By Grace Filipski, Emily Martin, Matt Turner, and Adam Becklehimer
As the film Education, Education discussed, in China, a child’s performance in early education has a significant effect on all aspects of his or her life. At the end of their early school training, kids take a universal test which determines where they are able to attend school. The top students are offered spaces at subsidized universities, while the students who did not perform as well are forced to attend expensive private colleges, if anything at all. The students who did poorly are often from rural communities, as the schools there are not well funded, and therefore not very functional. The private institutions that they attend to attempt to escape the difficulties of rural life are extremely corrupt, as they function more like companies than colleges. The teachers are not qualified for their positions and are forced to spend their summers presenting to these underprivileged families. In these talks, they lie about the existence of facilities and the proficiency of professors, as the students will likely learn nothing during their time at the university. Since the families are so desperate to free their kids from the woes of rural life, they will do anything to provide them with the money to attend these institutions to get a skill or certificate and, eventually, a job. Though having a degree can help get the students’ foot in the door for a job, often they find themselves inadequately prepared for the workplace and are therefore fired. The inability for students who are born into bad living situations to succeed is a major flaw of the Chinese education system and will only create more problems of poverty in rural China.
For more information on Early Education in China, check out these blogs:
Early Educaiton in China: Progression of Society
Early Education in China: The Exciting History
Early Education in China: Culture
Weijun Chen, dir., Don Edkins, prod. “Education, Education.” Part of the Why Poverty project. Steps International. Video file, 58 min. January 4, 2013. Accessed March 4, 2014. http://www.whypoverty.net/en/video/education-education/.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/opinion/the-business-case-for-early-childhood-education.html
This Article from the New York Times discusses the importance of early childhood education, particularly preschool. The article makes the argument that investing in preschool will give huge returns on that investment later in life. The article mentions that China has around 70% of children in preschool for 3 years
The preschool system in China is full day and much, much more comprehensive than in the US. It’s actually called ‘kindergarten’ and starts at age 3. Although the curriculum is not perfect, the teachers are professionals and it’s a world better than the patchwork and largely privately funded system that the US has. Even full-day kindergarten at age 5 is private-pay or unavailable in many school districts in the US. Interesting article and post!
We speak of this issue as a purely Chinese problem, but in some ways, the same thing is happening in America. There is a new type of college on the rise–that of the “for-profit” university, which of course acts like a company. It is interesting to look at these parallels.
That’s a good point, Marian. Especially the online universities in the US are prone to this kind of criticism, and some have been shut down.