China News: Education | China Digital Times (CDT)

China news tagged with: education (146)

RSS feed for this topic

Related tags

It’s Just History: Patriotic Education in the PRC

On China Beat, Julia Lovell looks at various explanations for the rampant nationalism in China over the past 20 years and argues that in fact the education system is to blame:

Various explanations have been put forward for the surge in anti-Western nationalism since 1989. One is straightforwardly cyclical: as economic confidence grew, the reasoning goes, early post-Mao China’s love affair with the West was bound to founder at some point. Another is hormonal: the “angry youth” (fenqing) who dominate contemporary Chinese nationalism, some argue, need something to get mad at – they’ll grow out of it. Twenty years ago, today’s fenqing would have been protesting against rats in their dorms and lack of democracy; go back another twenty years, and they would have been Red Guards.

But the most convincing gloss on today’s patriotic distemper presents it as a substantially state-engineered phenomenon, rooted in one of the Communist Party’s most successful post-Mao political crusades: Patriotic Education. Searching for a new state religion around which the country could rally after the bloodshed of 1989, the Party skilfully reinvented itself through the 1990s as defender of the national interest against Western attempts to contain a rising China. To dislodge the worship of the West that had helped foment much of the unrest leading up to 1989, successive Patriotic Education campaigns waged in textbooks, newspapers, films and monuments drew concerted attention to China’s “century of humiliation” (c. 1840-1949) inflicted by foreign imperialism, always beginning with the Opium Wars, always passing slickly over the CCP’s own acts of violence (most notably the manmade famine of the early 1960s; the Cultural Revolution; the 1989 crackdown).
» Read more
- April 23, 2009 12:11 PM
China Jails Teachers and Parents for Hi-Tech Exam Cheating

China has jailed eight parents and teachers after uncovering elaborate schemes to help students pass the college entrance exams, tests which often determine the socioeconomic fate of young people and their future dependents in China today. From The Guardian:

Eight parents and teachers have been jailed on state secret charges after using hi-tech communication devices to help pupils cheat in college entrance exams, Chinese media reported today.

The conspirators used scanners and wireless earpieces to transmit exam answers, indicating the lengths to which people go to ensure success in the make-or-break “gaokao”, which determines the future of 10 million 18-year-olds each year.

[...]The two-day exams are key to social mobility in China, and determine whether teenagers will enter university and which institution they can attend. Success or failure can shape their lives, and those of their families, who may depend on their future earnings.
» Read more
- April 3, 2009 9:53 AM
Documentary: Explore China

Explore.org made a documentary film on China two years ago to explore the issues of environment, human rights, public health, social changes, philosophy and education, via Link TV. Below is its introduction:

With a population of 1.4 billion, the People’s Republic of China is vitally important to the planet. China’s rapid growth impacts the environment locally and globally. In a world affected by globalization, China embodies the phenomenon in both positive and negative ways. China’s modern society provides a better life for many but also brings with it a loss of cultural tradition and natural resources.

To uncover some of the mysteries of China, Charles Annenberg Weingarten and the Explore team set out on a three-week fact-finding mission through Beijing, Shanghai, Tibet, Wolong, Xi’an and beyond. Each stop brings them closer to grasping the complexities of the country’s ancient culture and the implications of modernization. Meeting with some of the most innovative minds and leading non-profit organizations across the country, the Explore team delves into issues such as the environment, human rights, public health, social change, philosophy and education.

» Read more
- March 3, 2009 6:39 PM
Chinese Aim For The Ivy League

From The Boston Globe:

The book spawned a genre, selling more than two million copies in China on the premise that any child, with the proper upbringing, could be Ivy League material.

Now, eight years after the publication of “Harvard Girl,” bookstore shelves here are laden with copycat titles like “How We Got Our Child Into Yale,” “Harvard Family Instruction” and “The Door of the Elite.”

Their increasing popularity points to the preoccupation - some might say a single-minded national obsession - of a growing number of middle-class Chinese parents: getting their children into America’s premier universities.

Because government policy allows families only one child, many parents feel immense pressure to groom their sons and daughters for success and, in the process, prepare a comfortable retirement for themselves. They fervently mine the expanding volumes of child-rearing manuals - “Stanford’s Silver Bullet,” “Yale Girl,” “Creed of Harvard” - for tips on producing what the Chinese term “high-quality” children.
» Read more
- January 4, 2009 4:48 AM
Video Performance: 2009 Go China! (Updated)

Do you ever wonder how Chinese children are being educated in nationalism? The following video, which is spreading through Chinese cyberspace, will give you a clue. It shows a group of rural grade-school students performing a poetry reading. The lines are apparently written by adults, and refer to news events in 2008. No name of the school was mentioned in the original video post.

