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Q: What are the differences between the Educational standards across China?
I was recently discussing the topic of the very different educational standards and general quality across the provinces of (mainland) China with a Chinese colleague. According to him educational standards and hence quality are particularly low in Guangdong province due to the focus on trade and selling things. Presumably this means that they spend more time selling stuff and less on actually studying or learning things.
Having experienced something of a surprise in the different levels of English between Wuhan and Guangzhou when I first moved down to Guangdong, I am wondering what these differences are?
Where are the highest educational quality in China and what are the reasons for these sometimes huge differences in levels (of English for example)?
9 years 50 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
While i disagree with the premise as a whole and especially the comparison between wuhan and guangzhou if i try to rationalize the idea then i guess a few decent points come up.
But first, the idea that guangzhou has poor education because everyone is in trade is stupid. Guangzhou was arguably the first place in China with wide spread wealth which brought an emphasis on education, the cantonese HK connection as well as mass immigration has also helped which is why the vast majority of chinese around the world are Cantonese. English is another small but sure sign of importance of education.
Ok. Onto the premise.
You know how all wood products come from shandong? Or ... Vinegar from shanxi? Toys from guangdong? And youll find a wierd shoe mall that has 4000 shoe stores that cant possibly make money? I think of university education in particular as the same. Specific areas as a whole have made an economic decision to be a "hub" of education. Why would they do this? Money and prestige. How did they do this? Money of course. Just like hospitals, the nba or any other industry really, the more you invest in talent the better your product is. And soon the prestige follows. Forgetting beijings history, this is exactly why absolute shitholes like wuhan and xian are famous for education and more prominant cities like guangzhou and shanghai have maybe one or two top level schools but dont have that reputation at all.
coineineagh:
Agreed. The focus on profit and utilism is prevalent throughout Asia. It's just that Guangdong folk are historically more involved in international trade, so they're better at it than the average Chinese mainlander. It doesn't make their culture any more or less interesting than the rest.
I'm pretty sure that, at the end of the day....a Chinese education isn't worth a brass razoo.
And it doesn't matter where it came from.
Can graduates from modern (real) countries bring their education with them...? Yes, of course they can.
Can graduates from Chinese establishments do the same?
I'm pretty sure that, at the end of the day....a Chinese education isn't worth a brass razoo.
And it doesn't matter where it came from.
Can graduates from modern (real) countries bring their education with them...? Yes, of course they can.
Can graduates from Chinese establishments do the same?
It doesn't matter, anywhere in China the educational standards are so low that it can't be compared with anything that we have back in our home countries. Chinese rote memorizing learning system is a joke, ask a Chinese to think by himself, ask an open question and admire the result, it's pitiful, these people can't think out of the box as much as 10 years old children back home (at least in my country), in fact I find kindergartners to be smarter than adults in China, sadly they get crushed by the system once they enter primary school. It's not that Chinese were born dumb, it's the educational methods in China that make them so.
I never met an Asian person in university that wasn't studying something "close to the money". There was one Chinese Biology student, but after befriending him, he told me he was getting a Master's degree so he could work for an industial organization, and make a bundle signing off for their waste water. The myth you talked about is probably from someone who hasn't experienced much of Asia outside Guangdong. The attitudes are the same everywhere, even outside China. There are different preferred methods in different regions, but the underlying motif is that people will compromise their values and even the lives of their families in pursuit of short-term profit. Education levels are lousy throughout the country, because people are too myopic. They can't build a broad, robust society, because everyone is scuttling to climb that one ladder to the top, like rats on a sinking ship. And the singlemindedness is hilarious, too: just look at the levels of genius displayed: "I have this brilliant plan. Buy Low, Sell High." http://answers.echinacities.com/question/where-can-i-find-business-partn...
DrMonkey:
Meh, you think it's different elsewhere ? You are blaming yet an other time the ills society with Chinese characteristics, when there are a couple of other factors at play, me think :p
In science & engineering, academic positions are very scarce compared to industrial positions. That makes sense, if you have as much teacher as workers in your worker pool, that sounds not right. So yeah, people tend to go toward industry. Paying university teachers in the 4000/7000 RMB/month range, when you can get 12000 RMB/month fresh out of your PhD (or even master in some industries, if you are good), this is quite a factor too.
The same thing exists in Europe and in US. When I finished my PhD, I could have a position as an academic... paid less than my PhD fund ?! In the industry, I could have the *TRIPLE* of my PhD fund, for doing stuffs as cool as my academy stuffs. Or I could just be paid the same but elsewhere, so that I least I can enjoy the life of the traveler.
The inner province tend to have *even* worse education standards, compared to the coastal provinces. It's so bad, people in those provinces have extra free points to compensate for this and get a chance to go to a good university, compared to coastal cities students. Any marginally talented academic try to go to a coastal city university, better pay, better students, better life. So this balance problem is self-fueling.
RiriRiri:
That's how it's meant to be. People from inner provinces are not supposed to stand out or have ambition or even think, they're expected to accept their fate as the poorer leftovers while being hands for the agricultural or mining needs locally. No need for education other than mindless obedience training to do that.
The more you move to the coast, the (marginally) better it gets because there is a need for, like, retro-engineers or people vaguely capable of interacting with the outside world. It needs a bit more skills but you can still manage to have an education system that prevents those units... sorry persons, from having too deep thoughts.
The education system is a complete joke anywhere, to various degrees, but when you think about it, from their perspective, the last thing they need would be a functional one.
DrMonkey:
@RiriRiri I don't think it's like this by design, even tho they are advantages to it, from the Beijing egghead point of view.
I see this trend as a consequence of pure geographical and historical origin:
* China's economy is massively geared toward exports
* The inner regions are from the large ports to ship exports, so industries there have to pay increased cost to ship to the ports
* Coastal regions have been industrialized earlier, so there's more trained people and proper facilities already available
* Until recently, links between inner and coastal provinces was slow train and poor roads. It's changing with fast trains, but it's new and still on-going.
* Inner provinces have serious water supply problem, which makes many thing difficult. Like producing food, producing power (how you gonna cool your coal/gas/nuclear power plant ?)
=> Much more money on the coastal areas, qualified people and high-profit industries are there. Few good teachers are willing to be be underpaid while having the level of life of China circa 1990 in place with little more than desert with a few factories around a boring town. A side consequence is that you get a poorly educated workforce willing to do hard work for close to nothing without asking too much questions.
I see Beijing as clumsy, laborious and temperamental but very opportunistic, ready to exploit any situation in a purely reactive fashion. Creating situations with a controled outcome, not so much.
