Yesterday, the Beijing News published a report titled “Outside the Exam Hall, the Unfinished “Self-Study Exam Dreams”“, which tells the stories of several migrant workers in Guangdong who took the self-study exam. The first half of the story (why and how to take the self-study exam) is very detailed, but the second half (difficulties and appeals) is somewhat vague. This is not normal, as the latter should be the focus.
I happen to know that the news originated from an open letter dated June 30th from self-study exam candidates whose exams were suspended, titled “Please Don’t Let Us Perish – A Joint Open Letter to the Guangdong Self-Study Exam Office“. Simply put, many self-study exam candidates in Guangdong (all migrant workers in the letter) failed because the majors they were taking were discontinued, and they were only one or two subjects away from passing. Their years of effort were thus in vain. They proposed solutions such as extending the exam (opening the final written exam opportunity in October 2025 for candidates who were only one or two subjects short) and credit substitution (allowing credits from similar courses to be substituted), but they did not receive a response more than ten days after sending the email, and had to seek help from the public.
Why was the news report written like that? I’ve been in the media for twenty years, so of course I understand, and I won’t pretend to be an outsider. But I also understand the lives of those people in the report; that’s where my life came from. So, I feel indignant.
27 years ago, I was also a self-study exam candidate. At that time, I was working in a stationery factory in Nanzha, Humen, Dongguan, Guangdong. I wrote an article titled “Nanzha Past“, which I won’t elaborate on here. Regarding my experience of taking the self-study exam in the stationery factory, I also wrote an article titled “On the Way to the Library”, which was later lost, but I still remember the content.
At that time, I would go to a library converted from a nearby ancestral hall to study every night from 7 to 9 pm. I would spend 10 minutes reviewing the content from the previous day, and the rest of the time I would read 50 pages of a book, neither too much nor too little. I would lie in bed at night and recall what I had learned today, and then review it for 10 minutes the next day, and those 50 pages would be considered done.
This method was highly efficient. I took a total of 10 subjects in the Chinese Language and Literature exam at the time. The self-study exam was held twice a year, and I could take a maximum of 4 subjects each time. I passed 8 subjects in the first year. The remaining two subjects had to be taken in two separate exams due to the limitations on the subjects offered (not all subjects are offered in each exam), and I finally obtained my diploma after two years.
This is my handwritten transcript. I did well in the subjects I liked, and I barely passed the ones I didn’t like, which I was very satisfied with.
The diploma isn’t that important, but the self-study exam is a significant event. It’s no exaggeration to say that it was a “redemption” for my working life. The most frightening thing about working is not the hard work, nor the low pay, but the lack of hope, working in the factory every day, not knowing when there will be a turning point. In the article “On the Way to the Library”, I wrote that Chen Bailu in Cao Yu’s “Sunrise” said, “The sun has come out, and the darkness is left behind, but the sun doesn’t belong to us, we have to sleep.” At that time, I often worked the night shift, and I thought: isn’t this my life? But every day, after going to the library and finishing reading, slowly walking back, that was the most peaceful moment of my day, because I knew that this day had passed, and I hadn’t wasted it. I don’t know what the reward will be, but I know there will definitely be one.
Over the years, I’ve gone further and further, from Dongguan to Guangzhou, and from Guangzhou to Beijing, and then to Canada two years ago, but the further I go, the higher my evaluation of the self-study exam. In my opinion, the self-study exam is the best examination system in China, and it is closest to the essence of education.
During these two years of accompanying my children to study in Canada, I often compare the differences between Chinese and Canadian education. In my opinion, the biggest difference is the goal of education: Chinese education is about screening, and it has been the same since Emperor Taizong of Tang’s saying, “The heroes of the world enter my grasp,” screening people who can be used by me, and even screening itself is the goal; while Canadian education is for self-realization, regardless of whether you want to go to a technical school, a junior college, or a university, at least in terms of educational resources, you will be treated equally. You can go to university after working, or you can study technology after graduating from university. The starting point of the system design is what kind of life you want to live, and what kind of person you want to become.
