College entrance exam a test for officials in coronavirus-hit Guangdong

Name: China’s southern Guangdong province in high gear to quash Covid-19 outbreak
Uploaded: 2021-06-02T14:17:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 2 s
Description: China’s southern Guangdong province in high gear to quash Covid-19 outbreak

Education department says annual examination will go ahead next week and measures are in place to keep students safe

They are required to report their health status every day and will have to get tested twice before they sit for the gaokao

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Residents get tested at a makeshift centre in Guangzhou, where a cluster of cases have been reported. Photo: Reuters

Guo Rui

Published: 10:17pm, 2 Jun 2021Updated: 11:47pm, 2 Jun 2021

As China’s industrial hub of Guangdong steps up its fight to contain an outbreak of Covid-19, the southern province faces another challenge: the annual college entrance examination.

Guangdong education officials say the exam will go ahead next week, and on Wednesday said measures had been put in place to keep students safe as they sat the notoriously difficult test.

Across the province some 636,000 students will take the exam, which is held nationwide and known as the gaokao.

Since May 23, students have been required to report their health status every day and this will continue for two weeks, officials said.

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China’s southern Guangdong province in high gear to quash Covid-19 outbreak

They will also have to get tested for Covid-19 twice before they sit for the exam.

“We face a very complex situation this year for the entrance examination,” Jing Lihu, head of the provincial education department, told reporters.