(Adnkronos) – In China, more than 13.3 million students have registered this year for the ‘gaokao’, the fateful university entrance exam. The Ministry of Education announced this, as reported by the official Xinhua agency. The dreaded tests will begin on June 7. The authorities promise increasingly strict controls at the exam venues. Mobile phones and smartwatches are prohibited for the exam, which in China can decide the future of young people. This year, in many areas of the Dragon, projects have been announced to include control systems that exploit artificial intelligence in the exam venues. According to The Paper, the provinces of Jiangxi and Hubei are also among those that have planned the use of real-time controls to “maintain discipline” during the tests with the help of artificial intelligence.
In Jiangxi, the authorities assure that there will be live monitoring and that thanks to artificial intelligence, any “anomalous” behavior during the exams will be ‘detected’. And, as the Global Times wrote, the surveillance footage will then be reviewed after the tests. Whispering, looking around, peeking at colleagues’ answers, answering early or waiting to provide answers to test questions are all considered incorrect behaviors.
For the media of the Asian giant, the ‘gaokao’ has always been the “most difficult” university entrance test on the planet, with kids sparing no time and energy in preparing for the grueling exam, dreaming of the classrooms of the best universities in the country. 2024 was the record year with 13.4 million enrolled.
This year, the ‘gaokao’ also coincides with the crackdown on universities in the US and on student visas. According to data reported by the Global Times, a Chinese nationalist tabloid, Chinese students represent about 20% of young foreigners enrolled at Harvard, targeted by Donald Trump.
