Beijing denies 30,000 not taking national exam

The number of students not taking the national college entrance examination this year in Beijing is estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000, rather than the 30,000 in earlier media reports, Beijing News said Friday.

It’s still too early for exact numbers to be known, but roughly 2,000 to 3,000 students have opted out of the exam each year in the past several years, according to Beijing’s education commission.

Statistics show that about 102,000 students took part in the senior high school entrance examination in 2010 in Beijing, but only 72,736 registered for the gaokao in 2013. Some media reports may have arrived at the number 30,000 by subtracting 72,736 from 102,000.

The figure 30,000 is wrong and simple subtraction doesn’t work here, said Beijing’s education commission.

Some of the students who took the high school entrance examination in 2010 weren’t Beijing residents, and they would sit the gaokao wherever their hukou is registered, said the commission, and those students number in the thousands.

Some students may have applied for both foreign universities and the Chinese gaokao, and it’s not until gaokao is finished that final numbers will be available, added the commission.

At most, 2,000 to 3,000 students opt out of gaokao in Beijing for foreign universities each year, according to the Beijing Institute for Education.