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/.
