Times Higher Education: Article fails to correctly grasp the nuances of Gaokao

The Times Higher Education published recently an article which drew attention to the very real issue of Hukou residential status and the right to sit the notorious Gaokao examination for entry to China's universities.

The article, penned by Hong Bing, Associate Professor of Journalism at Fudan University, featured some comments by Zhang Ming, Professor at Renmin University and blogger extraordinaire, on the recent initiatives of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou to address this issue.  The following citation is from Hong Bing's THE article:

"In response, education authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the megacities with the biggest migrant populations and the best education resources, finally published their roadmaps for reform in late December. But the plans have been widely criticised for setting high entry barriers for migrant students. Shanghai says that parents who have come to the city as "talents with expertise" and have a home there as well as a steady job may get a residence registration that allows their children to take Shanghai's college entrance exam in 2014. Guangzhou will open its entrance exam to qualified migrant students in 2016. But Beijing's plan didn't have even a timetable for opening its exams to migrant students. According to Professor Zhang, if the plans had been marked like an exam: "Guangzhou passed; Shanghai failed; and Beijing just turned in a blank exam paper.""

Yet this assessment byProfessor Zhang appears to overlook the fact that Guangzhou's efforts are really not that helpful.  I will, in this blog post, attempt to explain why.  

Hong Bing's article highlights the case of Zhan Haite, the daughter of a Shanghai-based migrant worker campaigning for the right to sit the Gaokao in Shanghai where she has been educated.  Under strict regulations, Chinese senior high school students must take the Gaokao exam in the town where there Hukou is registered, the Hukou being the system of household registration.  For Zhan Haite, this would have meant returning to Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province.  

So why is this a problem?  Why not just return to Jiangxi and take the Gaokao (National University Entrance Examination) there?  Well.  Its not that simple.  Welcome to the confusing world of the Gaokao.  

Firstly, although the Gaokao is described as a "national" examination, it is actually provincially administered.  Secondly, each province favours its own applicants for entry to universities located in that province.  Thirdly, the exams themselves differ from province to province (most provinces require a score out of 750, but Zhejiang (810).  And finally, sitting the Gaokao in certain provinces makes it much easier (or much harder) to gain access to a top university.  

Every July, when the Gaokao exam results are published, each province sets a Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cut-off point.  For entrance to a 4yr UG (本科) programme, students must place above the Tier 1 cut-off point.  Failure to good enough grades ostensibly sentences the student one of three choices: (a) 3yr vocational technical college (大专); (b) going overseas or on one of the many under-the-radar articulation programmes run by private Chinese providers in conjunction with foreign universities, or (c) to re-register at the high school and retake the Gaokao the following year.

This is a stark choice.  Option (a) is a shameful proposition and many students and parents balk at the idea.  Option (b) is expensive.  Option (c) will fill the student with dread at the prospect of another year in the grip of a Gaokao studying frenzy (for a fairly standard overview of what Gaokao means to most Chinese high school students, see this post on sinostand: http://sinostand.com/2013/02/03/the-gaokao-highway-to-hell/ )

So what happens if a student achieves the Holy Grail of a Tier 1 score.  Well, firstly, a Tier 1 score is not necessarily a "good" score.  All it really means is that the student has finished in the top bracket and can apply for 4yr UG study at a fairly good university.  

The table below shows the Tier 1 cut-off points for each province in the Arts and Science streams in 2012 (students must nominate either Arts or Science as the focus of their Gaokao). 

