Nearly 10,000 migrant students sit for gaokao in Guangdong

Teachers and students of Hua Luogeng Middle School in Huizhou city of Guangdong province cheer up the gaokao candidates this year on May 31, 2016. [Photo/VCG]

South China's Guangdong province will see as many as 9,570 migrant students sitting for the gaokao, or the national college entrance exam which begins on Tuesday this year, according to New Express, a local newspaper of the provincial capital Guangzhou.

This year marks the first year migrant students, or those who have no hukou (or household registration) in Guangdong but have already attended three years of high school there, can sit for the gaokao in Guangdong.

According to Guangdong's policy, another requirement for those eligible to attend gaokao is that their parents should be legally employed and should have paid for three years of social insurance in Guangdong.

The measures are part of the final stage of Guangdong's three-step plan to promote equal access to education by easing restrictions on gaokao for migrant students, which started in 2013.

Guangdong boasts a large number of migrant workers, as well as many of their children, who have been educated there.

Before the policy was put in place, these children had to go back to where their household registration was to take the gaokao, which gave them academic problems and increased the pressure they faced in order to apply for college.

"The approval for migrant students to attend gaokao where they received their high school education rather than according to their hukou is definitely an improvement," said Zhang Minqiang, Director of Evaluation and Tests on Talents Institute, South China Normal University.

"It's a recognition of the contributions made by migrant workers, which will help them feel more integrated into society."

There will be 733,000 gaokao candidates in total in Guangdong this year, 21,000 less than last year even after including the migrant students.