THE HIGHEST EXAM. How the Gaokao Shapes China.

THE HIGHEST EXAM. How the Gaokao Shapes China

Authors Ruixue Jia (University of San Diego) and Hongbin Li (Stanford University), through their book, help us understand China. This is already the third book I’ve read about China’s education system because, well, I find it incredibly fascinating. I believe that in Europe – and in the Western world in general – we talk far too little about this system.

First of all, it is important to understand that the ENTIRE Chinese education system revolves around gaokao – a single graduation exam taken at the end of school that simultaneously serves as the university entrance exam. We can hardly imagine how important this exam is, and the book explains it. And – what is also very important – in today’s global world, this exam and the culture surrounding it are already relevant to us as well.

Both authors are economists – they studied economics at a time when China decided that the most talented students should study economics and invested heavily in it. I find this systemic, still-existing Chinese approach to deciding what the most capable students must study absolutely mind-blowing – and even more astonishing: it is actually implemented.

Both authors finished school in China, but both also studied abroad – in Sweden and the United States. Hongbin’s children also studied both in China and in the U.S. Today both authors are professors in the United States. Their stories – both personal and based on an enormous amount of data analysis – paint an interesting and eye-opening picture of the Chinese education system.

Let’s start with this: every year about 10 million (!) students take the gaokao. Those who use social media have probably seen how parents go to temples, work stops, and it seems the whole society holds its breath while the exam is taking place. I saw one video I shared at school: a girl with an IV drip (because she has no time to eat!) asleep at her desk at four in the morning – the last days when she can still revise. I saw another video: a boy collapsed on the ground crying outside the school gates because he was one minute late and was not allowed in. No wonder Chinese society is obsessed with the exam.

Researchers use surveys, studies, and economic analysis to show that China’s education system resembles centralized competition. Preparation for gaokao begins not even in first grade but earlier, and parents spare neither time nor money so that their child performs as well as possible.

People believe such a system is fair. Unfortunately, it benefits the Chinese Communist Party the most. When someone performs poorly, they think they didn’t study enough and blame themselves, but in reality there are countless other reasons – for example inequality from the first days of life, simply because a child was born in the wrong province, which affects exam outcomes.

What I take away from this book:

• In China, families’ highest priority is education. The average Chinese family spends about 17% of ALL household income on children’s education. That is five times the world average.

• Rural schools have weaker teachers and fewer resources, which immediately widens the gap – unfortunately this exists worldwide.

• Let’s not fool ourselves that Chinese students only memorize: Chinese students outperform other countries in international assessments of critical thinking, reading, and mathematics.

• Families in China are convinced that a good exam result is the result of hard work and intelligence (which is only partly true).

• Because everyone knows a child from a village or an “ordinary family” who passed the exam brilliantly and entered a top university, the illusion arises that everyone has a chance. Yes, some succeed, but the probability is very, VERY small. Such examples increase people’s belief in a system that is actually unfavorable to them. Students from cities have six times (!) higher chances of entering university at all than students from rural regions. As for elite universities – the probability is 0.6%.

• International research shows Chinese students study the most AFTER school – about 27 hours per week. For comparison: the U.S. about 20 and the U.K. 17 hours per week.

• Of the 10 million who take the exam, only 5% will enter elite universities (Peking, Tsinghua). If you don’t get in, you already know your life prospects will be worse – opportunities to change it are almost nonexistent.

• Teachers’ salaries and careers depend heavily on student results, so teachers do everything – before lessons, during breaks, after lessons – to ensure students understand and learn what they need for the exam.

• Tutors are a necessity. The Chinese government tried to ban tutoring, but the attempt failed – tutoring companies are operating successfully again. Some families spend up to 50% of their income on tutors.

• 64% of Chinese students would like to work in the civil service after university. They are even called “pink students” – because soon they will become red (serve the Communist Party).

• China has eight (!) times more STEM students than the U.S.

• One out of five university graduates in the world (!) is Chinese. Hard to believe, right?

• During the gaokao, everyone choosing social sciences and humanities must take a politics component. Those choosing STEM do not. Guess why – STEM students are not considered an ideological threat to the Communist Party (at least that is the assumption).

• By throwing money and well-educated workers at the target industry, China’s centralized system is able to cultivate the resources necessary to counteract external pressures at a speed far greater than a typical market economy would allow. We talked about exactly the same thing at home in autumn – and here it is confirmed.

• If foreign companies want to operate in China, China told foreign firms that if they wanted to do business, they had to give their technological know-how to Chinese firms. The practice rose sixfold between 2002 and 2012.

• There is also a very well-defined archetype of a smart student: one who asks the fewest questions but scores the highest on exams.

• It is an open secret that doing good research (in universities) is not as important as building relationships with powerful bureaucrats and their favored experts.

• The World Values Survey showed that 20% of Chinese believe that if a person does not work, they become lazy, and 61–65% believe a person is poor because they lack ability. In short, Chinese society believes that those who pass gaokao are intelligent AND hardworking, and this is part of their cultural belief system.

• The lack of transparency and prevalent corruption within China’s institutions strengthens belief in a meritocratic education system. Sadly. Yet I still cannot understand how people do not see and understand this – how?

• As more Chinese study in U.S. schools and universities, their culture and traditions begin to exert significant influence. The book describes situations where rules were changed due to pressure coming from Chinese communities.

After reading the book, one very important question remains: will we withstand this and continue holistic evaluation, or will rankings, standardized testing, and exam-oriented learning prevail? Universities that attempted holistic evaluation are returning to standardized exams (Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, MIT, Caltech, etc.), especially as China strives to reshape the global order.

Both scholars emphasize that there is NO perfect education system – not China’s, not the U.S.’s, not Finland’s – none is perfect. But we can improve each of them only by truly understanding it.