Gu Yang foresaw more potential Thomas Edisons in China's primary schools than high schools after she marked papers at a recent national science-fiction writing contest for the country's pre-university students.

"The older the students, the worse their imagination, judging from the compositions they submitted," said Gu, who has been a member of the contest's review committee for four years.

Students participating in China's 15th "Golden Key" Pre-university Students Scientific Contest were given the freedom to write on any subject they chose under the topic of "genetic technology."

Gene bombs and government control over organizations of genetically modified human beings were the most popular topics in high school students papers, according to the review committee.

"Most high school students seem to be more politics-connected and follow the same pattern," Gu said, "while primary school students seemed more imaginative and wrote in a much freer and more powerful style."

"The writings by primary school kids look like a heavenly steed galloping across the skies," she said, referring to their topics varying from genetically modified food, cloned human being helping them in sports ground or classroom, zipper-style roads, magic keys and other stunningly creative themes.

Critics say the information deficiency among high school students may, to some extent, have led to the fettering of logical thinking and poor imagination.

"China's current examination system forces students to work intensively on textbooks, giving them little time to read popular science books outside class," said Wang Xinsheng, president of the magazine "People and Science."

In China, tens of thousands of high school students face fierce competition in the annual national college entrance examination as half of them will be denied access to further study in institutions of higher learning.

"In fact, Chinese high school students do not lack imagination and creativity, they just don't have time to imagine," Wang said. "Our country needs to establish a scientific evaluation mechanism for our kids' school work."

However, senior citizens and education experts defended their stand.

Sun Weizi, a 73-year-old sci-fi novelist, disagreed to the point "the older, the worse people's imagination."

"It's true that young people have sharper thinking but that does not mean they are more imaginative," Sun said.

"Wild fancies do not match imagination and creativity," he said, "we are more imaginative professionally."

To Professor Ma Wenwei of Southeast China University, "Older students are more pragmatic."

"We could only draw the conclusion that the older the kids, the richer their knowledge," said Ma, the presiding judge for the Jiangsu provincial contest venue in east China.

"Otherwise it is unnecessary for us to go to school from childhood, only imagination would do."

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2003)