高考移民 (gaokao yimin): Migrant gaokao students

Before the gaokao (national college entrance examination) this year, the admission and examination center in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region received many reports that several officials in neighboring Hebei province had sent their children to the region to sit the examination because it sets a lower score for college admission than Hebei. The admission and examination center then stopped hundreds of ineligible Hebei students from sitting the exam.

Migrant gaokao students refer to students who seek to sit the exam in regions that enjoy the favorable admission policies. According to the Inner Mongolia education authorities, since the end of 2014 they have prevented 1,465 ineligible migrant students from sitting the national college entrance examination, with hundreds of them from Hebei.

In China, college admission is closely related to a student's hukou (residence registration). Applicants should only take the national college entrance examination in their registered place of residence. The migrant students' hoping to sit the exam in more favorable locations exposes loopholes in both the hukou system and the education system. It demonstrates the distribution of higher education resources is far from being fair nationwide.