The place to ask China-related questions!
Beijing Shanghai Guangzhou Shenzhen Chengdu Xi'an Hangzhou Qingdao Dalian Suzhou Nanjing More Cities>>

Categories

Close
Welcome to eChinacities Answers! Please or register if you wish to join conversations or ask questions relating to life in China. For help, click here.
X

Verify email

Your verification code has been sent to:

Didn`t receive your code? Resend code

By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .

Sign up with Google Sign up with Facebook
Sign up with Email Already have an account? .
Posts: 1098

Shifu

3
3
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
0

Q: Do Chinese value education?

There seems to be a massive contradiction whereby Chinese value education above all else yet also couldn't care less about it. On the one hand, parents religiously overwhelm their kids with extra classes and schools assign soul crushing amounts of work. Parents who don't conform to the madness are frowned upon as negligently harming their kids' future. Many Chinese will make crushing financial sacrifices to pay for expensive English lessons, piano classes, etc. So in that sense Chinese seem to value education as paramount. 

 

On the other hand, schools tend to  eschew their responsibility of educating students, who are faced with loads of busy work and completely lack life and social skills. Students who learn English for 10+ years can barely hold a 2 minute conversation. The education system has to be blamed for this. FT's constantly complain that headmasters and even parents don't really care about their kids' education. 

 

So how can we make sense of this contradiction? Do Chinese really value education or not? 

8 years 50 weeks ago in  Teaching & Learning - China

 
Highest Voted
Posts: 544

Shifu

5
5
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
0

Chinese value the image of education. They want to make it appear that China is an educational powerhouse. Kids pretty much live in school (which conveniently lets their parents who never wanted them in the first place, but were pressured to have kids, dick around on their iPads or go on shopping trips).

 

The time spent in school isn't all that quality (route memorization, political indoctrination, and lessons in ethnic nationalism, for example), but it's a lot of time, and as long as no one looks too closely (looking critically at problems is frowned upon, and it's just better to pretend they don't exist), they can claim with pride how much time kids spend "learning" compared to other countries.

 

The exam focus is another thing. China can hold up test scores as "proof" of superiority, since kids can cram so much knowledge into their brains (knowledge which will be promptly forgotten).

 

The government knows pretty well that it's all well and fine to have a population memorizing a litany of state-approved facts (even those of dubious factualness), since calculus is pretty safe politically, but don't want the population engaged dangerous critical thinking.

 

Something to consider is that in the US, as well as other Western countries, students are quite politically active, and human rights movements often strongly involve students. One way to prevent another Tiananmen Square is to keep students too busy to think about anything except what they need to memorize. They aren't going to think about government oppression of religion, treatment of minorities, democracy, or other touchy issues if they need to be sitting in classrooms after class staring at textbooks.

 

Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
Answers (7)
Comments (5)
Posts: 42

Governor

1
2
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
1

I don't think they really do. Certainly the government does not, an educated population is the last thing they want. School owners too many times just see it as a cash flow straight into their personal coffers. Chinese teachers are pretty much like Chinese workers anywhere, just do the minimum to get by and go with the flow. Chinese parents push their children to the limit as that is what everyone does. The gaokao exam just requires points to pass an exam so if kids can be prepped from an early age so much the better, but I do think some parents see extra lessons as a way of stopping their children being bored. The kids do certainly do not get the childhood  we had so parents have to give them something to fill up the time. Like everything here it is all about appearance but look beneath the surface and there is not a lot there.

Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
Posts: 30

Governor

2
1
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
3

Define value, define education...

dongbeiren:

Define define

8 years 50 weeks ago
Report Abuse
Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
Posts: 544

Shifu

5
5
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
0

Chinese value the image of education. They want to make it appear that China is an educational powerhouse. Kids pretty much live in school (which conveniently lets their parents who never wanted them in the first place, but were pressured to have kids, dick around on their iPads or go on shopping trips).

 

The time spent in school isn't all that quality (route memorization, political indoctrination, and lessons in ethnic nationalism, for example), but it's a lot of time, and as long as no one looks too closely (looking critically at problems is frowned upon, and it's just better to pretend they don't exist), they can claim with pride how much time kids spend "learning" compared to other countries.

 

The exam focus is another thing. China can hold up test scores as "proof" of superiority, since kids can cram so much knowledge into their brains (knowledge which will be promptly forgotten).

 

The government knows pretty well that it's all well and fine to have a population memorizing a litany of state-approved facts (even those of dubious factualness), since calculus is pretty safe politically, but don't want the population engaged dangerous critical thinking.

