Thanks to Audible — the world’s leading
provider of audiobooks — for sponsoring this video. Deep in Eastern China’s Anhui province,
situated in a valley between the mountains, is a small town called Maotanchang. Of the hundreds of cities and thousands of
towns and villages in the world’s most populous country, Maotanchang is, without a doubt,
the most boring of them all. Unlike even the drabbest of industrial mining
or factory towns, here there’s nothing even resembling entertainment. No bowling alleys, theaters, water parks,
bars, or internet cafes. A game shop once opened, but was promptly
forced to close after locals led a boycott. Its busiest places: a post office, grocery
store, and a few scattered restaurants, close early and stay quiet enough that they could
only be doing so intentionally. But make no mistake: Maotanchang is not a
forgotten pit-stop, slowly fading-away to history. Actually, just the opposite. Thousands flock to this 4,000-person town,
hours away from any major city — one with no historical or religious significance. Though there are no jobs to be had, there
is a factory, some would argue, though not the kind you’d expect. Its private high school is known, across China,
as a so-called “Study factory” where parents bring their children to prepare for the most
important exam of their lives. Its remote location and lifeless streets are
deliberate features — there’s simply nothing to do but study. As the town has grown in prominence, its population
has doubled — from 4 to 8,000 — the new residents being the families of test-takers,
who, in turn, drive real estate prices sky-high and consume roughly 90% of the local economy. The test is called the Gaokao — ‘Gao’
meaning high, as-in higher education, i.e. university, and ‘Kao’ meaning exam. These days, around 10 million 3rd-year high
school students — graduating seniors in the Chinese education system — take the
test each year, making it a candidate for the largest anywhere on earth. In normal years, the 9-hour exam begins on
June 7th and lasts 2 or 3 days, depending on the province. Although the exam is coordinated and synced
across the whole of China, excluding the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau,
the questions and logistics are arranged by each province and provincial-level city. For most students it consists of math, Chinese,
and a foreign language — usually English, but alternatively Japanese, Russian, or French
— plus his or her choice of either humanities — which includes geography, history, and
politics, or science — meaning biology, chemistry, and physics. The questions are mainly multiple choice and
short answers, though the Chinese section includes an essay, scored by two random graders. Before or afterward, students list the schools
they wish to attend. By the time scores are released in July, provincial
authorities have negotiated their quota for admission to each university, which determines
its lowest accepted score. The maximum number of points is 750, though
anything above even 700 is considered legendary, thanks to its notoriously inscrutable questions. When all is said and done, around 10% of students
receive offers to one of the “Tier 1”, best schools in the country, and 20% end up
in a 2nd Tier school. The highest scorers in each province become
overnight celebrities — their photos plastered throughout their hometowns, parents praised
on television, and their choice of school subject to much scrutiny. From a distance, the Gaokao may seem like
a larger and slightly more elaborate version of the SAT, ACT, A-Levels, or JEE. But such an image would be wildly mistaken. For starters, the Gaokao is only offered once
per year. Meaning that if a student isn’t accepted
into one of his or her selected schools, of which there can only be a few, they will have
no choice but to wait until the following June, which many do, sometimes several times
over. To be precise, only about 8 of the 10 million
test-takers are accepted. The other roughly 20% are faced with a very
unenviable decision — wait another 365 days, or give up. Parents often resent those students who choose
to take the exam again — saying they drive up the average score at the expense of their
child, sometimes despite already being accepted to one or more schools. Gaokao scores are also, in most cases, the
only criteria for college admission. The concept of recommendations, personal essays,
and extracurriculars are so foreign to Chinese families that they usually hire a counselor
to guide them through this process when applying to a overseas university. The Gaokao is very much make or break, which
is why it has spawned such a lucrative industry, of which Maotanchang is one of the biggest
benefactors. What sets it apart from all the other schools,
tutoring centers, and methods is that, quite simply, it really works. It claims a 90% university admissions rate,
compared to the 30% of its province as a whole. Of course, this success comes at a price. And quite a steep one. The campus is run more like a military training
academy than a school — with 16-hours of studying scheduled per day. Everything is designed and optimized for studying. For example, there are no laundry rooms, electrical
outlets, or, for many years, even hot water. Visitors, including parents, are allowed on
campus for exactly 3 hours each Sunday afternoon. The security guards, who drive around on golf
carts, ensure these rules are followed. Its real secret formula, however, is the way
it meticulously ranks, rewards, and punishes its 500 teachers, alongside their students. Their salaries are already higher than average,
but what drives them to essentially give up on their lives — quit their jobs, hold off
on starting a family, and move to the middle of nowhere — are the bonuses. If a student is accepted to China’s famous
Peking or Tsinghua Universities, say, then 50,000 RMB, or about $8,000 US Dollars, is
divided between all of his or her teachers. A good educator, therefore, can easily double
or triple his or her salary. On the flip side, the lowest-ranked teachers
each year can expect to be fired. To many people, these descriptions elicit
pity, if not outrage. Whenever an image or anecdote of a 6-foot
pile of books or the school’s 16-hour schedule goes viral, a certain fury follows — “How
dare someone try to pay to game a test?” or “What an incredible waste of young people’s
lives”. In reality, the vast majority of Maotanchang
students are not rich kids from the city but, rather, children of poor rural families who
have saved for years. For them, the Gaokao is a route — their
only route — to upward social mobility, and Maotanchang is their golden ticket. Which is why, when the day finally comes,
it’s one of hope and celebration, not dread or hatred. To an observer, June 7th may look like the
beginning of a festival. Parents book hotel rooms near the testing
venues. Rows of busses full of students roam the cities,
escorted by a parade of their families. Cars are forbidden from honking their horns,
construction sites within half a mile are ordered to stay silent, and over 1 million
supervisors across the country proctor its 7,000 exam sites. Then, on the final day, after their final
stroke is written, students overwhelmingly report the same unexpected feeling: loss. While these 9 fateful hours have consumed
nearly every second and thought of the last few years of their lives, if not entire education,
the Gaokao also acts as a powerful goal, a singular milestone far in the future and yet
close enough to always instill urgency. The Gaokao is not a thing to be romanticized. Critics rightly emphasize the unfathomable
mental strain it places on students — strain which sometimes spirals into permanent damage,
the years of lives it robs of every boy and girl, the unnecessary rote memorization which
is never recalled, and the permanent destiny it prescribes to those deemed unfit. But such an all-encompassing task also provides
a concrete purpose that drives students forward and a universally-accepted excuse to all failures
non-academic. One can be bad at just about everything, and
still be celebrated for scoring highly. In some ways, the Gaokao is a mask — hiding
all accomplishments and challenges behind a single, person-defining number. And not only at the level of the individual. Social and economic inequalities are also
rationalized and upheld by the meritocratic nature of the Gaokao. It suggests that everyone gets what he or
she deserves, providing an excuse for huge differences in opportunity. And while there have been many moves to reform
the Gaokao and even discussions about replacing it entirely, the great irony is that those
who suffer the most, families and students themselves, are also sometimes its most vocal
supporters. To them, the Gaokao may be the hardest test
in China, but, it’s also their only ticket to a better life. One of the inspirations for this video was
a book I read called “The Case Against Education” by Bryan Caplan. It explains what so many of us think but don’t
have the eloquent words to prove: how the modern education system fails us. You can listen to it, just like I did, with
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well, that was just about the most depressing thing ive seen today