Crunch time as gaokao exam season starts for China’s university hopefuls
- Annual tests still an academic pressure cooker for students wanting to get into the nation’s top universities, despite efforts to change the system
- The gruelling exam is the sole criteria for admission to university in China
For the past six months, the life of 18-year-old Shanghai student Xiao Qing has revolved around preparation for one of China’s annual rites of passage.
Every day at school, from 7.20am to 5.30pm, the final-year secondary school student in Changning district has studied previous test papers for the gaokao, officially known as the National Higher Education Entrance Examination.
“Sometimes I feel my bottom hurts from sitting for so many hours,” she said. “We feel like we are test machines.”
Xiao Qing will put all of that preparation to the real test from Friday, when over two to three days she will be among more than 10 million people trying to qualify for one of the spots at a Chinese university.
Most students get just one shot at the gaokao, the sole criteria for admission to university in China. It’s a gruelling process that has been criticised over the years as too focused on rote learning, putting too much pressure on students and privileging applicants living near the best universities.
Education authorities have gone some way to try to address these problems. In 2014, the Ministry of Education started letting students choose half of their subjects to introduce some flexibility into the system.