] Not one, but two pianos are crammed into the 40-square-meter apartment where 19 year old Lai Jiajun lives with his parents — an early investment in Lai's future, explained his father. Lai’s family moved from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province to Beijing in 2005 because the capital offered the best education for their blind son.
When the family started their journey, making the tough decision to give up their jobs and leave their hometown, they had no idea that Lai Jiajun would be one of the first students in China able to take the gaokao — the national college entrance exam — in braille.
More than 9 million Chinese students sit the gaokao each year, but in the past, blind students were exempt because the test wasn’t available in braille. Gaokao grades are critical in China, they determine the University that students can attend, and in most cases are the biggest influencing factor in a persons future career and social mobility.
There are no exact figures on how many blind students are currently enrolled at schools across China but China comprises about 18% or an estimated 5 million of the world's blind population. This means that an accessible braille gaokao could impact countless lives, now and in the future.
In 2014, rumors speculating that the law might finally take effect spread among China’s blind community. "I felt excited and nervous when I heard blind students might be able to take part in the gaokao," said Lai Jiajun, who sat the grueling exam last year, answering the same questions as non-disabled students. “I’ve been preparing for this day since middle school,” Lai added.
Lai originally planned to study the piano at one of the few universities in China that accepts blind students. But after he sat the braille gaokao, he was able to aim higher. He was granted admission to the Central Conservatory of Music, China's most prestigious music school.
Lai's school says that he is the second blind student to ever study there. The first had been accepted into the conservatory's middle school due to his exceptional musical talent and therefore did not have to take the gaokao to continue his studies at the university level.
Zheng Rongquan was another of the first eight students, along with Lai to sit the exam in 2015. Unlike Lai, Zhang didn’t want to be a musician. But in China, those who are born without eyesight have very limited career options and traditionally train in one of two fields masseurs or musicians.
Zheng, however, was one of the first students who was able to take a different path. Having scored well in the gaokao exam, Zheng, now 21, started studying education in 2015 at Wenzhou University in eastern China's Zhejiang province. "This is what I want to do," said Zheng, now one year into his university studies.
For China's blind students, the only option in the past was to take a special gaokao for the blind — a simplified version of the exam — which enabled them to enroll in special higher education programs that typically limited class offerings to music and massage therapy. The doors of China’s general universities remained closed to the blind, no matter how intelligent or gifted the students were.
"Since 2004, blind students have tried to apply to take part in the gaokao," said Cai Cong, the head of YouRen, an online publication focusing on disability in China.
When China ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008, the national disability law was amended, and change seemed within reach. Blind people, the law stipulated, should be able to take any entrance test, whether it be a professional qualification examination or a service exam.
"China committed to offering a braille gaokao ... but it wasn't easy to achieve," said Zhong Jinghua, who serves on the administrative commission of the National Research Center for Sign Language and Braille. Major hurdles included concerns over leaked test documents and difficulties in finding suitable braille translators for the exam, Zhong said.
In 2015, a total of eight students took the braille gaokao, according to government figures. The government did not release figures for 2016, but — citing state broadcaster CCTV — the China Disabled Persons' Federation said that six people sat the exam this year.
Experts said they weren't surprised that the number hadn't increased. Although thousands of blind students could potentially take the braille gaokao, such students still face uncertain futures regardless of how well they score.
People with disabilities face significant obstacles throughout their lives, and are discriminated against in the education system as well as in the workforce. A quota system gives companies tax breaks for hiring people with disabilities, but they are often not fulfilled. Generally, the income gap between employees with a disability and those without is growing, and, recently, people with disabilities have struggled even more to find jobs than in the past, the China Disabled Persons' Federation found.
On top of that, many blind students seem ill-prepared to compete in the highly selective two-day exam. Several blind students interviewed for this story said that their blind classmates from special high schools decided to take to the traditional education path and sit the special, simplified gaokao for the blind. Most of them have spent the majority of their lives in the sheltered environments of schools specifically for blind students. If they risked taking the braille gaokao and failed, they'd have to wait a whole year to try again.
Zhong Jinghua, explains that another issue that affects the education of blind children is a shortage of specialized teachers. "This leaves them on a very uneven playing field. With teacher preparation programs turning out very small numbers of teachers of the blind and many teachers nearing retirement age, this shortage is expected to intensify in the years to come."
A look at Meng Jie School for the Blind in northern China's Hebei province reveals why only a handful of students out of the potential thousands are taking the braille gaokao.
While other students in China might dream of becoming astronauts or politicians, most of the teenagers at the school were surprised to be asked about their career plans. Those who did respond said they wanted to be massage therapists – a common career for China's blind.
Hou Yaxuan, 13, first went to school at the age of 9. He wants to be a masseur when he grows up. When questioned further about why he wants to be a massage therapist, Hou Yaxuan, 13, said that it was the only career for blind students that offered a stable wage. "I want to survive on my own," he said. When asked if he had thought about studying something more academic or considered other options, he fell silent.
At general universities that have not accepted blind students in the past, barriers to such students' admission remain. Both blind students and experts in the field have asserted that administrators at many universities cannot fathom how blind students will fit in with their peers or even find their classrooms on campus.
But China are working on provide an equal opportunity for blind student. When Lai try to took Gaokao, the local government hadn't got a clue, they have any experience. But all government sector try their best to help with Lai. In the end, the local government provide a braille paper for Lai and negotiate with examiner to help with this blind student, such as provide a guide.
Students like Zheng and Lai are now challenging these prejudices. Although their fight for equal educational opportunities is slow, they are making progress. Currently, Zheng is preparing for College English Test (CET). As for most other exams, he had to request special exam papers in braille from the Zhejiang education department.
"In addition to creating a new channel for blind students, the braille gaokao policy will lead a new trend and push more exams to open up to blind students and prepare braille papers for them," YouRen's Cai said.
Zheng feels that he has achieved a small victory simply by taking the general gaokao in braille and studying at the same university as non-disabled students. "Now my options are based on my grades," he said, “not on my disability.”
