An 18-year-old Chinese girl recently lost her last living relative as she embarks on her university journey, yet she has declined donations, asking that they be given to others in need. Zeng Zixuan scored 564 out of 750 on this year’s gaokao, the national higher education entrance exam, and has been admitted to the petroleum engineering programme at Yangtze University. She chose this university because it is close to her home, allowing her to visit her grandmother frequently. However, just as...
Last month, 12.9 million students in China sat for the National Higher Education Entrance Examination, or gaokao, the number sliding for a second year, and down from 13.3 million last year. Given that births have fallen below 8 million annually to a record low, in 18 years, the country’s more than 3,100 universities will find themselves fighting over an even smaller cohort. This will coincide with a growing global competition for talent. In a knowledge-driven economy, the countries that prosper...
A Chinese single mother who quit school after Primary One carried steel tubes to support her daughter, who excelled in this year’s college entrance exams. When Zou Pinzhi and her daughter Liu Fang saw the freshly published results of her gaokao, or national college entrance exam, they embraced and wept with joy. The results indicate that Liu’s score was blocked – a sign that she is a top scorer in her province, Sichuan. Several provinces, as well as Beijing, which is a provincial-level city,...