REINSTATED ENTRANCE EXAM: The first batch of students to take classes since 1966 attend a lecture at Tsinghua University, February 1978 (Xinhua)

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the college entrance exam resumption. Over the past 30 years, approximately 60 million examinees of junior high schools have participated in the National University Entrance Exam, with more than 10 million students enrolling in universities around China.

Hai Wen, Vice President of Peking University, and Meng Xiaosu, President of China National Real Estate Development Group, were two among those who first enrolled after the exams were resumed.

In October 1977, the news of the college entrance exam resumption, suspended for 10 years in 1966-76, spread to Hulin County of Heilongjiang Province, China's northeasternmost part where Hai Wen, then an intellectual youth from the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province in east China, had worked for eight years as a teacher in a primary school.

At that moment, Meng was working at Beijing Automobile Works. He had been a locksmith, a latheman and a planer, and then deputy director of the factory's Office of Party Committee.

Both Hai and Meng gained entry to Peking University on February 22, 1978. In that famous campus, they changed their life track first, and then, they even helped to change the fate of their vast populous country.

"We had no time to think a lot, because we had only one month left to prepare for the examination when we heard the news," Hai, also a well-known economist, told Beijing News.

Due to the fact that the nation's talents were overstocked for 10 years, the number of young intellectuals desiring to take the exam in Heilongjiang Province alone hit as many as 2 million. As a result, the local government had to conduct an initial test to select only 50,000 young people to participate in the National University Entrance Exam held in December 1977.

Meng went to Beijing Automobile Works after graduating from middle school, spending most of his life swinging a sledgehammer from 1976-77. "My right arm is 1 cm longer than my left," said the president of China's largest state-owned real estate development group humorously.

"I was too excited to get the news and not sure if I would pass the exam or not, for I didn't continue my education since middle school graduation for 10 years," said Meng, who was nearly 28 years old then, which is the age limit of the exam.

As Meng was hesitating, the head of the education sector registered his name for the exam, targeting the Chinese Department in Peking University, for it was well-known in the factory that Meng often wrote stories and poems for newspapers in tribute to his colleagues. The writings in the factory laid a good foundation for his entrance in Peking University afterwards.

On the day when the term began, workers of the factory saw Meng off to Peking University, where he found some authors were among his classmates.

Hai Wen and the other 79 students became the first batch of students majoring in political economy since 1966.

Many of his roommates are presently high state officials at various departments, including Yi Gang, the current Vice President of the People's Bank of China, Zhang Wei, head of Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA), and Zhang Xiaoqiang, Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

These figures could not have expected that they would become leaders of the economy in China's reform and opening up program in the future.

"We knew nothing at first," said Hai, who learnt concepts like "commodity" and "market" for the first time at Peking University.

'Revitalize the Chinese Nation'

In a discussion on the criteria of truth, students began to consider China's future road.

Meng was deeply touched by a story that said that due to a lack of food, each early spring would see farmers beg in groups. Some newspaper reporters said that it was a tradition for farmers to beg in some places in Anhui Province. The students were angered by the opinion that "farmers are willing to beg."