“This is truer than Zhang Yimou’s Opening Ceremony [of Beijing Olympics].” — a Chinese netizen’s comment on the performance, translated by CDT. Click here to read more netizens’ comments, translated by Bob Chen on Global Voices:

2009, GO CHINA!

Lead: Snowstorm, freely falling down to earth, like western values
Lead: Despair fills the sky, ice covers the earth

Lead: Did China retreat?
All: No. The Olympics were a success! We are victorious!
Lead: Hot blood and iron will of Chinese people, lighten up the dark world like burning the holy flame
All: The rivers and mountains, ever more colorful and beautiful

Lead: Earthquakes, shifting back and forth like the positions of Sarkozy, with his dirty tricks, trying to shake the great China
Lead: Did China retreat?
All: No. The Shenzhou-7 launched. We are victorious!
Lead: Pathetic Europe will never stop the insurmountable force of the Celestial Empire
All: Just the aftershocks from the earthquake would destroy France!

Lead: The happy flowers flourish in the oil fields on Tarim Basin
Lead: The suona [musical instrument] sings aloud in the Tawang district of the Himalayas
Lead: Historically accumulated resentment fill the Ryukyu Trench
All: Smiles in Sun Moon Lake became a miraculous flower in the Pacific Ocean**

Lead: “Do not sway, Do not slacken off and Do not flip flop”***
Lead: “Do not change the flag, Do not change the label, Do not turn back”****
All: Step ruthlessly over all anti-China forces

Lead: The giant ship full of patches, raise up the brand new sail
All: Spirits are high, crash through the waves, the wind is at our back
Lead: 2009
All: Go China
Lead: 2009
All: China the Greatest

* Read also In Short: How Chinese Nationalism is different from the justrecently’s beautiful blog.

** Tarim Basin is located in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, where ethnic conflicts have broken out between members of the Uighur minority and the Han majority and some groups advocate independence from the PRC. Tawang district is an area in the Himalayas whose ownership has been under dispute by China and India; Ryukyu Trench is an ocean area whose ownership is under dispute by Japan and China; Sun-moon Lake is in Taiwan

*** & **** Words from President Hu Jintao’s speech during a ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of economic reform at The Great Hall of the People on December 18, 2008 in Beijing, China; translated by Dr. David Kelly, China Research Centre; University of Technology Sydney.

UPDATES:

From the Global Voices blog:

Right at the time that the internet is in search of the teacher/organizer and debating on the recitation, unexpectedly, the man showed up voluntarily, and not in anywhere else but right in Bullog.cn, a turf that is well known for its intimacy to liberalism and pro-democracy thoughts, and where the work is under the most relentless attack.

The organizer, named 左左右右（left-left-right-right), explained how the story happened:

快期末了，我发现孩子们提前好几天都在忙着过圣诞，还有专人组织捐款买东西，国庆节也没这么上心啊，于是我问孩子们对圣诞节有何理解。他们摇摇头

“It is approaching the final week of school year, and I found the kids busy with Christmas preparation, and someone organizing a donation for decoration. They were even more excited than in National Day. So I asked how much they knew aboutChristmas. They shook heads.”

我问几个学习非常努力的孩子理想是什么，他说，好好学习，将来考上好的大学，最好能去留学，我问留学什么好，他说，外国的学校就是好。好在哪里呢，他说不上来。

“I asked some very diligent kids what their dreams are, and they told that to study hard and go abroad for university in the future. I asked why. They told the foreign education is just better, but told no reason.
……”

但是，是谁教给他们不分来由的崇洋媚外呢呢，对外国不加思索的盲目崇拜，从物质到言论难道对西方没有一点质疑？

“But, who teach them such an indiscriminate favor of all the foreign stuff, and the admiration without a deeper thought? Don’t they even have a grain of doubt towards all the western world, from its material to ideas?”

