Potentially thousands of students who passed the provincial exam to become teachers in Guangdong, southern China, have seen their test results reduced to useless pieces of paper.

The exam is a necessary step for students to obtain a teaching certificate, and many sit for the test while working toward their degree so they can be licensed teachers upon graduation.

But the provincial government in 2013 changed the requirements and adopted a national exam, which went into effect in 2015. It said the provincial test would still be valid for students graduating up until 2017, but a government document issued in January reneged on this promise.

The change has left students stranded with nothing to show for their efforts, and this means they are potentially unemployable after graduation: Without the teaching certificate, it is almost impossible for them to get a position at kindergartens, schools, or other institutions and companies in the education field.

Li Xiaoying, currently a college senior, is one of the many facing this issue. She took the provincial exam in 2014, just before the reforms, and she will be graduating in June next year. It now seems that Li’s hard work to pass the provincial test was all in vain.

“I was under a lot of pressure in my freshman year,” Li said. “I had to take a lot of classes during the week and attend prep classes for the exam on weekends. I barely had time for other activities.” Some of her friends had to take the provincial exam several times before they finally passed.

Since becoming aware of the new requirement, Li has organized online groups for students facing the same conundrum, some of which now have more than a thousand members — and Li estimates there are thousands more in the same situation. She and other students have been trying to get in touch with the provincial education authorities, but without success.

Xing Feng, deputy director of the Guangdong Education Department, replied to an online inquiry from a student about whether the provincial exam results would be valid in the autumn of 2017 by saying that the January document was correct.

Now, Li and her peers will have to take the national exam. But the content of that test is different from the provincial version, which means students need extra time to prepare. “Taking the national exam is not an option for us now,” Li said. “We have already missed the sign-up deadline.”

“We have spent so much effort and money to pass the provincial exam, which the Department of Education itself organized,” Li said. “We want a fair answer.”

(Header image: A teacher calls on a student to answer a question in class, Fushun, Liaoning province, 2016. Wang Qibo/VCG)