Students test their mettle for uni - 15th June 2026

Lines of high-school students outside Beijing exam halls have joined 13.4 million others across China, queuing with pens and IDs in hand to endure assessment by the country's gruelling 'Gaokao' university entrance exam.

The Gaokao dictates who's admitted to which academy and ensures that only the highest scorers enter the country's Project 211 group of prestigious research universities. These 115 world-leading institutions are the cream of the country's 2,820 higher education establishments, and their places are most highly sought-after.

Punishing study regimes had seen students regularly burning out on their quest to succeed in the Gaokao, as the be-all and end-all when it comes to university admissions. However, despite the high stakes, there's a growing appreciation that there's more to life, as Deng Ju shares, watching her daughter enter the exam centre.

Deng Ju: "She has her own plans. I am more hands-off, as long as she can perform normally. I care more about physical health."

Maintaining an unruffled calm in the exam queue, student Zhang Xinnan emphasises the importance of keeping a level head under pressure.

Zhang Xinnan: "But if we can calm down, we should be able to get to a stable mentality. Mentality is the most important when it comes to the Gaokao."

Sitting the modern Gaokao takes between two and four days, with exams in Chinese, maths, a modern language, and three of six electives. Students plump for subjects most relevant to their university majors out of biology, chemistry, physics, geography, history and political science.

The education ministry's just introduced interdisciplinary majors in digital economics, AI, robotics, and green energy and engineering into the higher education curriculum. These broaden horizons for undergraduates by anticipating future economic and technological needs.

Whatever future path students choose, teacher Wang believes the discipline required for the Gaokao will serve students well.

Teacher Wang: "Everyone wants to contribute to society in their own way, even if methods vary from person to person. The Gaokao is a final stage for high school, but it's the starting point for the things that come later in life."