哪些事情让你最难忘？他们答：雪灾、地震，圣火传递，奥运成功，金融危机。在值得中国人骄傲的圣火传递和奥运举行期间，也充满了刁难，2008年何止一个郁闷可以形容的！然后就想开一个主题班会，做一个视频给即将离去的2008做纪念

“（I asked) what impressed you the most in the past year? They said: “The snowstorm in January, Si-chuan Earthquake, torch relay, the success of Olympics and financial crisis. ” In the most pride-worthy torch relay and Olympics, turbulence and harassment against China has never stopped. How gloomy was 2008! So I came up with an idea to hold class meeting and make a video to memorize the past 2008.”

Then, in an open letter, he apologized to all those being “thundered”, and all the French people angered.

He insists that it is for not a single bit of education of hatred.

写这首“诗”的初衷是回顾2008年的历史，并没有宣扬对西方的仇恨，也不是宣扬暴力，更没有针对普通群众，一切以作者本人解释为准。在大家认为仇视西方民众的地方是在警告外国：2009年，不要再以任何借口挑衅中国！历史问题我们也一直记在心里！

My initial will to write the “poem” is to review the 2008, instead of a propaganda of hatred against the western, without any call for violence, and not directed to any civilians. Only my explanation is the standard interpretation. In points that many people think that show hatred to the western is actually a warning to them: in 2009, don’t provoke China by any excuse! We have always kept the historical issues in mind!

—–

《2009，中国加油》
甲：大雪，像西方的价值观，自由的飘洒，
乙：漫天哀愁，一地冰碴 !

甲：中国退缩了吗？
全：没有！奥运成功了！我们胜利啦！
甲：炎黄坚毅的热血，如炽烈的圣火，燃烧灰暗的世界，
全：万里江山，又嵌上五彩的画夹！

甲：地震，像萨科奇的立场，用猥琐的伎俩，摇晃着巍巍中华。
甲：中国退缩了吗？
全：没有！神七飞天了！我们胜利啦！
甲：瘦瘦的欧罗巴，挡不住天朝的金戈铁马，
全：地震的余波也能把法兰西催垮！

甲：塔里木的石油盛开幸福之花，
乙：达旺的唢呐奏响在喜马拉雅。
甲：中山世土的积怨填平了琉球海沟，
全：日月潭的微笑成为太平洋的奇葩！

甲：不动摇、不懈怠、不折腾
乙：不改旗、不易帜、不回头
全：将反华者狠狠的踏在脚下

甲：打满补丁的大船，挂上崭新的桅帆
全：乘风破浪，意气风发！
甲：2009
全：中国加油
甲：2009
全：中国最大
» Read more
- December 31, 2008 12:14 PM
Why Is Prof. Yang Shiqun Being Investigated? Read His Class Syllabus

Yang Shiqun (杨师群), a professor of ancient Chinese language at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, has become a target of a police investigation after his students informed authorities about the content of his class. He was questioned by university authorities, who informed him that his students had reported him and the Shanghai police were therefore investigating the case. Professor Yang wrote a blog post about this encounter (translated by CDT), which caused heated discussions in Chinese cyberspace and the domestic media. See also an opinion piece in China Daily. A day after he posted it, the blog post was taken down, and the Shanghai Public Security Bureau denied to journalists that they were investigating Yang.

During a meeting with the school authorities, Professor Yang asked why students needed to report him rather than just dropping the class if they were uncomfortable with his teaching. He was told that the students who reported him were taking a non-elective class. From that clue, Professor Yang deduced that the students were in his Ancient Chinese language class. What did Professor Yang teach in this class that shocked some of his students and caused an official investigation? A slideshow of the syllabus outline for the class appeared in Chinese cyberspace, generating more discussion among netizens. In order to facilitate the online discussion of this issue, an online volunteer calling himself Dr. Tang rewrote the slideshow content into complete paragraphs. Here is “Dr. Tang’s” introduction to the rewritten syllabus outline, excerpts translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan:
» Read more
- December 15, 2008 11:58 PM
Chinese Primary, Middle Schools to Include Courses about Ethnic Harmony

From Xinhua:

Chinese primary and middle schools will include regular courses about ethnic harmony, said the Ministry of Education here Monday.

Students in primary and junior middle schools should have 10 to12 school hours of ethnic harmony courses every year and those in high school should have eight to 14 school hours, according to a guideline issued at the ministry official website.

