Several school students started to prolong summer vacation at the start of this month in different states of China. However, several parents will send their children to education institutes for summer tutoring classes to go forward in the heavily competitive and exam-focused education system of China.
On the other hand, the government of China aimed to change the education system. According to state-run Xinhua news agency, the State Council, leading government body of China revealed an innovative set of guidelines on 8th July calling for minor consideration on exams and more focus on physical, political and cultural education.
Xinhua expressed that under the present running exam-oriented education system of China, the students burdened with schoolwork and thus they lack necessary physical activities due to which it rises the health problems, for example, myopia and obesity.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, echo, calls the guidelines during the past year to remodel the education system of China. During the March meeting with teachers, he expressed the need to teach an experienced new generation of the young public capable of leading the national rejuvenation mission. Few of experts praised the bill intention, whereas, others felt that tests deep-rooted in the education system of China and the expectation of parents.
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An education policy’s associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lai Man-hong said that the overall system for promotions from teachers-principals-local officials along with the head of the city or the province all strictly attached to the public exam results. Hence it is a systemic problem of the whole country.
Most extensive Education System of the World
According to the Ministry of Education of China, over 150 million students registered in the essential education system of China in around 220,000 schools all over the country. Compulsory education comprises the first nine years of school up until high school.
If we separate those students from the rest population of China, they might be the ninth-largest country of the world having a population more than that of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia combined.
Education experts and graduates said that the present system has a massive emphasis on tests and exams, specifically the zhongkao and the gaokao – the entry exams for secondary school and university, respectively.
Dai Rouya, a 23-year-old girl, recently passed her graduation from the Shanghai University said that students of secondary school have no interest in any part of their schooling that does not directly affect their results of the exam. She said that the government and their parents already given them a task, and that is the entrance exam of college, and that is the main thing that maximum students care about.
Moreover, she added that the massive pressure on students reached unhealthy levels. Over half of the students have a thought that having an admission in the best universities verifies that they are the better people and that is the actual problem.
Furthermore, the plan of the government of China does not get rid of the zhongkao or the gaokao; however, it inspires schools to stop using other types of test and rankings to decide which students to select for their schools. The document of the government said that it also appeals for students to stop creating extra unhealthy pressure on the shoulders of their children to gain success in the exams.
Labor Education and Innovation in the Education System
A Chinese History professor at Duke Kunshan University, Andrew Field, said that the latest guidelines knotted precisely with a push of Xi to boost revolution and speedy advancement in the industries of China.
Teachers should emphasis on promoting cognitive capability, stimulating the innovation sense, and encouraging the development of thinking under the new plans. The United States government decided to restrict sales of vital technologies in the past year, for example, computer chips to the firms of China, including Huawei and ZTE. The trade war between Washington and Beijing made a push of Xi for independence in this and other areas, all are significant.
Thus it led to massive investment in fundamental research and development of China along with a reconsideration of how China educates its students. In addition, Field said that China is at the stage where the state understands its needs to build more revolution in its education system because China is moving from a mainly manufacturing economy towards a tech-oriented economy.
