The unfairness of the Gaokao test in China

           How would you feel if you had to wake up at 6:20 in the morning for school and leave at 10:50 at night because you were studying for this one test that decides your future? For Chinese students, this is their life. For them, everything is riding on one test, the Gaokao. This problem is also complicated by whether you live in a large city or in a rural area. Further, social class injustice can affect the ability for students to preform while preparing for this test. Preparing for the Gaokao test is very stressful for most Chinese students.

            The Gaokao test is similar to the SAT and ACT college entrance exams that are given here in the United States. However, the over emphasis on studying for the Gaokao has led to an increase in the suicide rate. Also, there are specific high schools, known as “cram schools,” which do nothing other than to prepare students for the Gaokao entrance examination. It is common for students to begin school at 6:20 in the morning and to end their day at 10:50 at night. In order to keep up with the high demand of test prep, some students are connected to IV drips in order to stay awake.

            As China is still evolving as a modern nation, there is much inequality between educational opportunities between cities and those in rural areas. Because schools in rural areas do not receive adequate funding from the government, they do not have adequate resources, such as computers, internet access and state of the art laboratories. These schools are poorly rated and do not offer proper programming to prepare students for the Gaokao. Further, they are fewer well- trained teachers on their staffs of these schools. These situations put many rural students at a disadvantage compared to their more affluent city peers.

            Even though China has come a long way from its communist past, there are still basically two classes of Chinese society, the very rich and the working poor. Rich families can hire private tutors and pay for test prep courses to give their child a better advantage for preparing for the Gaokao. It is also not uncommon for rich families to bribe their child’s way into prestigious Chinese universities. If all else fails, wealthy parents still have the opportunity to send their students abroad to study at foreign universities. These are advantages that most students from poorer families do not have.

            For the Chinese student the problem is not so much how much is riding on a single test, but rather what has his or her life been like up to this point to prepare him or her for the Gaokao. The school he or she attended was either a well-equipped city school or a school in a rural area that had poorly trained teachers and inadequate resources. It also depends on which social class he or she was born, since rich families can better prepare their students or offer them an opportunity to study abroad. So yes, it is very unfair for a Chinese student to have his or her future decided on by one test- a test that will decide whether he or she has a comfortable life in Chinese society or whether, he or she will be a migrant worker with a dismal future.