Is Gaokao The Last Piece of Pure Land in China?

By Hong Wang / Winter 2020

Our world is full of unfair competing stages. Some people can get an excellent job with the relationship, and other people born with a silver spoon in their mouths. However, I have been told that Gaokao is a fair stage for students competes for each other by my parents and teachers since I was a kid. In every Gaokao period, the media always shows how the schools use different kinds of high technology detecting equipment to detect phone signals and metal to avoid cheating during Gaokao. I had always believed that Gaokao is the last piece of pure land in China until I experienced Gaokao. In China, there are different college admission requirements for different cities. The household register, which is HuKou in Chinese word, assigns every person’s residency. Students who come from different regions have different difficulty to get into college. In my experience, since my friend’s residency in Beijing, he has a lower admission scoreline for Peking university than mine, and he got the Peking university admission letter at last. Even though I have the same Gaokao score with him, I cannot meet the Peking university admission scoreline because the scoreline is much higher in my city. The priority of the residency makes Gaokao unfair. Therefore, I find that the Chinese Gaokao has the contradictions because it promises to provide a fair completive stage, but as we look deeper, we can see that the score of Gaokao is highly correlated with the status of social hierarchy.

Before we discuss the obstacle that prevents reform in the Gaokao, I want to discuss the more profound problem behind the priority of the residency in Gaokao so that we can determine where are the obstacles come from. The social hierarchy is highly relative to the score of Gaokao. The Chinese government considers those students who live in the big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, will have better quality, so the top schools will give them priority to get into the school. Compare with other cities, and there are better educational resources and the public quality within these three cities. But most importantly, the relative cost in these cities will be much expensive than others. No matter the house price or the food price, all the expenses are more than five times than in other cities. “Gaokao scores are highly correlated with socioeconomic status. It’s meritocratic only because it’s equally bad for everyone (Ash).” It indicates that most people whose residencies are Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are upper-class. They are social elite with an excellent economy and high education so that only they can afford the expensive cost. Most social ethnics live in these cities is a part of the reason for the government adopts the priority of residency in Gaokao because the government considers upper-class people will pay attention to teach their offspring to become high-quality people. Therefore, the government is willing to put more resources into education with these three cities to develop the social elite. “The inequality in the Chinese college entrance examination is mainly the inequality between the social classes. In colleges and universities, the college entrance exam has played a role in solidifying the social class (Heinz).” As the upper-class in charge of the most educational resource for their children, social mobility is reducing. That is, the wealthy families get more wealth, and the poverty-stricken families stay poor because the students from the affluent families have a higher chance of getting into the top university.

Next, we can explore the deep story in the historical roots of the problem. The imperial examination has a significant influence in the Chinese educational system. Gaokao uses the imperial test in the Tang dynasty, which is 1300 years ago, as reference. The imperial examination and Gaokao both select top students in the ranking of exam scores regardless of their family background. However, the difference between imperial examination and Gaokao is the imperial is made up of a series of the exam instead one-time exam. People can have the permit to take the next level imperial examination unless they are on top of the list in the imperial review. Comparatively speaking, the imperial examination is stricter than Gaokao. Once people pass the imperial examination, they will become governor officer who is upper-class in Tang dynasty. Therefore, the imperial examination becomes a popular way for working-class people to change their life. A lot of schools at that time are for getting a good grade in the imperial examination rather than teaching the knowledge. The goal of students go to school is to become governor officers instead of pursuing education.

Back to the Gaokao, we can find there are many common points between Gaokao and the imperial examination. It looks like history repeats itself. One of the significant common points is both examinations are dominated by classism and neoliberalism. Students who get higher ranking in Gaokao means they may choose the better colleges and access better social resources than others. Most people that really care about Gaokao are mostly working-class and middle-class families because gaokao is the only way that changes their family and generation life, and everyone has fair chances to transform into upper-class in Gaokao. Although they do not have enough resources to put into their children's education and provide a reasonable stage for their children, they still hope their children can put most of the time into preparing Gaokao instead of their children's talent and hobby. As same as the schools in Tang Dynasty, most Chinese education focuses on teaching students how to get a good grade in gaokao. The schools are the training base to train students to become a learning machine. This kind of education focuses on quantitative achievement over qualitative development.

