A total of 9.42 million students will take the annual national college entrance exams, or gaokao, from Sunday to Monday next week, China's top education authority said Thursday.
Officials said there was a slight increase in the number of gaokao takers in 2014 and 2015, after declining for five consecutive years since 2009. In 2014, 9.39 million students took the gaokao.
Zheng Ruoling, a professor at Xiamen University, told the Global Times that the increase in the number of applicants shows that parents and high school students are reconsidering overseas studies, as negative information on overseas universities and studying abroad have increased in recent years.
In 2014, 8,000 Chinese students studying in the US were dismissed due to poor academic performance, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
However, experts believe that the slight increase will not solve the college enrollment crisis in China.
According to the 2015 College Recruitment Report released by education site eol.cn, many Chinese colleges have failed to reach their enrollment goals for years. Chen Zhiwen, editor-in-chief of eol.cn, said that too many colleges offer the same majors, which has had a negative impact on employment prospects for students.
