EDUCATION-CHINA: Youngsters Fidget under Overprotection

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ma Guihua

BEIJING, Aug 5 2002 (IPS) - Asked about her growing pains, a third grader in Jiangning Primary School in Shanghai could not give an answer. “I searched in my mind and could not find what really worries me,” she says.

“I don’t have to worry about anything. I have no growing pains, and perhaps that is my worry,” she adds. “Because I don’t know whether I will be able to make choices on my own when I grow up.”

This is so because in the 10 years of her life, just about every step she took was decided by her parents.

This is but one example of a Chinese youngster’s cocooned childhood. But educators are worried that many more in this country of 1.2 billion are pampering their children – they often only have one — to the point that youngsters are not getting exposed to the realities of life.

Often, the end goal is having the youngsters land university slots that point the way to successful careers. But this overprotection, resulting in overly restricted lives, is fueling rebellion among some youngsters.

“I am so bored,” says Li Ning from a key high school in east China’s Nanjing province.

Li is referring to the no-noise rule in residential areas imposed by his neighborhood committee in July, the tension-filled time when the national entrance examinations for college admission are underway and millions of students are buried in their books.

“We’ll become imbecile under such care,” he says. “If our nerves are so fragile that we are not able to stand the noises of overflying planes or birds singing during the examinations, what are we good for when we graduate?”

Zhang Bo, a professor on education with the Guangzhou-based South China Normal University, notes that parents focus virtually their whole lives around their children because of their “high expectations on them” and that this is “understandable”.

However, he points out that parental care also tends to be utilitarian, aimed at the obtaining their children’s outstanding academic performance so as to secure a bright future for themselves.

This, he says, often exerts much psychological pressure on children and may effect hinder their development.

A study by Wang Yufeng, a specialist on psychological health with Beijing University, shows that of the country’s 340 million children, at least 30 million have shown some form of learning, emotional or behavioural problems.

But parents say they have little alternative but to focus on their youngsters’ education prospects.

Because only a little more than 10 percent of the high school students in China can hope to get into college, the competition for college admission is fierce and passing the highly selective college examination becomes the ultimate goal of education in many Chinese schools.

“This education centered on examinations is inhuman and does not proceed from the life-long benefit of the student,” says Qiu Jilong, principal of the Beijing No. 4 Middle School.

“Under such an education philosophy, many schools seem crazy about test scores, which are connected to teachers’ awards and promotions,” Qiu adds. “Our teachers and headmasters are actually destroying the next generation out of a good aim.”

According to a survey conducted by the Shanghai Juvenile Work Committee in May in 1,792 primary and middle school students, about 60 percent of the children between 10 and 14 sleep less than eight hours daily. Eight percent sleep even less than six hours.

This is against the Ministry of Education regulations that primary and secondary school students, respectively, should get at least 10 and eight hours of daily sleep to guarantee healthy physical development.

In addition, the survey on children’s habits and rights finds that 20 percent feel they almost do not have any time to play, while 80 percent responded that their daily play time is far from enough.

Sixty percent complained said their weekends are loaded with homework and additional tutoring. Time for sports and household work is next to zero, not to mention time for fun.

Educators have now begun to challenge this exam-oriented education and urged that schools focus on developing the children’s overall potential.

Zhang Hongli, principal of Fudan Primary School in Shanghai, teachers are being asked not to assign too much homework everyday and to give homework that have to be completed at school.

But some parents misunderstand the call for ‘quality education’ and go to the extreme outside academic activities — filling their children’s schedules with activities they did not consult the youngsters about.

Teng Shichu, a well-known pianist and composer, has great sympathy for children driven by their parents to brush up skills at various extracurricular courses, be it musical instruments, chess, painting or dancing.

“Children in the cities now lead a pitifully monotonous life in cement buildings, detached from the nature and other people,” he says. “Their parents, while neglecting their spiritual needs in line with their growth, force them to learn this or that.”

“But parents have overlooked the most essential element, that is to give the children a healthy and happy life, without which they cannot get anywhere in the future,” Teng explains.

Teng says that quality education should help “cultivate tolerance, understanding, ability to communicate and cooperate with others. These are far more important to a human being than learning certain knowledge or skills”.

The concept of quality education has been promoted in China since the 1990s in a bid to revert the old exam-centred education. Reforms are slowly taking place, although obstacles remain.

For instance, primary and middle schools have been asked to abolish the old practice of ranking the students by their test scores, and to keep individual students’ grades confidential.

Textbooks are being streamlined and examinations simplified in 10 pilot provinces and municipalities to reduce students’ homework.

The age limit for college admission has also been lifted in keeping with the concept that learning is a life-long pursuit — a radical change in China’s traditional mode of school education.

“The spirit of innovation is intrinsic with everyone,” says Lao Aisheng, professor at the School of Education in Beijing Normal University.

“It’s not learned or taught. The best education is the one that can tap and best honour this spirit of exploration.”

Adds Lao: “People churned out from this kind of education will become innovative talents, whether or not they entered college.”