Opinion: The costs of Shanghai’s education success story
Shanghai schools placed top for the second time in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) international education rankings. However, according to Jiang Xueqing, deputy principal of the Tsinghua University High School in Beijing, the triumph comes at too great a cost. The dog-eat-dog and winner-take-all mentality of China’s school system isn’t just making children unhappy and unhealthy, it’s also encouraging cheating and bribery, leading to an unfair and unequal school system. Many of the more wealthy and well-educated parents who understand the costs and sacrifices of Shanghai’s PISA victory are emigrating abroad or opting for new private Western-style schools that have opened in major Chinese cities.
Source: CNN
URL: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/04/opinion/china-education-jiang-xueqin/
Editor’s note: PISA is actually administered in 12 provinces in China, but the results outside Shanghai are not released. There are large discrepancies in educational investment and performance between China’s regions and social classes. Shanghai’s per capita gross domestic product is more than double the national average and parents are able to invest heavily in their children’s education both at and outside school, to an extent that typical Chinese workers cannot. However, it is important to note two points: gaps in performance based on region and social class are also common in western countries and, even in high-income areas of the US, students were outpaced by their Chinese peers. Experts say that Shanghai’s education system is representative of China’s goals for the future. The city has encouraged schools to create individual curricula tailored to their student bodies and in some schools this has included the introduction of creative electives and courses that promote creative thinking.