Now that we have examined the Gaokao scores are highly correlated with social hierarchy, we can consider the obstacles that prevent reform in the Gaokao. How does gaokao still survive in the Chinese educational system though it is unfair and emphasizing quantitative achievement over qualitative development? The dominant ideology, neoliberalism, plays a significant role in supporting the Chinese educational system nowadays. At first, I want to discuss how neoliberalism permeates into the educational system from the economic system. As David says in his article “A Brief History of Neoliberalism”, governance by majority rule is seen as a potential threat to individual rights and constitutional liberties. Democracy is viewed as a luxury, only possible under conditions of relative affluence coupled with a strong middle-class presence to guarantee political stability. Neoliberals, therefore, tend to favor governance by experts and elites (Harvey). It shows that to prevent governance by the majority, the government wants to centralize the power within upper-class people because they are holding most social resources and power. Upper-class people can influence society easily. However, there is a different situation in China. Chinese economy incorporates neoliberal elements, but its centralize power still belongs to communist. Communism combines with capitalism is the result of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which was presented by president Deng. The purpose of socialism with Chinese characteristics is to make a part of people rich first without influencing the power of communist and then promote economic growth in the poverty region. However, the process is bound to the inequality development. According to David said in “A Brief History of Neoliberalism”, Rural governments get almost no support from wealthier areas. They tax local farmers and impose endless fees to finance schools, hospitals, road building, even the police.’ Poverty is intensifying among those left behind even as growth roars ahead at 9 percent (Harvey). It causes the wealthy region to become more prosperous, but the poverty region becomes more poverty. As a result, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou become three of the most developed cities in China. The priority of the residency starts making gaokao unfair.

To accomplish the goal of socialism with Chinese characteristics, neoliberalism makes education marketable, and define success is to increase our market value by grade, score, and so on in the school. Under the effect of neoliberalism, schools operate like a screening machine that picks top students into the elite class, puts bad students into the working class. Facing the pressure from the lack of resources and enormous population, schools start to emphasize the quantitative achievement over qualitative development so that a massive amount of labor force can be produced to meet the market demand. Any failings have been defined as personal failings instead of the public’s faults by the effect of neoliberalism. For example, if students get a lousy score in gaokao, people will blame that students did not study hard rather than blaming the educational system is unfair. The unfair mainly shows in the upper-class student can use additional educational resources. By the influence of neoliberalism, education transforms into private goods instead of public products. Not everyone can afford the cost of tuition. According to Henry said in the interview, many colleges and universities have been McDonalds-ized as knowledge is increasingly viewed as a commodity resulting in curricula that resemble a fast-food menu (Giroux). It indicates that higher education has been commercialized. However, due to the significance of gaokao, education commercializes not only appear in college in China, but it also appears in elementary school, middle school, and high school. Every parent does not want their children to lose at the starting line. In China, although the tuition fee for public high school is not expensive, the additional courses and extracurricular courses are extremely expensive. There are a lot of businesses that provide extracurricular classes near the school. These businesses are similar to McDonald's business model. Students go into the merchant and then buy the education as customers. It causes students who come from upper-class families can afford extracurricular courses or private schools, so they always have better grades than other class students. However, without additional resources, middle-class and working-class students still one step behind the upper-class students. Gaokao supposes to increase social mobility. Every class should have an equal chance to become the upper-class or degrade to the lower-class. However, under neoliberalism, social power and resource are still holding in upper-class people’ hands.

