Education: The Big Picture

Hey! We are finally done with economics!

In this blog post, we would be taking a look at China's education system.

Education is key to the society as it prepares children to enter in world of tomorrow, not only because many prestigious and high-paying jobs are reserved for the well-educated, but also because through interacting with other children while thinking deeply and develop team players and leadership. Also, education (i.e. Schooling) can keep children off the streets and educate them on right and wrong things to do. Therefore, education in important.

We first ask ourselves, what is learning? Is it blindly memorising facts from a textbook? Is it doing hours of papers and homework? Well, to me, learning means gaining knowledge. It's more than the simple 'know your facts' and rushing through homework. Learning means to be able to be able to solve and understand and to undertstand strangths and weakneses. We learn because we want to broaden our perspective, and not only in the academic areas. Who says playing a piano is not learning? Who says playing tennis is not learning? Who says leadership camps, initiative programmes, VIA projects are not learning? When we can apply what we've learnt into ur daily life and problem-solve successfully, we can safely say that we have learnt.

What then, makes a holistic learning in school? Well, a well-balanced, holistic learning for the (21st) century would be holistic learning. And not only in academics, because that would not be sufficient to prepare learners for the furture. 60% of the jobs 10 years from noe have not even been invented yet! Academical knowledge we pass down today may be meaningless in the future, but life skills like leadership, logical thinking, problem-solving will play a vital role throughout a person's life, regardless of day and age.

In China, due to the one-child policy, immense pressure is placed on the singleton. Academic results are extremely emphasised in, with high-stakes tests like the gaokao, which takes many teenager's lives every year. These tests are a one-shot attempt at getting a good future. As a result, many Chinese believe that if you are unable to get into a good university (because of poor results from the exam), your good future might as well be gone for good. That is why parents, afraid of the child not being able to do well in the future to support themselves and their parents, push their child to the extreme in order to study well. My cousin in China is taking her gaokao next year, and even with a whole year of schooling left before the exam, she has to attend school almost 7 days a week, with only the occasional Sunday break. Her school ends around 8.30 or 9 at night, where she would be in school doing her zixi in the supervising eye of her teacher. Another cousin just took his last year. I remembered that I was in China then, and the whole family was panicking. Even the extended family (my uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, my parents) were panicking because he did not look like he was going to do well. My grandmother, an old lady into her 80s, insisted she walk all the way to my cousin's house to help him with his studies.

At various hotels around the city, students flock in to book hotel rooms to study in about a week before their exams. Billboard-like words flash across the entrance, reminding residents around the vicinity as well as those passing to keep their volume down. "Gaokao students currently staying in the hotels, please keep noise and honking down".

The whole China would be making up a fuss about the gaokao and Chinese social media and news platforms would be reporting news every day of the exam. "In XXX province, it has been revealed that the topic is XXX" "XXX is a previous gaokao scholar and her notes are up for sale!"

But are the gaokaos really fair? Well, each province is given different topics basedon their education levels in provinces. Universities enroll students in different provinces different cut-off points. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou students have an edge above students of other cities because they are given privilege to universities in that region (especially since universities there are the best few). Those that do not do so well but with Guanxi are able to get in.

While there may be certain problems regarding the system, it does not look like ut is chnaging soon. But as we ask ourselves, are the students really receiving what we call a 'holistic education'?

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