China curriculum

Overview

Mainland China's school system runs for 12 years under the Ministry of Education's national curriculum framework: 6 years of primary school, 3 years of junior middle school, and 3 years of senior high school. The first 9 years, primary plus junior middle, are compulsory education (义务教育), free and mandatory for every school-age citizen. Senior high school is not compulsory; a place in it depends on a student's result in a separate gatekeeping exam, the Zhongkao, taken at the end of junior middle school. A second gatekeeping exam, the Gaokao, sits at the end of senior high school and decides university admission. Both exams are administered outside the school's own continuous assessment and are covered in their own programme files; this file covers the underlying school structure, national curriculum standards, how students are assessed day to day, and the vocational pathways that run alongside the academic track.

Who it covers

Every child who is a citizen of the People's Republic of China must complete the 9-year compulsory stage (primary plus junior middle school), which the state provides free of tuition. There is no entrance exam to start primary school; children enrol at the age set by their local education authority, normally 6. Senior high school, by contrast, is optional and selective: admission depends on a student's Zhongkao score and their own choice between an academic general senior high school and a secondary vocational school. Most of the country runs the 6-year-primary-plus-3-year-junior-middle ("6-3") structure described above; a minority of schools, mostly 9-year integrated schools in certain districts, instead run a "5-4" structure (5 years primary plus 4 years junior middle) covering the same 9-year compulsory stage, a local variant that national policy has worked to phase toward the 6-3 structure since a 2001 State Council decision on basic-education reform.

Structure

Primary school (小学)

Six years of compulsory schooling covering Chinese language, mathematics, a foreign language, Morality and the Rule of Law, science, PE and health, art, and labour, taught under the Ministry of Education's compulsory-education curriculum plan. Promotion from one grade to the next is managed by the school itself; there is no exam gate within primary school.

Junior middle school (初中)

Three years continuing the same compulsory-education curriculum plan at a deeper level, adding subjects such as history, geography, physics, chemistry and biology as a student moves through the three grades. Junior middle school ends with the Zhongkao, which certifies that a student has met the required academic standard for this stage and is the main basis for deciding which senior-secondary school, academic or vocational, the student is admitted to next; the Zhongkao's own structure, subjects and marking are covered in its own programme file.

Senior high school (高中)

Three years split between an academic general senior high school (普通高中), which leads toward the Gaokao and university entrance, and a secondary vocational school (中等职业学校), which leads toward vocational study or work. This split happens once, right after junior middle school, based on a student's Zhongkao result and preference; national policy calls for keeping each province's academic-to-vocational place ratio roughly balanced, though the actual split varies by province and year (detailed further in the Zhongkao programme file). Senior high school itself ends with the Gaokao for students on the academic track, covered in its own programme file.

Curriculum standards

The Ministry of Education sets one national curriculum plan and a set of subject curriculum standards for the compulsory stage, and a separate plan and standards for senior high school; provinces and schools teach to these standards rather than setting their own.

For compulsory education, the current plan is the Compulsory Education Curriculum Plan and Curriculum Standards (2022 Edition), issued in April 2022 and taught from the autumn 2022 semester onward. It covers all 9 grades under one plan, with 16 subject-level curriculum standards, and reorganised several subjects when it was issued: earlier moral-education courses were combined into a single Morality and the Rule of Law subject, labour (劳动) became its own compulsory subject, and science and comprehensive practice activities now start from grade 1 rather than later.

For senior high school, the current plan is the Senior Secondary Curriculum Plan and Curriculum Standards (2017 Edition, revised 2020). Courses are grouped into three categories: compulsory courses that every student must take and be assessed on, elective-compulsory courses that a student chooses from based on their intended Gaokao subjects, and elective courses that schools plan locally. A student needs a fixed total number of credits, earned across all three categories over the three years, to graduate; the 2020 revision kept this graduation-credit total unchanged while shifting some credit weight from compulsory toward elective courses. Labour is a compulsory subject worth 6 credits, including 2 credits earned through at least 40 hours of after-school volunteer service spread across the three years.

Assessment approach

Day-to-day assessment in Chinese schools is continuous and school-based, separate from the Zhongkao and Gaokao gatekeeping exams.

Across both compulsory education and senior high school, the Ministry of Education directs schools to evaluate each student's moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labour development on an ongoing basis rather than from a single test. For compulsory education this is set out in the Compulsory Education Quality Evaluation Guide (2021), issued jointly by the Ministry of Education and five other departments, which asks schools to combine online and offline evaluation methods and build a student-level record of this development over time. For senior high school, the Ministry of Education's standing guidance on comprehensive quality evaluation (综合素质评价) asks schools to record a student's development across five dimensions: ideological-moral character, academic level, physical and mental health, artistic literacy, and social practice.

Senior high school also has its own academic level test (普通高中学业水平考试), organised by each province's education department against the national senior-high curriculum standards, which is distinct from the Gaokao. It has two kinds of papers: qualifying tests (合格性考试), whose results are the basis for a student's eligibility to graduate from senior high school, and, in provinces that have adopted the Gaokao reform, selective tests (选择性考试), whose results count toward university admission alongside the compulsory Gaokao subjects.

Vocational tracks

China runs vocational education as a parallel track alongside the academic one, not only as a fallback. The Vocational Education Law of the People's Republic of China, revised with effect from 1 May 2022, states that vocational education holds standing equal to general education and directs the state to build a "modern vocational education system" (现代职业教育体系) that links vocational levels vertically rather than leaving secondary vocational schools as a dead end.

A student enters this track at the Zhongkao gate, joining a secondary vocational school (中等职业学校/中职), normally a 3-year programme. From there, the system supports combined pathways into higher vocational education without the student re-sitting the Gaokao as a general-track candidate: "3+2" programmes (3 years secondary vocational plus 2 years higher-vocational associate study, 5 years total) and "3+4" programmes (3 years secondary vocational plus 4 years at a vocational-undergraduate institution, 7 years total), alongside progression from a higher-vocational associate programme into a vocational bachelor's degree. Higher vocational education itself now spans both associate-degree colleges (高职专科) and vocational-undergraduate institutions (职业本科) offering a vocational bachelor's degree, rather than associate colleges being the ceiling of the vocational track. As part of this reform, the Ministry of Education's December 2022 briefing on deepening the modern vocational education system set a target for vocational-undergraduate enrolment to reach at least 10% of higher-vocational enrolment by 2025.

After school

Completing the 9-year compulsory stage and sitting the Zhongkao is what decides a student's next step: an academic general senior high school place, or a secondary vocational school place, each normally a 3-year programme. Completing senior high school on the academic track and sitting the Gaokao is what decides undergraduate or associate-degree admission at a regular higher-education institution. Completing a secondary vocational programme instead leads toward work, or onward into higher vocational education through the articulation pathways described above. Full detail on both gatekeeping exams, including subjects, scoring and admission mechanics, is in their own programme files (Zhongkao; Gaokao).

Preparation tips

• Confirm which school-year structure applies locally, "6-3" or the less common "5-4", since the two cover the same 9-year compulsory stage differently and can affect when a student changes school.

• Treat the academic-versus-vocational choice at the Zhongkao gate as a real decision to plan for in advance, not a default outcome, since it shapes the following 3 years and, under the vocational track, the degree pathways available afterward.

• If a province has adopted the Gaokao reform, check which elective-compulsory courses align with the subjects a student intends to carry into their senior-high academic level test and Gaokao, since course choice and exam-subject choice are linked.

• Where a vocational route is being considered, check which articulation pathways ("3+2", "3+4") a specific secondary vocational school actually offers, since not every school offers every pathway.