The neoliberalism does irreparable damage on Chinese students. The neoliberalism makes students try to do everything that can increase their market value. Gaokao is one of few ways that can increase a huge people’ market value. Most companies only value employees’ graduate college. Therefore, Gaokao is the most important steps that can determine students’ value in the market. However, the neoliberalism is killing Chinese student’s dream. Under the huge pressure from gaokao, Chinese students rarely spend their time in their hobby such as musical instrument or outdoor sport because these are not the subject in the gaokao. Therefore, most students do not realize what their interests are before gaokao. For those students who have exceptional talent in art or sport, there are specialized exams like art gaokao and sport gaokao. However, most of these kinds of students miss their best period to learn and excavate their interests, because they are preparing gaokao since they are in elementary school. It causes Chinese students cannot find their interested career. Students who come from the upper-class have a higher chance of having a good grade in gaokao. Other students who come from working-class and middle-class do not find their other talents. Once the students do not have a good rank in gaokao, they must choose to become a common laborer such as a waiter or driver because they do not have another skill.

Now that we see neoliberalism is the main obstacle to solving the problem, we can consider how to overcome the obstacle by Confucian and communist Ethics. Due to the neoliberalism, the resource distribution is unequal. Rich people become wealthier, and poor people become more miserable. The communist and Confucian can help us overcome the obstacles. As Niall said in his article “The World We Want”, we did so to give ourselves a moral compass that we will use to guide our actions, to direct us beyond market value. What emerged astounded me – this, from a bunch of millennials who are supposedly narcissistic and apathetic (Twohig). It shows that we can take Confucian and communist ethics as our moral compass to find out what is the actual value we want to accomplish rather than being forced to create the project, publish a paper to increase our market value by external pressure. Confucian ethics mainly emphasizes the ethical cultivation is the essential quality of people. In Confucian thoughts, there is a famous proverb that said: “Without the country, there is no place that can be called home.” It shows that everyone should have a social responsibility to build a society together rather than keeping receiving benefits from the community. The schools should teach students these basic ethics, such as filial piety, benevolence, and so on, instead of reading or writing skills. The schools should combine the Confucian ethics and knowledge and focus on qualitative development. However, qualitative development requires a significant amount of resources because of population stress. Upper-class people are not willing to give up their privileges, so they will keep extracting social support. Therefore, we need the communist and Confucian ethics to awake people’ social responsibility, so that the upper-class people who are holding most social resources provide aid to those poverty regions so that not only Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have the excellent educational resource, but also the poverty region can have good schools. At that time, students will not struggle their gaokao score anymore because every area has the same educational level. The education is not a private good anymore. Students enjoy some educational resources, and the school provides additional tutor help without extra cost.

Education is relative to the future of the country. If the schools keep emphasizing quantitative achievement over qualitative development, the quality of students must be bad. The goal for all students is to improve their market value instead of doing some valuable things to the country or the world. The priority of residency in gaokao is just a piece of the shadow of neoliberalism. The neoliberalism dominant the educational system in worldwide. Every student is living in a high-pressure study environment. The teenage suicide rates in some specific countries such as China, Korea, and Japan are very high because of great stress. No one wants their offspring to experience the high-pressure study environment. More importantly, the gap between rich and poor will be more substantial and more significant because society prefers rewarding elite class under the effect of neoliberalism. As the poverty people are opposed exceedingly, they may do violence protest, revolt to cause the community to become unstable.

Work Cited

Ash, Alec. Is China’s Gaokao the World’s Toughest School Exam?

Giroux, Henry, and Mitja Sardoč. “The Language of Neoliberal Education.” 

Harvey, David. “Ch5 Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics.” A Brief History of Neoliberalism, pp. 89. MTM, 2019.

Heinz, Nicholas. Failing Grade: How China’s All-Important Exam Is Stunting National Growth.

Harvey, David. “Ch3 The Neoliberal State.” A Brief History of Neoliberalism, pp. 66. MTM, 2019.

Twohig, Niall. “The World We Want.”