Zart Extra Term 4 2011
The Grass Isn't Greener in China
Opinion
The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) conducts PISA - the Program for International Student Assessment - every three years on half a million 15 year-old students in 65 industrialized countries. The tests are standardized and conducted in reading comprehension, mathematics and science. The latest PISA results, released in December 2010, included students from Shanghai* for the first time and showed that these Chinese students out-ranked all other participating countries, including Australia, the U.S. and the U.K.
The results sent politicians in western countries scrambling to find ways to improve their countries’ education system.
The PISA ranking gives China prestige but, interestingly, not everyone in China is happy with this meteoric rise. Behind the Great Wall the voice of discontent is getting louder from academics, teachers and parents alike. Parents feel their child is over-burdened by overwhelming academic demands, fierce competition and an exhausting and rigorous school regime. A typical secondary school day may start at 7.30am and finish about 5.30pm and then there is homework for another four to five hours. Much of the curriculum is taken up with academic subjects delivered in the traditional rote learning method, using text books and there us little opportunity for discussion and exchange. Children at primary school do not fair much better as they too have a predominantly academic program and an enormous workload; having an art lesson is non-existent. Even at kindergarten the child is tested in an academic program.
Xu Jilin, professor of intellectual history of East China Normal University, declared that China is “terminally ill”. He believes that everyone in China is complicit in a vile reality - that Chinese society worships winners; the only people looked up to as worthy of respect and dignity are the handful of mega rich people at the top of the pyramid. Society is ruled by a dog eat dog mentality. Fierce competition for survival starts from babyhood; children are forced to give up their individuality in a rigid education system obsessed with exams. Hours and hours of study are done to acquire skills to beat others. An 85 per cent result is not good enough; you need virtually full marks to gain entry into a key institution. Everyone hates the exams yet it becomes more intense as the years go by.
A Shanghai kindergarten teacher admitted “Creativity is not an important part of our program. We do not focus on individual thinking. We love rote learning and analytical thinking. No lateral or intuitive thinking. Having only one child in the family makes parents frightened of the child getting hurt so we have to be so careful in what we do. The children are frightened of taking risks. They are not taught to question but to accept and learn it by heart”. One parent complained “our kids can’t create and they are turning into idiots”.
There is no doubt that excellence in reading comprehension; mathematics and science have a very important place in the future of developed countries but what other skills are required for the future? What skills do our children need to become well-adjusted, contributing members of society?
We sympathize with Professor Xu Jilin’s views of China’s “terminal illness” but we are also fearful of our own future. Will we become victims to this malaise? If politicians the world over want to compete with China’s academic performance, does that mean our children will also suffer at the hands of a more rigid education system? Will these changes be detrimental to our present educational philosophy that nurtures the individuality of the child and his talents? What about the time we give children to explore and to express themselves – will that be sacrificed? PISA raises more questions than it does answers.
Dani Chak
Zart Education
*Testing was confined to Shanghai, a city that has experienced a rapid economic rise, huge lifestyle improvements and significant increase in secondary school retention rates. Shanghai is one of the most progressive regions of China but the test results are not representative of all of China.
References:
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and development for International Student Assessment, an evaluation of 15-year-olds in industrialized countries
The New York Times, “Western nations React to Poor Education Results” by D.D. Guttenplan, December, 2010
Professor Xu Jilin, “Resistance between Discourse and Practice” translated by David Kelly, Professor at the China Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney, in China Heritage Quarterly.
The Age, “Parents take aim at China’s school daze”, by John Garnaut, December 11, 2010
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