China's Education system compared to the USA

[bd popeye]

Transportation of students is part of the educational system. In China is is sometimes hazardous to place your child in the schools transportation system..

More than 50 students were found riding in a large truck in Wuhua county, Meizhou, Guangdong Province on September 5. Photo: CFP

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On September 13, as students returned to school after celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, Peng Yiwei and Chen Qingxue, two children from the Bauhinia Kindergarten in Jingzhou, Hubei Province, boarded a school bus at around 7 am. One teacher, Tan Zuhong, was also on the bus filled with children.

When the bus arrived at the kindergarten at about 8:30 am, Tan handed over the children to their teachers. The driver then parked the bus and went home to do his daily farm work.

But what nobody knew was that Peng and Chen, both at the age of four, were left on the bus. At 4 pm when the bus door reopened, the two had already stopped breathing.

Peng's parents rushed back from Guangdong Province only to see their daughter's body at the funeral parlor.

Liu Meihua, Peng's mother, wasn't able to fulfill her daughter's last wish – bringing her a toy.

After the deaths, the Jingzhou government launched an intensive inspection on the school buses at all the schools in the district. As a result, four people were detained by the police, according to the Wuhan Evening News.

New start

Though the new semester is only three weeks underway, similar stories have already hit the headlines.

On August 29, a 3-year-old boy in Sanya, Hainan Province was suffocated after being left on a school bus for eight hours, the Nanguo Metropolis Daily reported.

On September 9, police in Qian'an, Hebei Province stopped a school bus with 64 kids squeezed in an eight-seat minivan, according to the Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News.

These frequent incidents have sounded an alarm to the underdeveloped school bus system in China. Compared to the US, China has fallen far behind in school bus safety.

The US began to form its sound school bus design and system throughout the last century. The country sets specific standards on the manufacturing of school buses, and also provides the buses with more road privileges so as to always ensure the safety of its passengers.

The American School Bus Council, a school bus industry coalition, was established in 2006 to educate the public and lawmakers about the importance of school buses.

The problem has attracted the attention of the Chinese government.

As early as September 20, 2007, the Ministry of Education required teachers and drivers at preschools to count the number of kids every time they got on and off a school bus. The ministry also demanded that relevant authorities conduct inspections at regular intervals.

Referring to the US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, China issued its first compulsory national standard for school buses, which took effect July 1 last year.

The new standard requires all school buses be equipped with seatbelts and a vehicle data recorder. At least one seat must be reserved for the person in charge of students and their safety.

This year, the Zhengzhou Yutong Group Co. Ltd, one of the companies that created the national school bus standard, unveiled a bus modeled after the American "big nose" school buses. It is said to be the safest school bus in China.

The new bus costs more than 400,000 yuan ($62,640), and according to the company, more than 1,000 schools in China have bought one.

However, purchasing a new school bus will not solve every problem that comes with transporting children to school. The high operating cost of buses also remains a burden for schools, especially in underdeveloped areas.

On August 28, during his speech to rural teachers in Hebei Province, Premier Wen Jiabao promised to improve the school bus system in the central and western regions, the People's Daily reported.

Good example

Despite the various obstacles, Deqing county in East China's Zhejiang Province has so far been a model example for its use of school buses.

It became the first county in China to provide school bus service for an entire county, Zhang Fan, head of the safety division at the Deqing Education Bureau, told the Global Times.

Local authorities spent more than 20 million yuan ($3.13 million) on 79 new school buses, 14 of which are "big nose" school buses manufactured by the Yutong Group. The first buses went into operation at the end of 2009, said Zhang.

The bus service covers all primary schools within the county. A one-way ticket costs just one yuan ($0.16), while poorer students ride for free.

A public school bus company was simultaneously established to dispatch the buses. Furthermore, schools are not responsible for the expenses. The local government allocates more than 6 million yuan ($939,600) every year to cover any shortage of funds of the overall bus system, according to Zhang.

Bus drivers should have at least three years of experience driving a bus, and cannot have a history of drunk driving or mental illness on their records.

