Millions of high-school graduates are racing against time to prepare for the annual ordeal of the national college entrance examination, which is often regarded as the most crucial turning point in the life of students.
However, experts have said students and parents need to have a relaxed vision that going to university is not the only road to a successful future.
People need to break the traditional concepts of "one test for a whole life", Yuan Shiwei, a professor with Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said.
By September last year, China had 4.95 million college graduates and roughly 71 percent of them found jobs.
"Nowadays, there are more channels for success and the world is full of people who failed the exam but reached self-achievement," he said.
However, this year, 5.95 million high school graduates out of some 10 million will be admitted into universities.
Sun Yu, a teacher at the Shanghai Foreign Language School, said that the competition in the examination reveals that in society, high education and office jobs are still valued higher than technical skills or blue-collar jobs.
"A top university is still a guarantee for a smooth development in career, at least in the beginning," Sun said.
Education departments across the country have been urged to organize vocational training for high school graduates who want to join the workforce, Wang Xuming, spokesman of the Ministry of Education, said.
"Vocational schools will adopt more flexible enrollment policies such as relaxing the age limit, to provide tailored professional training for high school graduates," Wang said.
Sohu.com, a popular Internet portal in China, made a survey recently on how students arrange their future if they fail to be enrolled by an ideal school or department after the national examination.
Out of some 4,300 polled, roughly 50 percent said they will participate in vocational and technical training to prepare for their future.
Roughly 27 percent said they will attend the exam again next year until they have been enrolled by their ideal schools or study their ideal subject.
The rest chose to study abroad or in private colleges to learn their subjects.
Li Mu, a third-year senior high school student in Harbin of Heilongjiang province, said he will choose a vocational school to study rather than study in a less sought-after college if he fails to get good results in the exam.
"If I fail to be enrolled by a good school or to study a subject I like, I will also have to face with hard employment competition four years later," Li said.
Chinese universities began to enroll more students in 1999 as the government launched a student-recruitment campaign to vastly expand student enrollments at public universities.
Source: China Daily
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