A middle school in Hubei province has provided its students amino acid IV drips in class while preparing for the college entrance examination in June, so as to obtain “more energy” in the test.
The photo taken in Xiaogan No.1 Middle School (孝感一中) showing up to 50 students sat studying and connected to bags with amino acids hanging from the ceiling has attracted criticism on social networks of China. Such dangerous practice has highlighted the pressure on young people before these tests.
“It’s a very rare and extreme case. So everybody criticizes it,” said Yi Xue, from Hubei. She said this story is a “scandal”, but believed that “there are even more extreme cases, although nobody knows”. And as she noted, the results of the college entrance exams (Gao Kao) can change the course of people’s life in China, “Gao Kao can change your destination. If you come from a poor family, you can find a good job and change your status. ”
Competition is very high in China. In the weeks before the exams, which are usually held in early June, students are fully engaged in preparing for the test. In this case of the middle school in Hubei, to save more time, the IV drips were done in their classroom instead of going to hospital.
The middle school has a good reputation for average results of students in the college entrance exams. According to local press, the director said that the State provides a subsidy of 10 yuan for amino acid IV drip to each student who attends Gao Kao, although this was later refuted by the local government.
The differences between the circumstances experienced by young Westerners and Chinese are abysmal: the European students usually remembered the period at the university as a golden age, while in China the suicide rate is high among students.