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Getting to the Gao Kao
by Ernie Diaz
In Rome, it was the gladiator arena. In the Middle Ages, they had the gauntlet. In post-industrial China, lives and futures are decided on the results of its gao kao, the college entrance exam. Nothing else factors into where the ten million students taking it will matriculate, whether they will gain a coveted slot at one of the handful of China’s golden universities, or at the Gansu Vocational Institute of Animal Husbandry. The three-day test is the last, but by no means the only, grueling hurdle in the thirteen-year steeplechase that is China’s public education system.
Hurdle One: The Odds
Even though the number of students taking the 3-day gao kao would suggest otherwise, getting a seat is a privilege. Rural students have less than a fair shot at even going to high school. Since only a quarter of rural high school students even make it to the test, far too many rural families decide that their children are best put to work early. Thus may their earning curves be long, if not steep.
In the cities, limited room at desirable, gao kao -friendly schools gives youngsters an early taste of high-stakes testing. The pressure trickles down to primary students cramming to score high enough to get into a competitive middle school. For those who don’t, the gao kao chase is effectively lost. Once in, their parents must pay relatively exorbitant fees to keep them there.
Hurdle Two: Class Action
Or lack thereof. The world’s most capacious supply of youngsters to educate makes fifty to one a common student-teacher ratio. Teachers have only one realistic tool for keeping that many students on task – a sharp, unforgiving tongue. Students with different learning styles or more serious mental challenges find scant mercy in an environment geared to endless memorization drills and fast, accurate busywork. Children lacking a formidable degree of diligence and family “encouragement” soon find a way out – the back door.
Hurdle Three: Boot Camp
Chinese schools take a decidedly military approach to school life, an approach inspired in equal parts by Soviet tradition and the most efficient way to ensure order and good citizens. Daily group calisthenics is just the beginning of it. Students stand at attention for daily review, recite patriotic speeches, and march in formation parade-ground style. It’s what your father always knew you needed, but sensitive young souls lose more than a measure of individuality in the process. Many competitive high schools require entering students to complete an actual two-to-three week summer boot camp that doesn’t quite rival Paris Island’s, but would nonetheless daunt a western teen who only runs in video games.
Hurdle Four: The Grind
Spare Japanese salary men your pity – at least they can get drunk and hurl abuse at their bosses. Chinese students work like new Matsushita employees on probation. Three hours of homework a night is common for primary school students in higher grades. Once in high school, four hours or more is the norm. Millions of haplessly privileged city kids look forward to weekends of extra classes, especially in English (groan). Mandatory music and sports lessons must stand in the stead of a truly balanced lifestyle, one that incorporates individual leisure and inquiry. Part-time jobs are for students with hospitalized parents or similarly straitened circumstances. Girlfriends and boyfriends? Only if the parents have truly failed.
The hamster wheel goes into high rpm during the last years of high school, as students serious about conquering the gao kao enroll at buxiban, cram schools where students struggle to download extra gigabytes of exam-worthy facts onto already full hard drives.
Hurdle Five: The Stakes
Chinese children have one and only duty: high scores. Confucian tradition enables parents to give and withhold affection based on performance. So long before the Big Test, children esteem themselves in direct proportion to their class rank. As a matter of fact, things are so out of hand that in China, the smart kids are actually considered cool.
If the folks seem a trifle obsessed with their children’s scores, it’s only because they have such high hopes for the little blighters. And that might just be the cruelest hurdle of all. American parents hope their kids ace the SATs, and English students have their parents’ support on the O levels (A levels? How’s that whole rigamarole work?) But in China, the parents accompany their children to the school for critical tests, and hover breathlessly outside as though their loved ones were undergoing brain surgery. Any student with a functioning sense of duty feels the enormous pressure to live up to hopes, pressure otherwise only experienced by fighters challenging Manny Pacquiao for his belt. Such pressure may build character, but it puts Chinese students in a spot most of us thank our lucky stars never to have to struggle out of.
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Sounds more realistic then "Everyone deserves to go to college."
O-Levels have been replaced by GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education)but you still need good passes in at least five subjects at age 16. Brain boxes often do ten subjects. This allows you to get a job as an office clerk or start an apprenticeship. It is also the pre-qualification for A-Levels(Advanced Level)taken at age 18. In these you normally need at least three good grades to gain entry to university.