National gaokao plan

The Ministry of Education has finished the preparation of a plan for the National College Entrance Examination, or gaokao, and also the new admissions plan, said Liu Limin, deputy minister of education on Thursday.

There will be fewer courses to study for the exam, and a scheme to combine arts and literature courses with math and science will be explored.

Liu said that the plan was in accordance with recent reforms that urged both the evaluation of students' academic grades and their extracurricular activities to be taken into account.

The plan will be released for public comment shortly.