Chinese Education is Ineffective

Chinese Education is Ineffective

“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere”. This is a Chinese proverb that is used to show the parents the importance and value that is given to education. Since time memorial, the Chinese culture had incorporated aspects of schooling, most of which were informal to modern times when formal education was introduced. The Chinese government has worked intending to create an education system that not only encourages the development of skills but also contribute to the betterment of the students. Since the introduction of education, the Chinese government has worked towards polishing the education system and ensuring that it is effective in enriching the students to be able to meet the professional requirements in the future. Even so, research on the Chinese education system has claimed that it is not entirely effective in molding a person that is ready for the employment industry. The inadequacy that is created in Chinese education can be seen in the various sectors that many scholars have highlighted. Ideally, taking a keen evaluation into the aspects such as creativity and innovation, preparedness to the employment sectors, and character-building can be useful in understanding the areas that Chinese education lacks in developing an all-round student.

First of all, research has pointed out that the Chinese education system discourages creativity. The Chinese education system is constructed in such a manner that the students listen to the teachers who guide them on the most appropriate way of learning. These teachers are informed on what to share with the students, and these commands come from the government. True to the term ‘robotized students’, as used by many researchers, the Chinese government has ensured that it strictly looks into the construction of the education system and ensures that the student is only taught what the government has recommended. Arguably, an effective educational system should be free and allow students to also learn naturally from their environment and other things that they come across as a result of experience. Guo, Huang, and Zhang support that “As education is so essential for human development and regarded as a human right, quality education for all is set to be a global target among many other development goals” (2). One crucial factor that Chinese education denies the students is the ability to think outside the box. Arguably, the schools in china employ the use of a written curriculum that is a directive of the government. As such, it is correct to argue that these students are bred into walking robots.

Secondly, Chinese education is depicted as a highly-priced entity that only fits the rich in society. The quality of education in China is bought by the rich, and the poor remained disadvantaged since they cannot afford to pay for the right schools. China Power supports that “Students born into affluent families generally have greater access to high-quality education than those from lower-income backgrounds”. The inequality in the educational sector beats the logic of the government controlling education. This is because the curriculum that is used in the schools that offer excellent quality education most likely differs from that which the poor are taught with. If the curriculum is similar; however, there is a possibility that it is not reinforced in the schools that are considered for the poor, unlike the case for the affluent schools that offer quality education. Following this, inequality in education has proven to be widening. As a student from rich backgrounds continue to grow wiser and gain good knowledge, the poor are partially bred, and they turn out to be less useful in society. The economic inequality in China has risen to the levels of impacting the educational quality that these citizens get.

Also, Chinese education is mainly active at the tertiary levels. In other words, most of the educational works of the Chinese are geared towards creating an environment in which the students grow into becoming manual laborers. Liang supports that “Craftsmen schools are mostly attached to factories or enterprises, and they train craftsmen. Enrolment in a craftsman school implies employment by the unit” (3).  China has invested more in tertiary education than in universities that allow the citizens to explore the professional world.  Following this, the middle class in the Chinese economy has continued to grow, and the people in the lowest social level have widened since they are unable to qualify for education and cannot afford the tertiary training. Following this kind of education system, China has been known globally to produce the cheapest skilled labor. Ideally, the universities in China are few, and their accessibility is next to impossible. The rules that have been set in support of the higher education system have a natural method of elimination, and this limits the number of students who gain access to the Universities.

Furthermore, the relevance of the Chinese curriculum to breeding the student that the nation needs in the professional sectors is questionable. Through the educational provisions, research has pointed out that most of these students come out of the universities with minimum knowledge of the professions they want to undertake. Other than lacking the aspect of creativity, these people cannot also perform effectively in their various professional sectors, and they have to be trained afresh, and this impacts the performance at the workplace. The main issue that has been identified to be associated with the inadequacy of the teachers. Laing explains that “Among those who enroll, 66%graduate from junior vocational schools and 77% graduate from senior vocational/technical schools in  1998″(8). In some cases, research has pointed out that the teachers are less prepared, and as such, schools take teachers who are not demanding in terms of their educational requirements are low, and this means that they are paid little as well. In other words, education has become an institution that is either bought or sold for most people. A graduate in a Chinese graduate is a person who can barely perform a task in the professional environment without any further training.

The Chinese government is investing in the facilitation of the tertiary education sectors than in the professional education sectors. Unlike in other nations where the government is taking active roles in contributing to the education sector, China’s government does not provide a way to support the poor who can barely afford education. By delivering educational uplifting for the people in the middle class in the society, the nation can’t eliminate the gap that is continually growing between the rich and the poor. Government funding in the education sector improves the performance of the country at large. As such, the government should take active responsibility for ensuring that the performance of the economy is improved through the corporate sectors. Liang supports that “universal primary education and places the priority of the primary system increasingly on the efficiency, equity, quality, and relevance of the system” (5). The Chinese education system is in conjunction with the economy, and it is contributing to the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. It is also contributing to the creation of manual laborers, and this makes the country’s opportunities scarce for supporting them.

Conclusively, the Chinese education system is among those that are considered inadequate and unreliable. Arguably, the education system is known to discourage creativity and innovation in the aspect that the students come out of the schools with no idea of what they can do in efforts to generate income. Additionally, the educational sector of the nation contributes to the creation of an economy that has more manual laborers than the corporate sectors due to the investment in tertiary education.

Works Cited

China Power. “How Does Education in China Compare with Other Countries?” ChinaPower Project, 9 Mar. 2020, chinapower.csis.org/education-in-china/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2020.

Guo, L., J. Huang, and Y. Zhang. “Education Development in China: Education Return, Quality, and Equity. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (13): 3750.” Eng.) DOI: https://doi. org/10.3390/su11133750.

Liang, Xiaoyan. China: Challenges of secondary education. World Bank, Education, 2001.