Taking note of suicide risks over China’s education ‘Gaokao’ testing system
- Tom Pauken II.
- 36 minutes ago
- 5 min read
China’s Gaokao college entrance examination for 2025 had been held nationwide from Saturday June 7 to Tuesday June 10. For Chinese citizens, this test has become their “coming of age” moment as they enter into adulthood.
The exam will determine what university they can attend, with those scoring high could capture a pathway to a successful professional career, while most others will face rising challenges due to their average or below-average tests’ results.
The gaokao has emerged as a “life or death” scenario for graduating high school students and in increasing circumstances - a few students have committed suicide, since they could no longer endure the severe stress of gaokao culture, while that’s understandably so.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) highlighted a tragic tale of one young woman from central China, who penned a suicide note before taking her own life. According to the SCMP”
“A heart-wrenching suicide note left by an 18-year-old girl who killed herself in April has reignited discussion online about the heavy academic burden placed on children in China.
In the letter, the girl – who was in her final year at a top high school in Bengbu, a city in the central province of Anhui – wrote about the pressure she felt to do well and said she had been broken by relentless exams, particularly maths and physics.
“I cannot bear how you meticulously checked the scores of all the examinations and tests. I cannot bear how my scores appeared frequently in the text messages between you and your friends and relatives. But then you were afraid that I might see them and you secretly deleted them afterwards,” the girl said in the letter written on the back of school test sheets, which was posted on social media recently.
The girl said she had been so stressed that she could not eat the day before an exam, and that the stress had become so severe that she had decided to end her life.”
The parents of the young woman were traumatized and had never anticipated she would take such extreme measures. They claimed that she was a top-notch student, who regularly scored at number one or two among her fellow classmates.
Nonetheless, a student scoring high on exams does not and will not even guarantee happiness - even if they prevail and get accepted at one of China’s leading universities. Chinese society can be brutal for teenagers and young adults even when they achieve remarkable results in the academic field.
Most Chinese embrace a so-called “Long March” mentality, in which children are expected to work hard, suffer grave humiliations as well as privations, and bear it without complaint. They must study just like obsessive work-a-holics and even if they get good grades, their parents stand prone to criticize them for not doing better.
A student could rank 2nd among their classmates and their parents won’t celebrate but demand the child must get the top ranking. Meanwhile, the highest ranking student is destined to become the most unpopular and most bullied student in the classroom. Their status as “best in class” will make them an inevitable target for envy and hatred.
The parents will often say to their children, “why can’t you perform as well as ‘...,’ your classmate, who is the highest achiever in the classroom?” The students won’t feel motivated to study harder, but would feel angry, seeking out revenge.
Accordingly, students in the classroom transform into bitter rivals as they perceive their peers as threats, not friends. This explains why the Chinese and many Asian athletes are horrible at playing team sports. China has the world’s largest population and second-largest economy, but watching the Chinese National Soccer Team play in international tournaments is too painful to watch for Chinese patriots.
Chinese students have been placed in an educational system that forces them to focus solely on testing. And if they fail to score high on exams they will be treated as losers, stupid and cast out from society. And in extreme cases, parents might abuse them or expel them from their homes.
Hence, the gaokao pressure is enormous and that’s why every year, we hear cases of young smart students choosing to kill themselves. They feel trapped, whether they succeed in exams or not, since the “Long March” mentality discourages celebration, rest and happiness. If you get good scores in gaokao, well - you must study even harder at the university or your family could still shame you.
China’s education system is broken and it seems impossible to fix. Many Chinese parents have expressed concerns over the gaokao obsession, but if they wish to rebel they run into societal brick walls. They might tell their child, not to worry much about exams, but when chatting with other parents, they discover that “Chinese education” becomes the big topic of discussion for them.
Nearly all Chinese parents place burdens on their child to succeed. They will deem their family a failure if the child stumbles in gaokao. For some, the children can accept such challenges and move forward like the “Long March,” but for others the pressures are too hard for them to bear.
Therefore, many Chinese parents have become more enlightened and tolerant. They see the Chinese education system as a dark tunnel and seek the light by pursuing alternative forms of education. A few Chinese mothers or fathers are lucky as they have gotten married to a foreigner, living and working in China.
They can make arrangements for their child to attend international schools, where they can receive a high quality education but without having them succumb to the gaokao trap. I’m an American in Beijing with a Chinese citizen wife and our son Peter can enjoy this opportunity and he’s much happier for it.
Anytime my son shows signs of laziness, I tell him, “Peter, if you get lazy, I will take you out of your international school and send you to a Chinese public school.” He immediately changes his behaviour with a renewed zeal and enthusiasm to study harder.
I don’t blame my son for fearing Chinese public schools. I would be the same if I were his age and dealing with the same life circumstances in the country.
(Tom Pauken II., author of US vs. China: From Trade Wars to Reciprocal Deal, AFAI Senior Fellow, Geopolitical Consultant based in Beijing, China)
X: @tmcgregochina
Footnotes
South China Morning Post, “Chinese teen’s suicide puts crushing academic pressure in the spotlight,”
AISB-Hope International School, “Academic Excellence & Character Development,”
Comments