China holds delayed “gaokao” amid tight epidemic control

Beijing: The moment of truth has arrived for Chinese authorities, students and parents as the national college entrance exam, also known as the gaokao, began on Tuesday after it had been delayed for one month due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

Over 10 million students sit this year’s national college entrance exam, deemed the most important event for them as it provides a fair opportunity to set the directions for their future careers.

Nationwide, more than 7000 exam sites have been set up, with around 400,000 examination rooms, while 945,000 people work as invigilators or service providers for the exam.

The organisation of such a largescale annual gaokao highlights the country’s effective regular epidemic control after it had won strategic achievements in containing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

In Beijing, nearly 50,000 students took the exam this year. A total of 132 schools were arranged as exam sites in the capital city.

At Beijing No. 12 Middle School in Fengtai District, examinees entered the campus on Tuesday morning before passing through a blue tent, where their body temperatures were checked by an automatic electronic thermometer one by one. Fengtai saw an outbreak of new infections since June 11, and the epidemic control measures were particularly tight.