In this sense, the self-study exam is of course the best examination system in China. It has almost no barriers. Regardless of your previous educational background, you can apply for a junior college even if you are a junior high school student; regardless of where you are from, you can apply in the place where you work and live; you can choose any subject you want to take, and there is no time requirement, as long as you can pass the exam in the end; and it is extremely low-cost, you only need to buy textbooks and teaching materials and pay a few dozen yuan for the application fee, and a hundred or so yuan per subject is enough… After eliminating many unnecessary restrictions, the most important thing left is “what do you want to learn”. This is of course not screening, but self-realization. In China, such a system is a miracle. The self-study exam is closer to the essence of education than the college entrance examination, which consumes a lot of financial and material resources and attracts countless attention.
From the results, the self-study exam is also successful. The people trained by the self-study exam are not as “watery” as some people imagine. From the perspective of the applicants, the self-study exam is full of gold. Self-study exam candidates basically study while working. When a person is working, instead of playing games or watching short videos, they choose to self-study, which is not easy. At first, I had to operate a machine tool for 9 hours a day. Because of special approval from the leader, I could only go to the library to study from 7 to 9 pm, otherwise I would have to work 11 hours a day. I still remember that I was still working the day before the exam. I got up early on the day of the exam and took a bus from Nanzha to Humen, and then took a bus to Dongguan. After the exam in the afternoon, I rushed back, and then did it again the next day – what about eating well, drinking well, and resting well? There are not so many requirements. I am considered to be in good condition. Go and see the self-study exam candidates in the first two articles, they are much more difficult than me. A person who still chooses to self-study in such a difficult situation has extraordinary qualities.
More importantly, “self-study” itself. In my opinion, real learning is self-learning. The self-study exam may be less difficult than a full-time university, but the self-study habit formed by it will make people continue to grow. In the places where I have worked later, I was basically the person with the lowest educational background, but I was probably also one of the people who read the most (I also gave my colleagues a sharing on how to read). I am a self-study exam candidate, so I never emphasize educational background when recruiting – “Educational background, gender, age, appearance, orientation, etc. are not limited”. I also value learning and growth at work. In my last job, I was responsible for team building. At the most frequent times, there were theme sharing sessions almost every week. I dare to say that we are the news team in China that attaches the most importance to internal learning, and there is no one else.
The picture above shows some of our internal sharing topics. Without being modest, I think they are better than most of the courses in domestic journalism schools.
Now, people are starting to say that “reading may not change your destiny”, but I want to say: “Self-study can definitely change your life”. “Destiny” may not be controlled by people, but what a person becomes in their life often depends on themselves. I have a relative who made a big mistake and went to prison when he was young. He later also took the self-study exam and applied for law. I wanted to persuade him to change his major because he would not be able to work in law-related jobs after being released from prison, and it would be useless to study. But then I thought again that learning itself is important, and what to learn is not so important, so I withdrew my persuasion. Later, he finished the law major and applied for business management, and later, he started to learn computers, and later, he got the opportunity to study in the prison hospital. There will be no worse environment than prison, but self-study is still changing a person’s life.
Having written so much, it’s all a prelude. Finally, I want to say, please cherish the self-study exam system and the self-study exam candidates. The self-study exam is not an “auxiliary”, it is the best education system in China; self-study exam candidates are not a “supplement”, they are a group of people who deserve the most investment in educational resources. I hope that what I said earlier will help everyone understand this, and I hope that decision-makers can consider the problem from their perspective before making any changes.
Some people may say that the suspension of the major was announced three years ago, isn’t that enough time? Not enough. Because self-study exam candidates are different from full-time university students. They have to work, support their families, and some are mothers who have just given birth, and haven’t slept a full night before the exam; some self-study exam candidates dropped out of school after graduating from junior high school and went out to work to earn money, with a low starting point and a poor foundation, and the learning difficulty is very high; there are also restrictions on the subjects offered. I am considered to be a fast learner, and it still took me a year to complete the last two subjects. Three years is far from enough for a student who has already applied to complete their studies. The cases in the previous open letter and report are not lacking those who have taken the exam for five or six years.
Some people may also say that there is also a time limit for graduation from full-time universities, and if you fail the courses, you still can’t graduate. Why should you make an exception for self-study exam candidates? Because full-time universities and self-study exams are different. Self-study exams do not require teachers, classrooms, dormitories, libraries, or cafeterias, so it does not need to drive students away at a certain time to make room. Compared with full-time universities, the social resources invested in self-study exams can be almost ignored, and it has the condition to repeat infinitely, and it should be so.