	Province	Total	Arts	Tier 1 Pass	Science	Tier 1 Pass
1	Guangdong	750	589	78.53%	585	78.00%
2	Anhui	750	577	76.93%	544	72.53%
3	Shandong	750	573	76.40%	582	77.60%
4	Hebei	750	572	76.27%	564	75.20%
5	Hunan	750	571	76.13%	520	69.33%
6	Jiangxi	750	570	76.00%	547	72.93%
7	Liaoning	750	563	75.07%	517	68.93%
8	Hubei	750	562	74.93%	551	73.47%
9	Zhejiang	810	606	74.81%	593	73.21%
10	Henan	750	557	74.27%	540	72.00%
11	Fujian	750	557	74.27%	546	72.80%
12	Hainan	900	668	74.22%	614	68.22%
13	Shaanxi	750	556	74.13%	517	68.93%
14	Chongqing	750	554	73.87%	522	69.60%
15	Tianjin	750	549	73.20%	530	70.67%
16	Shanghai	600	438	73.00%	632	72.00%
17	Guangxi	750	544	72.53%	528	70.40%
18	Guizhou	750	539	71.87%	470	62.67%
19	Shanxi	750	539	71.87%	530	70.67%
20	Gansu	750	533	71.07%	517	68.93%
21	Jiangsu	480	341	71.04%	340	70.83%
22	Jilin	750	529	70.53%	515	68.67%
23	Heilongjiang	750	526	70.13%	514	68.22%
24	Yunnan	750	520	69.33%	465	62.00%
25	Sichuan	750	516	68.80%	518	69.07%
26	Beijing	750	495	66.00%	477	63.60%
27	Xinjiang	750	493	65.73%	445	59.33%
28	Inner Mongolia	750	492	65.60%	469	62.53%
29	Ningxia	750	489	65.20%	440	58.67%
30	Qinghai	750	433	57.73%	401	53.47%
31	Xizang (Tibet)	750	320	42.67%	280	37.33%

Province Municipality or Autonomous Region 省，市，自治区	Key Universities* 重点大学	Standard Universities 一般大学	Minban Universities 民办大学	TOTAL 总计
Beijing 北京	27	26	9	62
Jiangsu 江苏	13	29	20	62
Shanghai 上海	9	20	15	44
Shaanxi 陕西	8	24	17	49
Hubei 湖北	7	27	9	43
Liaoning 辽宁	6	33	10	49
Guangdong 广东	5	29	22	56
Sichuan 四川	5	25	9	39
Heilongjiang 黑龙江	5	19	7	31
Hunan 湖南	4	20	10	34
Tianjin 天津	3	15	1	19
Jilin 吉林	3	21	3	27
Anhui 安徽	3	26	9	38
Chongqing 重庆	3	12	6	21
Hebei 河北	3	30	11	44
Shandong 山东	2	35	24	61
Fujian 福建	2	16	18	36
Shanxi 山西	2	14	5	21
Jiangxi 江西	2	16	6	24
Zhejiang 浙江	1	24	11	36
Henan 河南	1	29	10	40
Gansu 甘肃	1	12	1	14
Yunnan 云南	1	16	6	23
Guangxi 广西	1	18	8	27
Inner Mongolia/Neimenggu 内蒙古	1	9	5	15
Xinjiang 新疆	1	10	2	13
Guizhou 贵州	0	14	1	15
Ningxia 宁夏	0	4	2	6
Hainan 海南	0	5	3	8
Qinghai 青海	0	3	0	3
Tibet/Xizang 西藏 **	0	3	0	3
TOTAL	119	584	260	963

There are some other important aspects here.  The Tier 1 cut-off point is calculated according to filling university places, so although the Tier 1 cut-off remains fairly constant (+/- 10%) on an annual basis, students who expect an overall grade around the Tier 1 cut-off face an anxious wait to find out if they've done enough.  It is one of the most difficult aspects of recruitment trips in China to tell a student with 1 or 2 marks less than needed that you cannot accept their application.  There are usually tears, and lots of them.  

Secondly, Shanghai and Beijing have most of the top universities in China, they also have HE enrolment rates upwards of 80% (including 4yr and 3yr programmes).  It also has a much lower number of university applicants for a much greater number of places compared to provinces such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong.  In addition, the schools are often much more advanced in terms of facilities, HR and financial resources and generally of a consistent standard.  So while Shanghai requires a score of 73% or above in Gaokao Science (72% in Arts), the chances of being accepted to a prestigious institution are much greater (one of my research projects in the pipeline is to conduct in depth quant analysis of the Gaokao system, taking into account all of these factors, and to try and understand the impact of regional Hukou registration on university entrance).  

If you look at the distribution of universities offering 4yr UG study across China's provinces and municipalities, it helps demonstrate these issues.  

