The Chinese education system, with its high-stakes national college entrance examination known as the Gaokao, serves as a pivotal gatekeeper in the lives of millions of students, dictating their future educational and professional opportunities. China is one of the few countries in the world that uses college entrance examination scores as the sole criterion in the college admission process. In 2022, even under the influence of the pandemic, more than 11.93 million students still took the Chinese National College Entrance Examination, commonly referred to as gaokao (徐 1). Although the first gaokao was held in 1952, its cultural heritage dates back to 587 A.D. when the Keju (imperial examination) system was established (刘 70).
In the Keju exam, examinees were asked to provide their insights on ethical or intellectual dilemmas by delivering a speech to government officials. Whoever performed the best would be selected into the government system. After the alteration of several regimes, Keju evolved into a series of written tests that evaluate the test-takers on their writing skills, military tactical talents, and knowledge of classic literature. However, the goal of the examination remained the same: to provide gifted individuals with opportunities to enter and succeed in the government system. Even though keju was abolished in 1905 after the fall of the Qing dynasty, its influences were deeply rooted in Chinese culture, paving the way for what we know now as the gaokao.
In China, a saying known by most high school students is “Knowledge decides one’s fate” (知识决定命运). From keju to gaokao, these tests have always functioned as a stairway leading to higher social classes. As Yang, a professor at Nanjing University with a focus on contemporary Chinese history, puts it, “The essence of gaokao is a basic division between mental laborers and physical laborers organized by the government after completing basic education” (Yang 29). Since college degrees have become a necessity in the white-collar job market in China, achieving a good grade on the gaokao has become a universal goal for high school students. The gaokao grants academically strong students the privilege of performing mental labor, which usually represents a higher social class and material well-being. Because of this special role, gaokao is greatly valued by Chinese parents and students.
However, in recent years, debates around gaokao have intensified as problems related to the fairness of the exam and the mental stress associated with the exam emerged. People begin to criticize the Gaokao system for favoring families with higher socioeconomic status and threatening students’ mental health. It seems this high-stakes exam stifles students’ growth and has driven Chinese K-12 education into pure preparation for the exam (Qian 1). Increasingly, voices are advocating for changes or even the cancellation of the exam. The government has also entered the discussion by formulating the National Education Plan, which regards the college entrance examination system as a breakthrough point in educational reform (Yang 2).
A question is hence being raised: Does the Gaokao still serve as an appropriate and effective measure within the contemporary Chinese education system considering the critical issues of educational inequality and mental stress it poses to students? While the Gaokao has historically played a pivotal role in the Chinese education system, its current structure requires comprehensive reforms to better align with contemporary educational values and societal needs, ensuring it serves as a fair and effective measure for assessing student readiness for higher education.
In Chinese culture, the idea of equality is greatly emphasized. As the most influential school of thought in China, Confucianism has promoted the idea of having a society in which all people are given an equal opportunity to achieve success. Mencius, a Chinese Confucian philosopher often referred to as the "Second Sage," states in his work 告子章句下 (Letter to Son), “All people can be Yao or Shun” (Translated by myself, original sentence: 人皆可为尧舜, Yao and Shun being two legendary Chinese rulers). This belief is still considered the mainstream thought in China. In 2017, Chairman Xi delivered a speech about equality in education, stating that “educational equality is not only the basic requirement but also the symbol of modern education. To promote the modernization of education, educational equality in gaokao must be regarded as a basic principle” (习近平, translated by myself).
The ideas expressed in this speech are upheld by past efforts that the Chinese government has made to foster the fairness of gaokao. One major attempt was to eliminate the unfair competition between different provinces by setting different enrollment scorelines. In China, most educational resources, including but not limited to teachers and equipment, are centralized in big cities such as Beijing and coastal provinces like Jiangsu. The disjointed allocation of education opportunities has caused serious gaps between provinces in terms of gaokao scores. In 2014, examinees from Beijing had a 19% higher gaokao score than examinees from Guizhou on average (嘉). To counteract the influence of geographic background, the government decided that test takers would only compete with students from the same province or region. The enrollment scoreline of universities would be set based on the grades of examinees in a certain percentile within the province.
However, this policy fell short because it failed to acknowledge the uneven distribution of resources between rural and urban areas in China. According to the Bulletin of the Seventh National Census in China, 36.11% of the Chinese population resides in rural areas (国务院第七次全国人口普查领导小组办公室). On average, the income of an urban household is three times that of a rural household. This significant economic gap means that students in urban areas have significant advantages, including access to higher-quality schools, teachers, educational materials, and resources for extra tutoring classes (Wang et al. 533). Another factor exacerbating the inequality is the hukou system, a residency status system that links government-provided services, including education, to the individual’s registered address (Burkhoff 1). This system prevents rural-urban migrant students from attending better primary or middle schools, as public education is linked to a person’s hukou, thus making the imbalance between rural and urban education even more pronounced. As a result, for students in rural areas who want to improve their lives and elevate their social class through their merit, the gaokao is a narrow bridge that could lead to opportunity but more often, to disappointment.
