EDUCATION-CHINA: Bored Students Spell Trouble for Economic Future

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Pushpa Adhikari

BEIJING, May 14 1999 (IPS) - The Chinese government has taken bold steps toward market reforms, but the lack of creativity among its youth may well hinder its lofty economic ambitions.

A recent survey indicates that Chinese youth are lacking the creativity that is essential to keeping the country competitive in the world market, and one major culprit seems to be country’s moribund educational system.

The survey, conducted by a group of Chinese education experts, was the first of its kind in China. Among its findings was that 40 percent of the primary and high school student respondents felt indifferent about their school experiences.

But what has interested experts and officials the most was that of the 12,000 middle school and college students polled, only 4.7 percent demonstrated self-confidence, curiousity and determination, or appeared likely to raise questions — qualities that are associated with creativity.

Experts have since also said that most Chinese youth are likely to follow authority blindly, an attitude bound to dull critical and innovative thought.

Gu Rong of the Academy of Social Science echoes other observers in saying the survey findings are but the logical outcome of an exam-focused educational system.

“Under this system, students are deprived of independent thinking,” he says. “Most of their thinking process is replaced by that of their teachers.”

Adds Rong: “This is an inevitable result of China’s mechanical copying of the educational system of the former Soviet Union at a time when the country was hungry for rapid industrial development.”

According to the experts, Chinese schools put too much emphasis on rote learning and offer too little opportunities for students to discover things on their own.

University professor Zhang DianZhou notes as well that the elaborate exercises most high school students are made to grapple with are meant primarily to prepare the youngsters for university entrance exams instead of being used as learning tools.

Some materials are often so demanding that 80 percent of high school students report difficulty in understanding them. One result is that a significant number of them say they have lost interest in studying altogether.

Still, a few observers are taking comfort in an Action Plan on Education Revitalisation drafted and implemented recently by a worried Ministry of Education.

The ministry’s chief, Chen Zhili, has pointed out that more and more countries have listed education development as a basic national policy for the coming century, which he predicts will necessitate high technology, a knowledge-based economy and a skilled labour force.

Officials now say China’s education plan for the 21st century is based on the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s statement that “education should be developed in view of worldwide trends, geared to the country’s modernisation, construction and future development”.

But first, education experts say efforts should be directed toward getting Chinese students excited again with learning. They say the current reforms geared toward easing the “study burden”, developing personal hobbies and broadening students’ interests are steps in the right direction.

At the same time, though, the experts say the textbooks used by Chinese schools need to be overhauled. According to Zhang, some textbooks have parts that were written in the 1950s to the 1970s, the most politically and culturally chaotic period in China, and make little sense to students today.

Respondents to the survey had also described the contents of textbooks as “boring” and “tricky”. Other observers say Chinese textbooks do not stimulate the students’ curiosity and only enforce rigid thinking.

Even Li Lianning, director of the Basic Education Department of the Ministry of Education, agrees that textbook reform is long overdue.

Meanwhile, officials are about to implement a new entrance examination system for colleges and universities, although it will be tested first in southern province of Guangdong. This July, examinees there will be tested not only on their intended majors but also in the “core subjects” of politics, history and geography.

Officials believe this will force middle schools to widen the range of the students’ knowledge while helping colleges and universities choose well-rounded students. By next year, the new examination system will be implemented in Shanxi, Jilin, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and in the rest of China by 2001.

The Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000) says funds for education will amount to at least four percent of the country’s gross domestic product by next year.