China has reported a second consecutive decline in the number of students sitting the country's national university-entrance exams, as a graduate jobs crunch leads many teenagers to decide against pursuing an academic degree.
A total of 12.9 million students have registered for this year's National Higher Education Entrance Examination - known as the gaokao in China - down 450,000 from a year ago, according to data from the Ministry of Education released on Wednesday. In 2025, the number of sign-ups fell by 70,000 compared with the previous year.
