An ancient Chinese saying states that meng mu san qian: the mother of Mencius, a sage, “moved three times” to find him the right study environment. Tiger mums the world over know the feeling, but few push harder than the Chinese; the game of cat and mouse the Communist Party plays with parents to stop them trying to game the system is legendary. The party has now released new rules to try to stop it.
In theory, any of the 13m students who take the annual gaokao entrance exam can qualify to attend university if they achieve a good score. In practice, because of the skewed way places are allocated by region, the competition is fiercer in populous provinces. So a small number of parents try to move.
That is not always easy. To enroll your child at a school in another province might require buying a house, finding a new job, or bureaucratic wrangling to change your hukou, or household registration. So there is a more temporary way by which some parents try to cheat the system. They keep their child attending the same school but, using bribes or connections, arrange for them to sit the gaokao exam in a province where they do not live. In one notorious case in 2021 the child of a head teacher in populous Hebei province (with about 600,000 test-takers) took the gaokao in Tibet (competing with just 40,000 locals). Public outrage ensued.
A grey industry has emerged to help with these tricks, which are known as “gaokao migration”. Consultancies offer to smooth things over with local officials and schools, for a fee. One such firm in Henan province told The Economist that for 60,000 yuan ($7,700) they could arrange for a student to sit the exam in Hainan, a rural southern province.
Worried about the anger that cheating and educational inequality creates, on February 7th the education ministry issued new rules demanding schools send a report on each student twice a year, to make sure all are studying and taking exams where they should be.
It would help if China relaxed regional quotas for universities or scrapped them altogether. But resistance from places which benefit from the current system makes that all but impossible, says Li Hongbin of Stanford University. One such place is Beijing, home to many rich and powerful figures. In 2012 reform-minded officials proposed allowing more people to take the gaokao in the capital. But Beijingers protested that it would make the exam more competitive for their children. After much ado, the reform was stifled. Parents will continue to act like the mother of Mencius. ■
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