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The problem with China's college entry test
rospective students prepare to attend an independent college entrance exams at China University of Geosciences(Wuhan) on February 26, 2011 in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. Chinese students wanting to get into some of China's most prestigious universities, began sitting independent college entrance exams a week ago, three months before the national one.
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Tess Vigeland: There's not much left in the academic year for most high school seniors around the country -- some finals, a class party or two. Next step for many of them: college.
For 10 million brand new high school graduates in China, though, this is hell week. Three days of testing, starting tomorrow. It's known as the gao kao, the national college entrance examination. These three days will pretty much decide who gets into the best schools, who'll eventually get China's best jobs and who'll be the winners in China's 21st century economy. So, you know, no pressure.
Our China bureau chief Rob Schmitz has been working on a series about the gao kao that you'll hear starting tomorrow. Today, we feature Rob in conversation with my colleague Kai Ryssdal, who's in China on a reporting trip. They met up in front of local high school in Shanghai.
Kai Ryssdal: Rob, I was here five years ago. We did a show from here talking about the pace of economic change in this country, right? We're back now looking at what has happened in the past five years, what has changed. One of the things that has not changed in this country in 5,000 years is what's going to happen on the day of the gao kao at this high school that we're standing in front of. Give us a sense of what it's going to be like that day.
Rob Schmitz: The gao kao is by far the most important point in a young person's life in China. And inside this high school on the first day of the gao kao, we've got kids playing basketball and kind of milling around behind us now. But on the day of the gao kao, they're not going to be milling around. They're going to be pacing nervously. Their parents are going to be outside waiting for them. Maybe the parents will have bought a hotel room for them, just in case they get nervous. We just heard today that the taxi fleet of Shanghai is going to be burdened because all these parents have called taxis and reserved them, so that means the rest of us aren't going to have taxi service on those three days.
Ryssdal: Lovely.
Schmitz: So obviously this is a really, really important test.
Ryssdal: It's basically rote memorization, right? These kids have been studying for years.
Schmitz: Yeah. So the gao kao is at the center of China's education system. In that system, especially in high school, those three years of high school that Americans might spend taking your typical lib ed and science and math and everything, and thinking about problems and all this stuff -- Chinese students are actually preparing for this test. I mean, high schools in China are glorified test-prep institutions. The problem is that you're not spending that much time on actually solving real problems. You're busy memorizing correct answers.
Ryssdal: Right. So play that out for me for a minute into what happens after these kids get spit out of the Chinese colleges and how they then think about what we're all counting on them to do, which is help China drive the global economy.
Schmitz: China wants to shift its economy to a more innovative economy, an economy that's based on innovation, in the future. It's going to have a heck of a time doing that if the students that they're graduating cannot analytically think about something. They cannot take data points and synthesize information. It's that type of creative thinking that will spur an Apple, that will spur things that are in Silicon Valley. You don't have companies like that in China yet, and this is probably one of the big reasons why you don't have that.
Ryssdal: So what's the government doing because they obviously understand what has to happen to get China where it needs to be.
Schmitz: Right. They're trying to reform things, but a lot of the critics will say that China is trying to reform things much too slowly. And so more and more Chinese are getting more money, and the ones who can afford it are going to send their children to American colleges and that way they don't have to take the gao kao. They can go to an American university and learn all the things that they weren't learning in this Chinese education system there.
Ryssdal: And then they come back here?
Schmitz: A lot of the feedback I hear from business leaders here in Shanghai and Beijing is that these are like precious gems. The ones who actually go to an American college and come back. They're the ones who everyone wants, but they know that. So they're constantly approached by head hunters.
Ryssdal: Let me get you back to this test real quick before we go. The kids from this school are going to do pretty well, right? It's kids in Shanghai and Beijing who are going to do well and its the kids from Wuhan and the second- and third-tier cities who aren't going to do that well.
Schmitz: You're exactly right. We're in front of an elite school in an elite city in China. Most Chinese students are in the smaller cities -- a million, two million, right -- that you've never heard of. And yes, they do not have the educational quality of students here in Shanghai. The problem is that if this is the best that China can do, that's really scary.
Vigeland : That's our China correspondent Rob Schmitz talking with Kai, who's on assignment in Shanghai. Kai's been posting photos and updates from his trip.
You can read his latest report -- a visit to Shanghai's marriage market -- by clicking here. Read the rest of his posts at our China blog. And tune in tomorrow for the first installment of Rob's three-part report on education.
