The Impact of Double Reduction Policy on College Entrance Examination Performance: Empirical Evidence

In China, the College Entrance Examination weights great in both students' and parents' hearts, which is even recognized as the rare chance to change a people's fate. At this circumstances, heavy homework, countless tests, little break time, burning night oils and even extracurricular tutoring on the weekends have become the daily routine for Chinese high school students, which have hurt their health conditions and added great burden on their mental health. To curb this long-standing issue caused by this phenomenon, a new educational policy called Double Reduction was released by the Chinese government on 2021 and nine Chinese cities are selected as the national policy pilot areas to test the effect in advance. This paper aims to verify the impact of the Double Reduction Policy in some provinces in which lie the selected policy pilot areas. Through continuous difference-indifference method, this study found no significant correlation between the Double Reduction and the College Entrance Examination performance in these areas. Policy makers should make proper actions to implement this new policy, in order to lighten the physical and mental burden of students and the financial burden of parents while take students learning effectiveness into consideration meanwhile.