Besides teaching at class rooms, schools are also encouraged to organize kids to visit museums and cultural relics that are related to this topic, the document wrote.
» Read more
- December 15, 2008 7:37 PM
Chinese Official Stresses Moral Education After Three Teachers Murdered

Li Changchun

After three murders in October where students targeted their teachers, a top CPC official called for more ideological and moral education of the nation’s youth. Xinhua reports:

“Particular care should be given to children and their growth as they are successors of the socialist cause,” Li Changchun, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said in a letter to a national conference on youth moral education that ended on Sunday.

Liu Yunshan, head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, told the conference that more efforts should be made to create a sound social and cultural environment for the young.

“More healthy cultural products should be made to … cultivate values such as patriotism and civilized manners,” he said.

The three murders were of a college professor in Beijing, and two high school teachers from Shanxi and Zhejiang.

Previously, the Ministry of Education has called for more protection of teachers. China Daily reports:

“At the same time, it is necessary to improve moral education and psychological counseling in primary and high schools to enhance the mental well-being of students,” Wang [Dinghua] said.
Yan Wendong, a researcher at Henan Pingyu Teachers School, said mental health problems sometimes make young people taking extreme action.

“Good family education is an important factor to ensure healthy growth of the young,” Yan said.

Beijingcalling on their blog questions if these murders reflect the need for more moral education or psychological counseling, but rather societal influences that resulted from the one-child policy and the educational pressures to perform well.

Read more on Chinese nationalism and patriotism that the state is calling for, as well as the angry youth (愤青) phenomenon on CDT.
» Read more
- November 2, 2008 3:48 PM
Law Professor Stabbed To Death In Beijing Classroom

From Xinhua:

Beijing police confirmed on Wednesday that a university law professor was stabbed to death by a student in a classroom.

Professor Cheng Chunming was murdered Tuesday night at the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL)in the city’s Changping District.

A CUPL spokeswoman admitted that the killer was a student from the university’s Political Science and Public Management School.

“The student, surnamed Fu, burst into the classroom, where Professor Cheng was about to begin his class, and attacked him,” said spokeswoman Liu Changmin.

She said Fu, aged 22, was a forth-year student in the school.
» Read more
- October 29, 2008 11:14 PM
Video: China Prep

A PBS documentary aired this summer looks at the college admissions process in China:

“China Prep” follows five Chinese students through their final high-pressure year at an elite high school in Sichuan Province. Eighteen hundred students vie for spots in Beijing’s top two universities. Last year only 59 made it.

Studying seven days a week, the students’ lives are regimented almost every minute of the day as they prepare for the end-of-year exam that can determine their fate. For many students from poor or rural backgrounds, a strong performance on the test is the only way to climb the social ladder and excel without connections. Competition is fierce and the majority of high school seniors will be relegated to vocational schools.

» Read more
- September 29, 2008 9:58 PM
New Rules for Teachers After China Earthquake

From AP:

China is requiring more ethical responsibility from teachers following the highly publicized case of a high school teacher who fled his classroom during last month’s earthquake without making sure his students were safe.

A draft of revised ethics regulations for primary and secondary school teachers explicitly states for the first time that teachers have a moral responsibility to protect their students.

The revision, placed on the Ministry of Education’s Web site this week for public comment until Monday, was apparently fueled by the case of Fan Meizhong, a high school teacher in Dujiangyan, one of the worst-hit cities in the May 12 quake.
» Read more
- June 27, 2008 2:52 AM
An American Law School in China

American lawyers, law firms, and law students are pinning their hopes and careers on China in rapidly increasing numbers. This much is clear from glancing at U.S.-based multinational law firms’ glossy websites (and visiting their equally shiny offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong), or browsing the many (and multiplying) China- and Asia-related course offerings at top American law schools. But as Inside Higher Ed’s Andy Guess reports, the next wave of young American-trained lawyers interested in practicing in China may well come from…Shenzhen:

[Former University of Michigan Law School dean Jeffrey S.] Lehman was named the chancellor and founding dean of the School of Transnational Law at Peking University’s campus in the mainland city of Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong. The institution will admit its first class of 55 students this fall, out of an application pool of about 210, [Lehman] said. Eventually, the school plans to seek accreditation from the American Bar Association so that graduates can take the New York State bar exam.

The freestanding school will operate independently of Peking’s existing, Chinese-style law school. Like any American law school, the courses will be taught in English, the cases will be from American law – and most of the professors will be from American law schools.

With “more than 600 law schools,” according to Lehman, why would China need an American law school? Lehman explained:

“The very best graduates of China’s very best law schools … were not being hired by multinational law firms unless they came to the U.S.” to study, he said.

