are qualified in the professional examination for their chosen major of art, STA will give priority to enroll those whose scores of the university entrance examination reach the minimum admission control scores for the first tier universities/programs.
2. Further expanded test bank and examiner pool
In strict implementation of the requirements of the relevant official documents, STA has further optimized the test bank and examiner pool. In 2015, STA established the first test bank for the comprehensive quality test of culture and arts and invited senior experts from STA and other institutions including the Fudan University and East China Normal University etc to participate in the design of exam items and, at the same time, enlarged the volume of the test banks for writing and fine arts and took the gradual steps to optimize the test banks for music and face-to-face interview. For all types of written test, there is a unified test bank for each of them, from which every test paper is formulated randomly. Besides, STA has also strengthened the administration of the examiners for the professional tests of art majors with enlarged scope for the selection and appointment of examiners and increased number of external experts and established a pool of experts comprising of leading teachers of STA and leading practitioners of external art groups who are highly accomplished and highly responsible. In the Year 2015 enrolment examination, STA has invited some experts from the USA and Hong Kong SAR to be involved and also invited well-known experts of the National Theatre of China, Shanghai Grand Theatre, Shanghai TV Station, Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, Shanghai Ballet and Shanghai Singing and Dancing Company to be the examiners.
3. Further strengthened and streamlined procedures of examination
In the Year 2015 enrolment examination, the electronic scoring devices will be used in the performing arts major and fine arts major. The examiners will give their scores directly using the electronic scoring devices, thus making the examination more rigorous and accurate. Besides, all professional tests of the art majors will take place in standardized examination rooms. STA will have the professional tests involving on-spot scoring fully videotaped (recorded).
Also, STA has formulated detailed surveillance policies and operational norms pertaining to the enrolment and further stressed, on the pre-existing level, the enforcement of examination disciplines as well as the “separation of teaching and examination”. STA’s disciplinary and surveillance departments will be involved in the entire process of examination and enrollment for supervision and evaluation.