I also don’t quite understand why those majors are being discontinued? If it is natural elimination due to too few applicants, that’s fine, but the reality is probably not the case. For example, the “Chinese Language and Literature” major, most of the cases mentioned above are self-study exam candidates in this major, which shows that there are still many people applying. From the perspective of the characteristics of the major, improving Chinese reading and writing skills is the most basic requirement for Chinese people, and it is probably the easiest major to apply for. Why should it be discontinued? Was there any research and solicitation of opinions in this process? The cost is not high, why not retain more choices? My child is studying in high school in Canada, and they have more than seventy subjects to choose from, which surprised me. Later I understood that diversity itself should be a pursuit.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the China National Institute of Educational Sciences, introduced that when the self-study exam was born, due to the very limited opportunities to enter universities through the college entrance examination, other types of examinations were needed as a supplement. But now, the admission requirements for the college entrance examination have been gradually relaxed, and those who have graduated from senior secondary schools or have equivalent academic qualifications can apply. This allows many people in society to also directly participate in the college entrance examination and enter universities. “After these channels are opened, many people can completely use the college entrance examination to improve their academic qualifications, and the number of people who need the self-study exam will naturally decrease.” Chu Zhaohui thinks this is the reason for the suspension of some majors.
Public account: peeling onion peopleOutside the Exam Hall, the Unfinished “Self-Study Exam Dreams”
This explanation is obviously untenable. As mentioned earlier, the self-study exam should not be a “supplement” to the college entrance examination. It is not aimed at people who cannot take the college entrance examination, but at people who are already working. Don’t use the college entrance examination to replace the self-study exam. The current college entrance examination system is not a successful system. In my opinion, the self-study exam is a more advanced system and deserves more resources. The self-study exam is a supplement, and the technical school is what’s left after the college entrance examination is eliminated. Thousands of troops are going to squeeze into the college entrance examination that “cannot change destiny”. The so-called “the heroes of the world enter my grasp” is nothing more than “making the heroes of the world become ordinary people”. There is no worse education system than this.
“Can you give us a way out?” The title of this sentence is a bit heavy. I am not saying that the education department is how cold-blooded and ruthless, in “killing them all”, I want to emphasize the word “way out” – don’t forget, this is their “way out”.
In these six years, I passed 11 subjects, and each subject was soaked with sweat and tears. Unexpectedly, I failed in the end.
After the results came out, I was in a daze every day, and my mood was terrible. I spent five years, and it became a bubble. My dream still cannot be realized, and I am very unwilling.
Dropping out of school at the age of 16 is the most painful regret and regret of my life. The self-study exam is the only chance to rewrite my destiny. If I lose my way again due to a single subject, life will completely lose its meaning. This is not a threat, it is the most humble plea of a mother, a worker, and a dreamer.
Having graduated from junior high school, I have spent 5 years of money and time costs, and together with the candidates who signed the joint letter, I have tried multiple channels of consultation, suggestions, and complaints for nearly a month. The replies from the relevant departments have made us unable to see the light and hope on the road of desperately seeking knowledge! Do we really have to be reduced to a discarded pawn in the current education reform?
Self-study exam candidates whose exams were suspended, public account: QichijiPlease Don’t Let Us Perish – A Joint Open Letter to the Guangdong Self-Study Exam Office
Some people may think these words are too exaggerated. No, not at all exaggerated, because I know that kind of life. One place where my life came from is that Sichuan countryside, the countryside where I still deeply hate the sound of the threshing machine when I hear it in short videos (so I call for an increase in the basic pension for farmers); and another place is the factory in Guangdong, following the surging crowd to work and leave work, clocking in for more than 310 hours a month, the workers on the assembly line repeating the same action…
In 2020, twenty years later, I returned to the factory where I used to work and wrote that article “Nanzha Past“, I took pictures of all the dismissal lists I could see on the wall, and this is one of them.
Do you know what this means? This means that most of their lives have been spent here, and there are not a few people with an average salary of three or four thousand, which is most likely the workers on the assembly line. On the assembly line, there will be no growth for ten, twenty, or thirty years of work, but only slow aging, and slow hands and feet.
Do you understand why I said earlier that the self-study exam was a “redemption” for my working life?
I am one of the lucky ones. I have never publicly praised the self-study exam system like I do today. Today I want to praise it. It is the best system in China. I also like Guangdong very much. In my impression, Guangdong is a place where you can give opinions, reason, communicate and change. I like its fireworks, its citizen spirit, and its human touch.
I hope that all this can have a good result, and don’t let down those who should not be let down.
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