Free and Paid Education in China (part 1) A typical high school graduate in China has experienced 12 years of education, excluding pre-school learning. The first nine years of education is free of charge, funded by the government, and the next three years of study has to be paid by students. The free education in China, starting from primary school enrollment and ending after middle school graduation, is commonly called the nine-year compulsory education by the Chinese. The most popular combination for this type of education consists of six years of primary study and then three years of middle school study; however, in some areas, students finish primary schools at fifth grade and attend middle schools for four years. The purpose of primary education is personality formation and culture introduction, so primary school subjects, such as Chinese, Math, Nature, Psychology are based on very basic knowledge. When students enter middle school, they begin to touch on more specific topics like Physics and Geography. Overall, the nine-year compulsory education has benefited children from remote villages to an immense degree. The other three years of education, which is paid, puts a tremendous amount of pressure on high school students in China. In order to attend high school, middle school graduates must take the high school entrance exam, known as ZhongKao in Chinese, meaning the middle-level test, and after high school graduation, all the students have to take GaoKao, which means the advanced-level test, so as to matriculate at a university. Gaokao is a very difficult and stressful annual test that lasts for two days in early June. All high school graduates start to take this test on the same day, trying their best to finish exams on Chinese, Mathematics, English, and Integrated Science (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology for science students) or Integrated Arts (Politics, History, Biology for arts students). The overall score of this test is the only determinant of how good university the score receiver can attend. In an effort to prepare for the test, high school students suffer enormous pressure from family, teachers and their peers. Thus, this phase of secondary education has become the most terrible time for a majority of Chinese students.