But a deeper reason Lehman touched on [...] is a hope that a rigorous application of legal pedagogy can train students who might in the future work to strengthen China’s rule of law and its institutions. “We are intended to be a proof of concept for China. We are intended to show whether this … type of education will have value for China and is worthy for greater emulation,” he said.

Over at Legal Profession Blog, Bill Henderson contemplates the splash this school could make in the legal academy and the legal world at large:

With all of China as an applicant pool, Peking University’s entering credentials could be extremely high (like any other [American Bar Association]-approved law school, its students will take the LSAT). Philanthropists interested in international affairs will be drawn to the school and help build its endowment. The school will buy the library of a U.S. law school that decides to throw in the towel. If Peking is ranked like any other ABA-approved law school, it could easily debut in Tier 1, which would further fuel demand. In turn, Jeffrey Lehman will have little trouble recruiting high profile U.S. faculty to teach at the school as visitors. The opportunity will be seen as an extremely valuable and prestigious opportunity — essentially tagging some professors as truly international scholars.

I am told that similar plans are underway at the University of Melbourne and at a Korean university. It seems to me, however, that Lehman’s franchise may be a crown jewel. As a first mover in China, Peking University has the opportunity to create an Asian analogue to Harvard Law.
» Read more
- June 4, 2008 10:54 AM
A Construction Engineer’s Thoughts on the Sichuan Earthquake

Out of the chaos of online chatter about the Sichuan earthquake comes a detailed essay by a construction engineer calling himself Book Blade （书剑子）that has been winning praise for its analysis. Recently published on Chinese blog the Whiteboard Report, the bulk of the essay concentrates on national problems that have come to light since the quake hit. Following are a few of his more salient points:
» Read more
- May 22, 2008 9:24 PM
Documentary: Senior Year

The annual two day National College Entrance Examination (高考) is the ultimate competitive exam for nearly all high school graduates in China. This exam is almost always required for college admission. In 2007, more than 9.5 million Chinese students took this exam. According to Xinhua:

The exam is regarded as one of the most important events for the participants, and could change their lives in a fiercely competitive society.

The examination will last for two days for students in 26 provincial areas, and three or four days in Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong, Hainan and Jiangsu.

The Ministry of Education said earlier that a record 10.1 million people had applied to take the exam, and 5.67 million would be able to enter college.

It is not only a fight for the candidates, but also an impact on their families and the whole society.

The following film was made by independent documentary filmmaker Zhou Hao (周浩), and focuses on the life of students in an ordinary high school in the last year before the national exam, in a small county in Fujian Province. This film won the best documentary award at The 30th Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2006.

Study Hard! Move Ahead! Be Patriotic! These slogans are drilled into the minds of Chinese boarding school students as they prepare for their college entrance exams. Since most of these teens come from impoverished rural areas, their tuition is paid for by the blood, sweat and tears of their peasant parents, most of whom never made it past junior high, so the pressure to succeed is stifling. To keep up their marks the students must study from dawn until dusk, waking up before the sun to memorize everything from math formulas to propagandist passages. Their desks are piled high with books from every subject and teachers roam between rows to keep these exhausted and diligent kids on task. We glimpse this hectic world through the eyes of a select group of senior students who try to assert their personalities and live out a few teenaged whims like shopping and dating in a strictly controlled environment that doesn’t bolster personal space and freedom. As the battle for success rages on, this intense film provides a harrowing portrait of the new direction of Chinese education, one that aims to mass produce focused, result-oriented over-achievers.

» Read more
- April 26, 2008 10:29 PM
Schooling the Artists’ Republic of China

From New York Times:

On a recent lazy afternoon Wang Haiyang, a student at China’s top art school, was quietly packing away some of his new oil paintings in the campus’s printmaking department. He is 23, and he just had his first major art exhibition at a big Beijing gallery.

Many of his works sold for more than $3,000 each, he said. And he hasn’t even graduated.

“This is one of my new works,” he said proudly, gesturing toward a sexually provocative painting of a couple embracing. “I’ll be having another show in Singapore in March.”

For better or for worse — depending on whom you talk to — Beijing’s state-run Central Academy of Fine Arts has been transformed into a breeding ground for hot young artists and designers who are quickly snapped up by dealers in Beijing and Shanghai.
» Read more
- March 29, 2008 11:22 PM