Chinese Education Culture: The Gaokao, Tiger Moms, and a Nation Obsessed with Learning
Every June, China holds its breath. For two days, millions of 18-year-olds sit for the Gaokao (高考 / gāokǎo) — the National College Entrance Examination — in an event that has been called “the world’s most consequential test.” Over 12 million students registered for the 2025 Gaokao, and for most of them, the score they earn determines not just which university they attend, but their entire career trajectory. There is no second chance — or at least, no equivalent one.
The Gaokao is more than an exam. It is a cultural phenomenon that defines Chinese childhood and family life. From kindergarten onward, children are prepared — directly or indirectly — for this single test. Zhang Liping, a 42-year-old mother from Chengdu, describes her family’s daily rhythm: “My son wakes up at 6 a.m., goes to school until 5 p.m., then goes to tutoring class from 6 to 8:30 p.m. He does homework until 11 p.m. He is 14. This is normal.” Her story is not unusual. According to the China Education and Research Network, over 70% of urban middle school students attend after-school tutoring programs in at least one subject.
The Gaokao’s dominance has deep roots. For over 1,300 years — from the Sui Dynasty (581–618 CE) until 1905 — China’s civil service examination system, the Keju (科举), selected government officials through an exhausting series of written exams. Success in the Keju meant a life of prestige, wealth, and power; failure meant returning to the farm or village shop. The modern Gaokao, revived in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, inherited this cultural weight. The Chinese saying “万般皆下品，唯有读书高” (wàn bān jiē xià pǐn, wéi yǒu dú shū gāo) — “all pursuits are base; only studying is noble” — still resonates today.
The pressure on students has generated a massive education economy. In 2025, China’s private tutoring industry was valued at over 850 billion RMB ($118 billion), despite a government crackdown on “excessive” academic tutoring in 2021. That crackdown — known as the “Double Reduction” policy (双减 / shuāng jiǎn) — aimed to reduce homework burden and ban for-profit subject tutoring. But demand found new channels: underground tutoring groups, online sessions taught from abroad, and a shift toward “quality education” (素质教育 / sùzhì jiàoyù) including music, art, and sports lessons that now fill children’s weekends instead of math drills.
The results of this pressure are mixed. China consistently ranks among the top performers in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), particularly in math and science. In the 2022 PISA tests, Chinese students from Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang scored first in all three categories — reading, math, and science — by a significant margin. But the mental health toll is visible. A 2024 study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that 14.8% of Chinese adolescents reported symptoms of depression, with academic stress cited as the most common contributing factor.
In recent years, a counter-movement has emerged. Some urban parents — often cal 
led “chicken baby” (鸡娃 / jī wá) parents, a slang term for those who push their children relentlessly — are reconsidering the all-Gaokao-all-the-time approach. International schools, offering alternative curricula such as IB (International Baccalaureate) and A-levels, have grown from fewer than 500 in 2010 to over 1,400 in 2025. Some families are choosing to send their children to study abroad earlier, with over 600,000 Chinese students currently enrolled in overseas universities — though this number has stabilized as domestic universities improve their global rankings.
China’s education system is not just about exams, however. It also instills values that outsiders sometimes find surprising. Moral education (德育 / déyù) is a formal part of the curriculum, and students are taught collective responsibility, respect for teachers, and the importance of social harmony. Classroom discipline in Chinese schools is noticeably stricter than in many Western countries — standing when a teacher enters, reciting poems in unison, cleaning the classroom as a group activity.
Meanwhile, China’s higher education system continues to rise. Tsinghua University and Peking University are now ranked among the world’s top 20 universities in the QS World University Rankings, and Chinese universities produce more STEM graduates annually than the United States and the European Union combined. Research output from Chinese institutions surpassed the U.S. in total publications in 2020 and continues to grow in quality and citation impact.
For a visitor to China, the education culture is visible everywhere — in the children reading textbooks on the subway, in the queues outside exam centers on Gaokao morning, in the pride parents take in their children’s test scores posted on WeChat Moments. It is a system under strain, evolving rapidly, yet still shaped by a thousand-year belief that education is the single most powerful force for upward mobility. As one university student in Shanghai put it: “The Gaokao is brutal. But it is the fairest brutal thing we have.”
For more on China’s dynamic culture, see China’s coffee revolution and the independent bookstore revival. To understand how young Chinese approach life in the digital age, read about China’s smartphone photography culture.
