[News Terms] China's Record-High Number of Test Takers for 'Gaokao'

'Gaokao (高考)' refers to the university entrance examination administered by the central government of China. Its official name is 'Putong Gaodeng Xuexiao Zhaosheng Quanguo Tongyi Kaoshi (普通高等學校招生全國統一考試·The National College Entrance Examination),' which is the Chinese version of the 'College Scholastic Ability Test.'

It began in 1952 but was abolished during the Cultural Revolution period (1966?1976) for political reasons and resumed in 1977. Since the 1990s, as the socialist market economy was fully implemented, university education became fee-based, and private universities were established one after another, causing a surge in Gaokao candidates. Since 2019, it has been the world's largest university entrance exam with over 10 million candidates annually.

Students who took the Chinese university entrance exam, the "Gaokao" (高考), are leaving an exam site in Beijing on the 7th, escorted by teachers and administrative staff.
[Photo by AFP Beijing / Yonhap News]

The exam is held annually over two days, June 7?8, regardless of holidays or public holidays. Subjects include the language section, mathematics section, social studies (liberal arts) or science studies (science), and foreign language section. The language section includes essay writing, where candidates write about one common topic and one region-specific topic.

For the foreign language section, candidates choose from English, Japanese, Russian, French, German, or Spanish. Korean is excluded to prevent unfair privileges for the nearly 2 million ethnic Koreans (Joseonjok) in China.

The Chinese Ministry of Education announced that this year, 12.91 million candidates took the Gaokao, setting a record for the highest number of candidates ever. This is 980,000 more than last year's record. This year's Gaokao candidates belong to a generation that replaced most high school classes with online learning due to frequent lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The total score for Gaokao is 750 points, and to enter prestigious Chinese universities, candidates must score above 600 points. However, due to the exam's extreme difficulty, only 3% of candidates in Guangdong Province, China's most populous province, scored above 600 points last year.

To prevent cheating, the Ministry of Education installed CCTV cameras in every classroom and deployed video supervisors to monitor the footage in real time. At the exam venue entrances, candidates are screened with smart security checkpoints, 5G signal jammers, and metal detectors to prevent them from bringing electronic devices into the exam halls.