National College Entrance Exam (Gaokao)

In China, there are two days to which the whole country gives great concern every year. Gaokao, which means national college entrance exam Chinese, is carried out every June 7 and 8. After that, all high school graduates have to face their destiny, go to college or not. There is only one way to get into college in China――pass the entrance exam. All students will be required to choose Science oriented or Art oriented class in the penultimate year of high school, then they will be separated in different classes by their orientation. If they fortunately pass the exam, then they apply for 3 levels of universities according to their marks, high grade students could apply for Tsinghua, Peking, Fudan, Shanghai Jiaotong university, if they got low grade, they can only apply for some nameless colleges no matter how gifted they are in other areas. In 2006, there were about 8.8 million students took the national college entrance exam, and approximately 60% were accepted by colleges eventually.

The government and educational departments have been implementing reform for the college entrance system for decades, but little effect was obtained. There is almost no difference between the current standards of college entrance and twenty years ago. So there is not much difference in how high school students learn. Science oriented students solve thousands of math or physics or chemistry problems to learn how to solve problems written in paper, art oriented students recite all the stories and regulations in history or politics textbooks, and both of them may take mock exams every month or even every week. When the exam comes, their day after day practice and hard working during the midnight make them confident and feel all the problems in the exam paper like old friends. Diligent plays a very important role at most of the students. There should be no critique on diligent, but there is a fatal disadvantage of such an education system. Students graduated from high school become products after the entrance exam, and there are only two kinds: Science and Art. Many foreigners may not understand what I mean by products, you can comprehend it this way: when we are born, everyone is special, but after Gaokao, the college entrance exam which has been existed in China for many years without sufficient changes, all students developed the same ability like reciting, solving paper problems, if you make a compare of any two of them, you may doubt they are products produced in the production line if ignoring the appearance. All Chinese students those who are lucky to enter a college find themselves in a paradise because they don't have to recite or solve problems written in paper anymore, they can develop their own interest and live on their own without the supervision of their parents or teachers.

The whole education system is in dire need of reform now, but Chinese government and officers seems incapable of taking effective action. The status quo is the best evidence.