The Chinese government is planning to make reforms to education so that poor people in rural areas may have an easier chance to receiving an education. These reforms consist of making the "gaokao," or college entrance exam, easier, and encouraging universities to increase their quota of students from the poor inland provinces. The "gaokao" would be made easier by making two subject exams, Chinese and math, mandatory to take, but the other four exams, a choice to the students on what subjects they wish to take.
The author of the article, Jiang Xueqin, suggests different kind of reforms. He believes that the government should give the people of China the resources they need; for daycare, vocational training, and community colleges.
I thought this was especially interesting because I just saw an email today about Chinese educators coming to tour American schools (asking if I wanted to host one), so clearly there is an effort to look worldwide for reforms (you guys may remember that we also had a visit last year)
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Lego, Cav (the Lego brand name was derived from the Danish expression "leg godt" - play well - and lego also translates in Latin as "I study" or "I put together"...really, one of the world's most perfect words!)
There is a lot of poverty in China and the surrounding countries in that part of the world. Education, like in the U.S., is a luxury. Before we start worrying too much on the issue of education in China, I believe we first need to look at the issues surrounding poverty. Improving the living conditions for lower class and even middle class families would allow children and parents to focus more on education and exams rather than worry about where their next meal is coming from.
As a counter argument, I would say education would allow these families to send children and even parents to school to earn higher degrees. These higher degrees would result in better jobs, better qualifications, and higher salaries. I see two issues with that: one being the quality of life (undergoing extreme amounts of stress while working and earning an education), and two being if everyone earns higher degrees, everyone will want better jobs. With fewer "better" jobs, more will be created-more higher jobs means more higher pay-companies will not be able to pay their employees. It's a big issues which would only snow ball to a larger magnitude.
If we were to improve living conditions, the quality of life would improve immensly. You would have a large push still for education, however, wouldn't a good portion of the population settle for the better lives included with improved living conditions? Not everyone can be the CEO of a company, or the lead doctor of a practice. Improving education would help, but not as greatly as improving living conditions would be.
Making education easier to access is always a good idea, its really a tell tale sign of development in a country when education grows. China does one thing well, manufacture things. As of now, its the western world that buys the things China makes, the only reason China wants to educate more people is because they want to create a middle class within China who can buy more Chinese goods and in turn make China more money. If you educate poor people, they'll learn to make money and in turn spend that money which is good economics. In the end, its really the money that matters.
I agree with a lot of what was said above. The backgrounds of the people are very different in China, with the wealthy "modern" citizens able to receive more opportunities and the poor rural citizens struggling to compete against their well-off counterparts. Educationally, the gap between the upbringings of the rich and poor lead to the harsh acceptance rate of the college exams. With the universities basically becoming a huge umbrella for other secondary educational colleges (i.e. vocational), jobs are requiring higher, university degrees from employees when before the "gaokao", certain jobs only needed vocational education. As the article stated, now the parents are pressuring their kids from day one to be at the "top", causing unnecessary high stress and lack of sleep. These "reforms" that China has adopted are not the answer to making college education more available to the vast majority (rural). In fact, i believe it's increasing the division since the rich have better chances of getting better resources than the poor rural citizens.
Personally, I feel like I can understand how the children feel after being pressured constantly by their parents to be the best. High expectations have always been a part of my life, mainly because of the way my parents raised me. Emotionally, this causes me a lot of stress that i don't feel is necessary in my life. Because of this, i know that the "gaokao" method of reform is ultimately hurting the population, both of the present and of the future.
I think China should have government funded education for all parts of China, making sure that all children have equal opportunities get an education. By having federally funded schools, more children would be able to attend schools, despite their standard of living. This would allow students a more equal playing feild when it comes to applying for colleges, and hopefully take some stress off of students. I still think the "gaokao" is a good idea because it forces competition, but I also think that their should be an alternative so that students can still do well in life even if they don't go to the very top colleges. Because while the "gaokao" is like the SAT, the SAT doesn't cause nearly as much stress as that test seems to; because American students know there is still a college out there that will accept them. Therefore, I think China needs equal education opportunities and other alternatives than the stress of getting into top colleges.