 

Something to consider is that in the US, as well as other Western countries, students are quite politically active, and human rights movements often strongly involve students. One way to prevent another Tiananmen Square is to keep students too busy to think about anything except what they need to memorize. They aren't going to think about government oppression of religion, treatment of minorities, democracy, or other touchy issues if they need to be sitting in classrooms after class staring at textbooks.

 

Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
3
4
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
1

Like everything else in China it's all about appearances, not the substance.

 

Principals are here to collect bribes, local teachers do the minimum amount of work to get by, the administrative staff spend their days shopping on Taobao or chatting on QQ. Private schools employ FTs to charge higher fees or in the case of public schools because it's a national requirement to get more funds from the government.

 

The students are being crammed into classrooms from as early as 7:30am to as late as 10pm for those who join homework supervision classes. While they are "studying" they can't have dangerous critical thoughts against the leadership.

 

Rote memorization is inefficient except for passing exams (yet only exams that don't require critical thought), it is used by China as a tool for ethnic propaganda to show everyone else how smart and superior Chinese people are, even though more than 60% of them give up before the end of the first semester when sent overseas to study (don't let the high numbers of Chinese students fool you).

 

The wealthier the students the less they care since they can pay to pass or buy their degree.

 

The leadership fears students since the students protests in 1989, they know that in many countries this is the students who started revolutions, so they are doing everything to keep them busy and keep them tired, thus they don't go outside to protest.

nzteacher80:

Perception over substance - so true. There is no meat in the sandwich.

8 years 50 weeks ago
Report Abuse
Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
Posts: 2878

Shifu

0
1
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
1

I don't wanna repeat stuff covered already by eothisio and meteusz. I agree with those guys in a lot of ways but I guess i'm a little less cynical. I dont think they do it just to get rid of their kids all day.

 

I think most chinese parents really really do want their kids to do well in education it's just the society as a whole gives no good outlets or experiences that help produce effective learning => effective people. The fundamentals of valuing education is sound though. You put these 1st generation chinese kids in the US and they're consistently achievers academically.

 

In mainland china though I just think the stakes are seen as being too high. If you fuck around consistently here you end up in filthy crippling poverty at a level we don't have much of in the west. Same as India. My mom sent me a link couple weeks back showing indian parents literally climbing up the wall to help their kids cheat on a test saying "how can those parents teach them those terrible values?". Of course that's trashy behavior and self defeating at a macro level, but individually the opportunity cost of doing bad on that test and tracking yourself out of any chance at avoiding desperate crippling poverty is such they don't feel they can afford to have good values about it.

dongbeiren:

The stakes being high makes sense for lower/middle income people working so hard in school. On the other hand, a lot of rich kids couldn't care less about education because they know their parents can buy their way through life. Sometimes I wonder why Chinese care so much about education when there is so little social mobility and people are so dependent upon their families' connections. Why study when your job will probably come via guanxi? Then I realize that the vast majority of people can't rely on the wealth and connections of their families so they have to grind away at school to have any hope of getting anywhere. So the education obsession makes sense given the intense competition. 

8 years 50 weeks ago
Report Abuse
Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1282

Governor

2
2
You must be a registered user to vote!
You must be a registered user to vote!
0

They value certificates.indecision

Education is not just about what grades you can get. It's more about creative thinking and if you can master the knowledge very well. Not like if you can fill the answers on the sheets the school gives to you  after spending a lot of time on reciting the books.

I don't really value those kind of robot education. I know even many western companies value certificates blindly somehow.You can see it in the job ads.

 

Report Abuse
8 years 50 weeks ago
 
Know the answer ?
Please or register to post answer.

Report Abuse

Security Code: * Enter the text diplayed in the box below
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <img> <br> <p> <u>
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Textual smileys will be replaced with graphical ones.

More information about formatting options

Forward Question

Answer of the DayMORE >>
A:  "... through ..."?  Only "through" comes to mind is "S
A: "... through ..."?  Only "through" comes to mind is "Shenzhen agent can connect you with an employer, who's authorized to hire waigouren ... and can sponsor Z visa." It's not like every 10th person you meet in Shenzhen's hood can sponsor work visa ...  The only way to change from student to labourer visa is just a regular way by: 1. Finding an employer, who'll apply for an Invitation letter; 2. Exit China and apply for Z visa in your home country's Chinese embassy; 3. Enter China in 30-days after Z visa was stamped into your travelling instrument ...As I am aware, you won't be able to switch to Working permit by remaining in China....,so make ready for a return to your home .... -- icnif77