To address this issue, reforming the gaokao would be less effective than shifting the focus of the education system itself. In China, the most prestigious universities are included in Project 211 and are called "211 universities," where “21” signifies the 21st Century and “1” indicates being ranked around the top 100 in China. According to Project 211, universities included in the project will be "favored in terms of the distribution of resources" (耿). However, the geographic distribution of 211 universities is largely uneven. Twenty-six, which is about one-fourth of the total, are located in Beijing, while 13 provinces have only one 211 university each. As more resources are poured into provinces that already have better education opportunities, the disparity in the difficulty of gaining admission to prestigious universities through gaokao across different regions grows. This is why the government should consider changing the focus of education from elite to general public education. If each province had a more evenly distributed number of higher education institutions, the competition surrounding the gaokao would be more balanced, thus enhancing the notion of educational equality. Conversely, changing the design of the gaokao would not address the substantial problem of the resource gap between regions.
Another social problem considered to be caused by the gaokao is excessive mental stress among teenagers. Widely recognized as one of the hardest college entrance exams in the world (Sharma 1), the gaokao consists of six closed-note achievement exams on different subjects, requiring examinees to remember an extensive amount of information from textbooks. Since Chinese students are only allowed to take the gaokao once unless they decide to redo their final year of high school, they are regularly asked to complete practice tests to prepare them for the intense pressure of the actual exam. This repetitive learning method heightens the risk of serious anxiety and mental strain among those studying for the gaokao. Reflecting on this experience, a participant in the study by Liu and Helwig shared, "Senior year feels like a lesson in realism, moving away from the poetry and dreams of the future to a monotonous grind of the same tasks over and over. You're stuck in a loop of practice questions, making life seem dull and wasted. Yet, somehow, you keep going" (Liu, Helwig 17).
Addressing this issue, the government introduced the "shuangjian" (double decrease) policy on August 31st, 2021, aimed at simplifying the gaokao and lessening the academic burden on high school students. This initiative prevents tutoring companies from offering gaokao preparation classes from going public and stops schools from publishing student rankings based on test scores. Yugang Lv, the director of the Basic Education Department, highlighted in a press briefing that "Currently, certain areas and schools face significant challenges, including too many exams, overly difficult questions, poor teaching quality, and inappropriate use of grades, all of which place undue stress on students and create a heavy workload. We recognize these issues and are committed to monitoring them" (吕, translated by myself).
The policy aims to alleviate the stress experienced by high school students, yet its theoretical perfection renders it impractical. Simply eliminating competition does not address the underlying issues, allowing them to inevitably reemerge in public discourse. In 2020, "involution" became one of the top ten buzzwords in China, as highlighted by the magazine Yaowenjiaozi (咬文嚼字 12). Though originally a sociological term, it now commonly describes the competitive nature of the Chinese education system online. Involution, or the pointless rivalry among individuals when resources are scarce (人民论坛 7, translated by myself), can be likened to an audience in a cinema where everyone stands to see better, resulting in no net gain in satisfaction despite increased effort from all.
The term gained popularity in China as it resonated with the primary concerns of a significant social media demographic: students. With a substantial portion of educational funding channeled towards elite universities, ten million gaokao candidates invest all their efforts in exam preparation, engaging in what Burkhoff describes as “a battle for their future” (Burkhoff 3). Simply lowering the gaokao's difficulty may not ease the preparation burden for students. As long as society continues to view admission to only top-tier universities as a success, students are likely to continue their rigorous study schedules, dedicating 14 hours a day, six days a week to their studies. The real change, should the policy shift, would likely see students adjusting their focus from tackling more challenging questions to refining their accuracy on less difficult ones, in an effort to minimize errors.
As the famous Chinese saying goes, “The one who tied the bell must be the one to untie it” (解铃还须系铃人). The key to reducing students' anxiety lies in addressing the root cause of the problem, which, in this case, is the Chinese education system itself. If the government continues to prioritize prestigious schools by allocating limited resources to them, the intense competition among students will only intensify. To break this vicious cycle, the state must recognize the shortcomings of current reforms related to the gaokao and begin to refocus the education system's priorities. Enhancing the quality of education at middle-tier universities can mitigate the stigma attached to students who do not perform exceptionally on the gaokao. With increased recognition and support from the government, these institutions can prove their ability to nurture thoughtful and well-rounded individuals. Consequently, students will begin to see the gaokao not as a determinant of success or failure but as one of many opportunities, to address the fundamental issues of stress and anxiety associated with the exam.
In conclusion, although the existence of the gaokao, directly and indirectly, leads to social problems such as education inequality and undue mental stress, simply replacing the gaokao or adjusting its content and policies would not permanently solve the issues. The majority of society, including the government, has overlooked the influence of systemic flaws within the Chinese education system itself. Better solutions would involve making fundamental adjustments to the distribution of education resources and providing support to more public universities.
Work Cited
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