Hengshui High School, dubbed a “gaokao factory” by some, is both revered and feared by Chinese parents and students who see the National College Entrance Exams (NCEE, or “gaokao”) as a fate-changing moment in their lives.

The Hebei Province-based school, known for its stringent militarized rule of students and extremely competitive gaokao-oriented teaching methods, has been viewed as a springboard to top Chinese universities.

The scarcity of seats in top Chinese universities has fostered the boom of Hengshui High, which has so far opened 19 schools in several Chinese cities and last March propelled their mother company First High-School Education Group Co. Ltd. (FHS) to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Many Shenzhen parents were shocked to learn that the intimidating gaokao prep school was recruiting 60 senior 3 students for the fall semester in Longgang District starting late June, and all the seats were snapped up within seconds.

According to the webpage of the “branch school” in Shenzhen, the tuition and boarding fees for a senior 3 student is 122,000 yuan (US$18,700) a year, while repeat students who have passed the key university enrollment threshold in gaokao will only have to pay 22,000 yuan of boarding fees.

In contrast, the tuition fees of an average public senior high school in Shenzhen range between 1,800 yuan and 2,300 yuan per year while a dorm bed costs an average 900 yuan per year. The expenses of the Hengshui branch school in Shenzhen are higher than some private schools and can compare to some international school rates.

The webpage introduced Sang Haiyong, principal of Hengshui High in Yunnan Province, as the head of the Shenzhen branch. Other teachers have also worked with the school for years, it said. The venue of the school listed on its webpage is next to Pingdi Middle School in Longgang District.

Things took an unexpected turn after some prudent parents alerted the city’s education authorities that the school might not have a license.

The education bureau then confirmed that the school is illegal and cannot recruit students on its own.

It’s not the first time that Shenzhen parents have had a clash with the famous college prep school. In 2019, Fuyuan School, a private school having ties with Hengshui High School in Hebei, was punished by the Shenzhen education authorities for assisting Hengshui’s students in taking the gaokao in Shenzhen. As the exam takers only need to compete with other students in the same province for the limited seats of top universities, they faced less fierce competition in Guangdong than in Hebei.

Statistics revealed that in 2020, nearly 64 percent of all students from Hengshui High Schools in various cities were enrolled by universities and nearly 30 percent got into prestigious universities.

A total of 73 students of the Hengshui school in Hebei were enrolled in Tsinghua and Peking universities last year, ranking fifth among all Chinese high schools.

While some local parents say they do not want a “gaokao factory” in Shenzhen, which is against their belief of cultivating an all-rounded child instead of spending too much time practicing for exams, others are worried that such a school may turn out highly competitive students in gaokao, putting greater pressure on other students.

(Li Dan)