The 119 Key Universities listed in the table above refer to those universities which are members of the prestigious Project 211 group of universities.  This group of 119 also includes the 39 Project 985 elite universities, which in turn includes the C9 Group of China's most famous universities.  

While I don't have exact numbers for Gaokao candidates in each province for 2012, we can look at Jiangsu, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces (the wealthiest provinces in China's coastal region) to illustrate the point.  

Population Top Universities Total 4yr Universities

Shanghai 23m 9 44

Jiangsu 79m 13 62

Guangdong 105m 5 56

Shandong 95m 2 61

Zhejiang  55m 1 56

This system is also subject to the system of "quota negotiation" between provinces.  For example, as Shanghai has many of the most desirable universities, it is in a position to demand uneven swaps with other provinces.  Shanghai can negotiate to send, for example, 100 students to Shandong province, but take only 50 from Shandong province in return due to its bargaining power.  This also favours Shanghai Gaokao candidates at the expense of their compatriots in other provinces.  

OPENING THE GUANGZHOU GAOKAO - ZHANG MING'S COMMENTS

Zhan Haite's case, and the article written by Hong Bing, highlights the opacity and the lack of equality of opportunity in China's Gaokao system.  It is certainly a joke to describe the Gaokao as a national entrance examination, as it is administered provincially and there is a strong bias towards students from certain provinces.  

However, the comments of Zhang Ming, a Professor at Renmin University, towards the end of the article, fail to full recognise the nuances of the system and, to a certain extent, jump on the equal rights bandwagon.   Zhang Ming, for those who haven't heard of him, is one of the most prominent bloggers in academia. He writes extensively on a range f issues, including IR, politics, economics, foreign affairs and HE.  He's one of those spiky and thorny provocateurs that the foreign media love to go to on a range of issues, but who probably has an unhealthy number of enemies in China thanks to his outspoken nature.  Its fair to say, I like him a lot.  His blog can be found here: http://blog.sina.com.cn/zhangming1 

Firstly, this is because Guangzhou itself is not a municipality, but a provincial capital city.  Secondly, because Guangzhou has a huge population with comparatively few top universities.  Thirdly, because the migrant workers in Guangzhou would in many cases, be further disadvantage by taking the Gaokao exam in Guangzhou (for example if they are Hukou residents from any province other than Guangdong, the pass mark required for a Tier 1 score is lower than that required for Guangdong).  Of course, it requires further statistical analysis to assess whether or not migrant workers in Guangzhou would stand a better chance of admission to a good university, but this will require a major investigation and analysis of quantitative data, as well as attempting to understand the impact of resources on educational quality.  

So alterations to the Guangzhou policy on allowing migrant worker children to sit the Gaokao exam is misleading.  It is certainly possible that it will further disadvantage those children and lessen the chances of acceptance to a top university or even gaining access to 4yr UG education at all, especially with such a high Tier 1 cut-off point of 78%+.  This is also probably the reason we see students like Zhan Haite lamenting the fact she cannot take the exam in Shanghai, where it is quite clear that the Shanghai Gaokao offers much better opportunities (lower pass rates, lower competition for places, more prestigious universities) than in other provinces.  

Reform of the Gaokao system is certainly something which many people in China would like to see.  The real issue is, however, insatiable demand and lack of supply of quality education.  Guangzhou has 5 universities deemed top tier to cater for a population of 105m people.  Even here, only Sun Yatsen and Jinan universities are truly deemed to be outstanding institutions.  There simply are not enough good universities in China to cater for demand and while enrolment rates currently stand at 26%, expected to reach 40% of university-age students by 2020, the gross enrolment rates in major urban centres such as Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major cities is already well in excess of 80%.  

The Gaokao exam, however, is likely to stay.  And the overwhelming reason for this is that it is, for all its foibles and inconsistencies, a strong bulwark against the tide of academic dishonesty.  It is, practically impossible, as well as criminal offence, to cheat on the Gaokao exam.  It is also now very difficult for corrupt practices within universities to be manipulated by unscrupulous admissions officers, i.e. admitting students for bribes.  And this is why the Gaokao will not be disappearing anytime soon.  What needs to happen is a debate as to how the inequities of the university application system may be addressed, but first we need to really understand the system at the national level and where those inequities lie.  

MG