About 4.74 million Chinese have signed up for the 2023 national exam for postgraduate enrollment, which is scheduled from December 24 to 26, the Ministry of Education said Saturday.

This year, nearly 20 percent of university graduates are moving on to higher education amid pressure to secure employment.

Over the years the number of applicants sitting for the national postgraduate entrance exam has increased continuously, from 2.01 million in 2017 to 4.57 million in 2022, an increase of 127.4 percent.

Utmost efforts should be made to ensure that the exam takes place as scheduled and that all test takers can participate safely. Local education authorities must coordinate with other departments to ensure that test centers, personnel, equipment, and epidemic control measures are in place, the ministry said in a notice. 

Special exam rooms are set up for those who have a positive nucleic acid test result or an abnormal body temperature, depending on the circumstances.

Test takers who are in a different provincial region other than where the test center is located and have difficulties returning can apply to take the exam in the region they are currently in, according to the ministry.

To address concerns students may have, the ministry also released information about related hotlines and websites, as well as the public WeChat accounts and e-mail addresses of all provincial education examination authorities.

Chen Yuhao, from Beijing Language and Culture University, was among the 282 million Chinese students who have entered university since 2019. The three-year epidemic has cast a shadow over their university years. Chen had worried that the exam would not be held on schedule.

"Nobody, I think, can say they are confident of getting a good score in this exam. Maybe everyone is anxious. We study very hard every day. But we don't even know if we have a chance to take exams," Chen said.

"As far as I know, they allow students who cannot return to school to take exams on another campus or in another province," Chen said.

"As for the exam itself, it allows students to report their state of health. The COVID-positive students will be arranged into an area quarantined from the students with COVID-negative results," Chen added.

In China, students are required to take a written test in late December, followed by an interview exam in March of next year, to be eligible to enroll in postgraduate studies. The Ministry of Education will release the national threshold scores in early March next year.

(CGTN's Liu Jiaxin contributed to this story.)