It is not necessary that Chinese students are more creative than American students because they have higher testing scores. However, please stop kidding ourselves by claiming without any supporting facts that American students are more creative than Chinese students and our future generation will beat Chinese in innovation just because we have LOWER testing score. Innovation and creativity do not come out from empty brains. Mastering the knowledge and analytical thinking process are the foundation for creativity and innovation in general. I experienced both Chinese and American education systems. The Chinese system definitely nurtures more analytical skills in math. Taking geometry as an example, in any 8th grade math class, Chinese students are required to be able to deduce all the theorems from axioms. While in US, in high school geometry honor classes, dozens of so called “theorems†are taught as facts without any prove. Our students are only required to remember them and use them. Whom do you think will be more creative later? We should all wake up and learn something from the other people in the world.
Actually College entrance exam (GaoKao) don't really decide the winner and loser, in fact it's the High school entrance exam (ZhongKao) that does. After Gaokao just decides one of 3 option, 4 year degree (本科), 2 year degree (专科), and join the skilled labor force via a certification program. All of which is a fairly good option in the Chinese Economy, especially now that the average technician and skilled worker has higher starting pay and better job opportunities than the average college grad.
However, if high school entrance decides the student will either goes a normal college prep. high school, a vocational based high school, a apprenticeship or join the workforce unskilled. The first two option require a good score, apprenticeship requires good connection to actually know a mentor, while most will take the last option and end up making most of the stuff that made in China at Walmart. Also only first group can have realistic college dreams, while many will attempt gaokao again next year if s/he is determined, most will give up and accept their fate is zhongkao yield a poor score.
Brian Zhao,
I think the powers that be want to perpetuate the myth that the Chinese education system and by extension Chinese students are inferior to counterparts in the west. Perhaps to make themselves feel better, more likely as a way to maintain artificial imbalances (i.e. uneven pay for equal work).
These "journalists" have no idea how difficult the three day gaokao is, since they are only familiar with multiple choice SAT-type tests -- a walk in the park compared to the gaokao.
Authors really don't know about china education system. The article is very misleading. They should go to a chinese high school to see what they teach and take a look at examples of math or physics exam to see what kind of questions are really on the exams.
This discussion ties neatly into the “debate†Marketplace had recently about the merits of going to college: is it worth the price tag? One point only opaquely raised in your debate the college’s, especially a liberal arts education, ability to teach someone how to think. This cornerstone to education was left out of your discussion. And yet, in this report you lament for the Chinese, “It's going to have a heck of a time doing that if the students that they're graduating cannot analytically think about something.†If we stop encouraging our youth to go to college we will face the same issue.
The Gaokao is not "basically about rote memorization" just like SAT is not "basically about rote memorization."
The reporters have no clue about the Chinese education system. There are a number of misconceptions:
1. Historically poorer provinces like Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang have been the most competitive when you compare gaokao scores. Shanghai have lacked far behind for many, many years. In fact the Gaokao test taken by Shanghai students are watered-down compared to provinces named above.
2. Mark Schneider, a commissioner of the Department of Education’s research arm in the George W. Bush administration had this to say about the Shanghai (Chinese) students who came on tops of the 2010 international high school PISA standardized test "This is the first time that we have internationally comparable data on learning outcomes in China, while that’s important, for me the real significance of these results is that they refute the commonly held hypothesis that China just produces rote learning."
3. Families who send their kids to American colleges with their own funding are family of students who cannot hack the Gaokao. There are those students who come for undergrad studies in US colleges with scholarships, but they are the exception.
4. If you take a good look at any objective measure of the quality of Chinese high school students as compared to the world (International Mathematical Olympiad, International Olympiad in Informatics, International Chemistry Olympiad, International Physics Olympiad, ACM ICPC), what you'll find is that not only does Chinese students do very well, they dominate these academic competitions.
Great story. I have a different take on Rob Schmitz's last comment, "if this is the best that China can do, that's really scary." It's scary for them, but I would argue hopeful for us. Perhaps the prognostications of rise of China and India with the demise of the United States are a bit premature. Also, how does this view of China jive with stories regarding the US system of education? Is perhaps problem solving and critical thinking as a skill more valuable for us to measure of students than, say, rote memorization of math problems.
I have to point out that in Hong Kong, there are two sets of exams, O Level (High School graduation) and A Level (University Entrance), at the 11th grade and 13th grade equivalents that take even longer (circa 2 weeks) and potentially more pressure due to the length and difficulty. Source, you might ask? The British system. Secondly, the piece focuses on Western education as more liberating but forgets that fundamentals are just as important, which many US primary and secondary schools are not delivering. The best combination is fundamentals ala Asia with the free thinking of the US education. To use atheletic metaphors, good basketball players are able to see the court and make plays as they come BUT they must be able to dribble too. Dribbling is what takes the many hours in the sweaty gym.
The Sad Truth of China’s Education | The Diplomat - http://the-diplomat.com/2011/06/03/the-sad-truth-of-china%E2%80%99s-educ...
