Education System of China

Structure of the system

Preschool: children of 3 to 5 years old

Primary School: children of 6 to 11 years old

Secondary School: youths of 12 to 17 years old

High Education: 2 to 3 years of short high education, undergraduate education and graduate education

      Mandatory education for all citizens starts at 6 (in places where this is not possible, it can be pushed to the age of seven) and lasts for nine years.

      Desired outcomes of Education

1. To improve the country’s intellectual outlook
2.  Bring about competent students in all aspects of China’s development. China is a developing country thus to have competent students in their field of expertise would allow China to move on to even greater heights.
3. Develop productive forces to meet demands of the country. China has a huge population with great demands, thus there are needs to develop productive forces to react to those demands. Forces that are not productive will lead to the slowing down of China's development and fail to meet demands on the nation and her citizens.
4. Training a technical and labour work force (from rural and urban areas)

Characteristics of Education System

• Stressful

1. Students often compared to each other through weekly examinations
2. Parents push their children harder than usual due to the one child policy, which allows them to focus on only one child, and large 1.3 billion population, which makes it difficult for them to succeed.
3. Long hours of extra-curricular activities

• Unprepared for 21st Century

1. Lack of social skills 
2. Unable to work independently 
3. Loss of passion for learning 
4. Not flexible as too much focus is put on rote learning

• Socialist Oriented (due to the Socialist Education Movement in 1962)

1. Classrooms are typically packed with 50 plus students and learning is often done in groups to emphasize on teamwork and cooperation (basic tenets of socialism)
    

Critique 

• Postive

1.  The education system allows people with limited means/power to have some sort of social mobility as long as they are able to excel in tests/exams, which enables them to get jobs that require higher qualifications.

• Negative

1. The education system of China does not guarantee that the students are able to do well in the future when they go out to work. This is supported by China Daily, an English language newspaper, which surveyed more than a thousand top scorers of the university exams from 1977 to 2008 and found that "none of them stood out in the field of academics, business or politics." This shows that Chinese students are only good at scoring in papers, but are unable to excel in their field of expertise in the future.
2. With more than 50 students per class, it is hard for 1 teacher to attend to all the needs of the students and give them an equal amount of attention. Therefore, the teacher may not be able to attend to students who are lacking behind as he/she needs to teach and clear doubts of 50 students.  
3. Students are overworked-->classes from morning till 5 during high school
4. Overly strong emphasis on memorisation-->'expected to absorb what they are taught in class and memorize massive amounts of related information in their “spare time”'-->Students are taught to mindlessly memorise and study for hours at a time without break-->unable to foster problem-solving skills
5. Critics say that education system is unable to produce creative and innovative students-->

   “What the Chinese are very good at doing is achieving short-term goals,” says Jiang Xueqin, deputy principal of Peking University High School, affiliated with Beijing‘s Peking University, known as the “Harvard” of China. “They’re good at copying things, not creating them.” 

   China Daily, an English language newspaper, surveyed more than a thousand top scorers from 1977 to 2008 and found that "none of them stood out in the field of academics, business or politics."
   Experts say the survey is proof that China has an innovation problem.

   Lack proper English education due to the lack of teachers with ability.

6. Students abilities not discovered-->A boy who was deemed as a bad, naughty student in China was seen differently in America when he earned himself a scholarship in an artistic field
7. Children of migrant workers(tens of millions of such children) do not have the right to receive state education
8. Confucian ideas restricts students' freedom to ask thought provocative questions and adhere strictly to what the teacher says. 43.8% of students in Beijing suffered from school phobia and 90% of this phobia was a product of unwarranted punishment doled out by teachers.
9. "Psychoanalysis, a product of western thought, is predicated on the idea that one should feel free to associate one’s thoughts without any kind of restriction. Thoughts just by themselves are harmless. It is in the realm of one’s behavior where one ought to be careful about what should be or should not be acted out. Confucianism differs from western way of thinking in that it makes a strong link between thoughts and actions. If an action is bad then even the thought of that action is bad. Therefore, one should learn to control one’s thoughts. This alone presents a hindrance to creative thinking."

Resources 

 http://www.edu.cn/21st_1407/20060323/t20060323_115357.shtml

http://index-china.com/main/education/

http://www.springerlink.com/content/734687ru3876p763/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7027377/Third-of-Chinese-primary-school-children-suffer-stress-study-finds.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703766704576008692493038646.html
http://www.thechinaexpat.com/whats-wrong-with-chinas-secondary-education-system/
http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/106957.html
 http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-02-01-asia_education01_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/15/china-migrant-workers-children-education
http://www.examiner.com/cognitive-science-in-national/detrimental-impact-of-confucianism-on-the-education-system-of-eastern-cultures?render=print