Peace of mind as schools reopen for students on difficult path to China’s gaokao entrance exam

Last Tuesday was the most anticipated opening day of a new term for Yin Shirui, a high school student in Ganzhou, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi. It came about two months later than usual because of the coronavirus outbreak. For final-year high school students in nine mainland provinces, last week marked their return to campus after an extended winter holiday and weeks of online learning at home. China announced in January that schools would close, with students across China starting online learning in February and March. Final-year students in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Henan, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hainan and Hunan provinces and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region have now returned to school. “I don’t like learning on the internet at all. On most of the day, I stayed at home alone from morning until late in the afternoon, with both my parents going out to work,” Yin, 17, said. “I am not interested in what is taught in online class since the teachers there do not target me or my class, but target the whole grade of my school.” Yin said she was also anxious because her score ranking in her grade dropped greatly compared with two months ago, from being in the top 20 among 1,200 students to top 100. “I was looking forward to the opening of the semester so that I could get more specific instructions from my teachers to improve my scores,” she said. Yin said when she and her classmates met in their classroom on Tuesday, they were so excited that they chatted non-stop during the class break. “It’s good that we can go back to school to study now. But the bad thing is that we have to wear masks all the time [at school],” she said. Like Yin, final-year students in high schools are under high pressure to prepare for the gruelling National Higher Education Entrance Examination, known as gaokao in China. The test is regarded as the most important examination in the country. This year, the pandemic forced the authorities to hold it one month later, on July 7 and 8, marking the first time it has been delayed since the Cultural Revolution. Authorities estimate more than 10.7 million students will sit this year’s gaokao, which can make or break a student’s future. Many of them have said online learning has made their life more difficult. Yin said that in the past month, she has had several tests online. For objective questions, students make choices on the computer; while for subjective questions, they write down answers on paper, take photos of the paper and upload it online. But for Xie Yiwei, a final-year student from an elite high school in Huangpu district in Shanghai, there were no tests at all, which made her concerned because it was difficult to assess her progress in class. Students in Shanghai must wait another two weeks until April 27 to go back to school, in keeping with the municipal government’s decision. Xie had hoped to return to school sooner as she wanted to have more interaction with her teacher and her classmates. “It’s so boring to study all day and all night. I even did not leave my home for a whole week or two,” she said. In a normal school day, Xie would spend half an hour walking from home to school, take physical exercise classes twice a week and often play badminton with her peers. But over the past two months she has barely had any physical exercise. Another student, who only gives his surname Jin, from Mianyang in Sichuan province in the country’s southwest, said the epidemic did not affect his study much. He said he adjusted his study plan a little and then implemented the plan strictly. “Actually, I like learning online at home. I have a sense of achievement thanks to my self-discipline,” he said. “The only problem for self-learning is that I tend to spend more time on studying subjects I am interested in but skip the subjects I have less interest in and am not good at.” Fan Xianzuo, an education professor from Central China Normal University in Wuhan, Hubei province, said online learning was the only option for final-year high school students as their foremost test, gaokao, was just a few months away. “The disadvantages of it include that they cannot receive timely and tailor-made mentoring from their teachers, and that many of these students, at about 17 or 18 years, are still kids and they cannot control themselves to concentrate on studying like they do at school,” Fan said. Luo Xiaofei, a resident in Hezhou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, said his son, a final-year student, told him he could not learn anything at home. Luo said his son usually achieved only 420 from a total 750 marks in simulation tests at the end of last year. “His score is hardly enough for universities’ enrolment benchmark. I am really worried about him,” he said. “He locked himself in his room and seldom talked to us. I hope he can return to school as soon as possible.” Sign up now and get a 10% discount (original price US$400) off the China AI Report 2020 by SCMP Research. Learn about the AI ambitions of Alibaba, Baidu & JD.com through our in-depth case studies, and explore new applications of AI across industries. The report also includes exclusive access to webinars to interact with C-level executives from leading China AI companies (via live Q&A sessions). Offer valid until 31 May 2020.