Record 13.42 mln Chinese students take fiercely competitive college exam

Addis Ababa, June 7, 2024 (FBC) – With rain easing summer heat in Beijing on Friday morning, conditions were cool and fresh as tens of thousands of students made their way to venues to take China’s 2024 national college entrance examination.

Buses have been ordered to take detours and construction operations have been halted, as authorities implemented steps to avoid noise at the city’s 105 entrance examination test sites during the four-day exam period, according to the municipal government’s notice.

On Friday, a total of 13.42 million young people across China began participating in this year’s college entrance test, known as the gaokao. This number is a record high since matriculation resumed in China in 1977, and marks an increase of 510,000 students compared to last year, the Ministry of Education revealed.

Wearing a red dress, Liu Jinhuan gave her daughter a big hug and then watched her walk towards a gaokao test site inside Beijing 101 Middle School in Haidian District in the northwest of the Chinese capital.

“I chose this dress for an auspicious start on the first day of my daughter’s exam. I believe taking the gaokao exam is quite an experience for young people like my daughter, preparing them to learn how to face future challenges in life,” she said.

The exam is considered crucial for young Chinese people, with results determining their university admissions and even shaping their career prospects.

This year, the seven provincial-level regions of Heilongjiang, Gansu, Jilin, Anhui, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Guangxi have introduced changes to the exam. In addition to the unified national exam for the three major subjects, namely Chinese, mathematics and foreign language, students in these regions are allowed to choose between physics and history when taking the exam, and select two among the other four subjects — ideology and politics, geography, chemistry and biology.

Meanwhile in Beijing, following two days of the unified national exam for the three major subjects, students will need to take exams for three of the other six subjects — ideology and politics, history, geography, physics, chemistry and biology.

China’s college admission rate has seen a significant rise in recent years. Nonetheless, the gaokao, the largest exam of its kind in the world, is still widely recognized as one of the toughest college entrance exams globally.

Although the pressure is intense, it is considered a fair game for those who study hard, rewarding them with good scores and access to the country’s institutions of higher learning.

The Chinese government and the whole society have shown great determination to ensure the fairness of the gaokao.