Gaokao Reforms Cut History from China’s Secondary Schools, Raising Fears of Pseudo-History

Since the 2014 overhaul of the gaokao, China’s college-entrance exam has shifted from a strict science-humanities divide to a model in which only Chinese, mathematics and English are compulsory. Students may add other subjects, but their choices are still shaped by the high-school entrance exam (zhongkao) and university admission rules.

South China Morning Post

Beijing frames “historical nihilism”—any narrative that contradicts the official line—as a security concern. A newspaper of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently ran front-page pieces labeling pseudo-history a “new variant” of this threat. The editorial in *Chinese Social Sciences Today* warned that such narratives could sow confusion, undermine ideological security, and erode cultural confidence and national identity.

South China Morning Post

In provinces where students must choose between history and physics, the split favours physics roughly 7:3, and in some cases reaches 8:2, according to the *Southern Weekly*. Physics is required for a broader range of university programmes, while few programmes list history as a prerequisite, further steering students toward the sciences.

South China Morning Post

The *Chinese Social Sciences Today* editorial echoes this, proposing long-term improvement of historical literacy as a counter to pseudo-history.

South China Morning Post

• “History education in secondary schools is an important means of preserving historical, cultural, ethnic and national identity,” — Liu Linhai

South China Morning Post