Topic > Education System in China

China is a country with a long history with more than 5,000 years of civilization. In terms of education, China is one of the countries that values ​​education since ancient times. In the ancient educational period, there was a Confucianism that emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity and led to a system of civil service examinations. And then Chinese education nowadays is recognized as a very good system as students have performed very well in the OECD's PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay PISA is an assessment test in science, mathematics, reading, collaborative problem solving, and financial literacy. This test result surprised many other countries that tried to apply Chinese education to their system. The education system in China consists of primary education and junior middle education as a 9-year compulsory education, and senior middle school to complete secondary education. To obtain higher education and enter highly reputed universities, it is known that all Chinese students have to go through a very challenging and competitive exam system called “Gaokao”. This pushes students to practice a lot from an early age and could be a reason to emerge at the top of the PISA program. It seems that China now has its own “successful” education system, but if we look more closely there are some problems in the system which are long hours of studying with heavy content, submissive learning style and obsession with results. Chinese students spend much more time spent in school than their peers in Western countries. School regularly starts at 7:30am and lasts until 4:00pm or, for seniors, starts from 7:00am to 5:30pm. Furthermore, after official school hours, most students have to attend tutoring classes or stay at school for an extra period. self-study session that didn't end until 9 p.m. For some students it seems to be a nightmare, but for Chinese students the way they study in the previous paragraph is normal. Some might say that Chinese schools are an "exam factory". Let's take the colossal Maotanchang Middle School as an example. This school is located in Liu'an City, Anhui Province and has approximately 10,000 students who undergo a harrowing curriculum for 12 months in preparation for the three-day university exam. Students in this program must study up to 16 hours a day continuously and without a single day off in order to enter top-tier universities in China. Because "Gaokao" is the path for rich and poor students to better future careers. Not only do students prioritize academic performance, but parents also obsess over their children's test scores. Therefore, many parents would do anything to ensure an optimal learning environment for their children. Longer study hours can also really steal students' childhood. Students simply do not have time for other activities such as sports, recreation, family time and social activities. As a result, they have poor communication skills and real-life problem-solving skills. Most Chinese students, or Asian students in general, are only good in theory. However, by changing the wording of the exam, most students will likely not be able to answer the question. Another problem with China's education system is the inactive style. Curiosity, creativity, experimentation orIndependent thinking is not often encouraged in the classroom. This could be due to class sizes (40-50 students per class) and content overload. A child throughout Asia, and it can vary by grade, is taught that in school the teacher knows best. Copy what the teacher puts on the board. This is what will be on the exam. Since students must learn so much at once that they take a test based on content, not analytical style, many students decide to memorize what they read rather than understand the true meaning of what they learn. After taking major exams, more often than not they end up completely forgetting what they learned in just a few weeks. Furthermore, they are also reluctant to ask questions as it may demonstrate their lack of knowledge. By asking a question, it implies that the teacher did not explain the topic clearly enough for the student to understand it, thus causing a loss of face for the teacher in front of the class, or that the students were too stupid to having understood what the teacher was saying and so the student loses face among his classmates. The problem of those who are too obsessed with the exam is copying on the exam. Many students are afraid of the “Gaokao” due to its reputation as the most difficult exam. Each student has only one opportunity per year to take this exam which has a major impact on their life. Some students try a bad way to get a high score by cheating. Fraud is shown in many ways: smuggling of illicit radio equipment, spy cameras or even forgery of identity documents. From a cheating perspective, this reminds me of the cheating exam problem in Thailand, my home country. Because medical school is very popular and it is difficult to get into that program. Some students who fail the public medical school test decide to take the test at a private university that offers more flexible exam registration. The infamous news story emerged in 2016, when four prospective medical students in Thailand were allegedly caught cheating on an entrance exam to enter Rangsit University's medical school, dental school and pharmacy program, one of the top private medical schools. These students are hired to take the exam using a camera hidden in a pair of glasses to record the test questions and electronic wristwatches to receive answers from the anti-fraud team. From the exam cheating problem, the Chinese administration has only solved this problem by implementing more security restrictions and harsher punishments, but the Thai administration not only did what the Chinese do, but also tried to emphasize the campaign called “Growning Good (โตไปไม่ โกง)” with the belief that if children know that cheating is not good from an early age, they will not behave dishonestly when they grow up. The campaign was applied to the school curriculum, from nursery to high school. The contents of this campaign are 5 benefits for the country's development and the fight against corruption, namely honesty, public opinion, fairness, responsibility and self-sufficiency. This campaign has not yet evaluated whether it works well with Thai society because it just fully launched the curriculum in 2014. Furthermore, according to 20 years of research on cheating by Eric Anderman, co-author of the study and professor of educational psychology at La Ohio State University and his colleagues, Sungjun Won, a graduate student in educational psychology at Ohio State, consistently found that students cheated less — and believed.