Society

China starts college entrance exam

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-07 19:02

Life-changing test

The exam, also called "gaokao" in Chinese, was resumed in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution. About 5.7 million Chinese competed for 270,000 university seats that year.

The exam's content and form has changed a great deal over the last several decades, but it has always been regarded as a potentially life-changing event for China's students.

However, the number of students registering for the test has dwindled in recent years, from the record 10.5 million registered in 2008 to 9.3 million this year.

One reason for the decrease is that more students have chosen to study overseas. According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, about 200,000 middle school students are currently studying abroad and will not be taking the exam.

While thousands of participants are busy filling out answer sheets, He Yizheng, a student at the Dongbei Yucai Middle School in Shenyang, the capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, is practicing English and tennis.

"I received an offer from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States," he said.

"Compared with Chinese universities, foreign schools attach greater importance to the improvement of students' general competence," he added.

Wu Qun, general manager of Hanterry, a company that provides consultation services and language training for students who wish to study abroad, noted that the high competitiveness of the college entrance exam has forced some students to find different paths to higher education.

"Living standards are improving, so more families can afford to send their children abroad," he said.

Forty-five students who are currently enrolled at the South University of Science and Technology of China (SUSTC), the country's first university to independently recruit its own students, also said that they will not be taking the exam.

SUSTC started its first semester this March after choosing 45 freshmen from a pool of 745 applicants.