"At present, over one sixth of primary school students, about 6,000, ride our school buses every day. The number has been rising," said Zhang.

 

[latenlazy]

Re: DoD 2011 annual military report on china is out

there are people in china who try to do their own work and have decent ethnic not to copy others work, but there just alot more people in china that will take the shortcut by, cheating/copy/. this condition overall make the others who try to do the right things shift their ways of doing things, in a bad way. education in china should include some ethnic/moral class in china and appropriate punishment for those who cheat/copy. university staff and students should do more so company who hire those kids after they graduate has faith in their knoweldge/experenice.

Well, the actual problem is probably in the rewards system, in the sense of what China rewards in its education. This primarily shows up in emphasis on testing results as opposed to critical thinking and argumentation, and process work.

 

[vesicles]

LOL, so explain why my dad's R&D department in Merck is almost exclusively Chinese?

There is a difference between researchers and researchers. Most of the technicians in labs are Chinese as well. Most of them can get work done beautifully. However, when it comes to creative thinking, they become a little stagnant. I think this is caused by the filtering effect of Chinese education system. Most of the creative people don't care too much about the boring education system in China and that makes them unable to compete with those who diligently obey orders and study hard for everything thrown their way. Not that there is anything wrong with studying hard. We need people like that to do work. In fact, there is a saying in the States about resumes that you shouldn't put your GPA on your CV if it is higher than 3.8/3.9 if you don't want to be stuck with boring work that nobody wants to do. With a insanely high GPA, you are automatically thought as the kind of person who don't mind doing boring work. Since no one else wants to do it, you are stuck with it. However, when it comes to creative and critical thinking, this kind of personality does not fit the bill.

Like I said in my last post, I've had classmate/labmates who have been educated in China. from what I can tell, they depend a lot more on their advisers in terms of getting ideas for their research projects. Postdocs/grad students should own their projects, which means we should carry the projects on our own and advisers should be only on the side and provide help when needed. A lot of times, my Chinese-educated colleagues go in to adviser's office and present the work they have done in the past week and then wait for orders about what to do next. That's why I said in the past post that some of them actually feel that they are like technicians. Yes, if you simply look at publications, most of the papers published in the States have Chinese authors, suggesting that most of the research have Chinese involvement. However, this can be misleading since no one knows how much of the original ideas of the research actually comes from each of the authors. Theoretically, the first author should be the one that has the most scientific and creative contribution to the study. However, most of the time, people simply give the 1st authorship to the person who does most of the bench work.

 

[vesicles]

Re: DoD 2011 annual military report on china is out

I'm not talking about technical schools, I am talking about universities that specialize in science and engineering, i.e. like Harbin Institute of Technology and University of Science and Technology in China, which are both C9 schools. These are akin to MIT and Caltech.

Those schools still need an insanely high overall score from all subjects to get in.

 

[vesicles]

This actually brings up another topic, glass ceiling. It is well known that there is a glass ceiling for Chinese in the States. You don't see a lot of Chinese in executive positions in companies and universities in the US. So everyone automatically blame the potential discrimination against Chinese. I don't deny that at all. Let's face it, the American society is still a Caucasian-dominated one and all colored people face discrimination to some degree. However, there is another side of the story. Most of my Chinese friends and those I know in the States don't care so much about becoming an executive. When I asked them about becoming a manager, they simply say it's too much hassle and they simply want the easy way, which is to do work as told and be done with it. At the company where my wife works, one of her Chinese colleagues actually denied promotions to managerial positions TWICE! And then he would complain about all those who used be under him now become his superior...

Why is this happening? I think this also has something to do with the Chinese education system. As I have said many times, the people who would thrive in this kind of system have the kind of personality that likes to follow orders. Even for those who don't like following orders, they have to change their personality and be molded to become an obedient order-follower by the Chinese education system. It is these people who actually be able to come to the States since most of them have to PASS TESTS and get admitted to universities to come to the States. When they start working, they still feel comfortable in a position where they can simply follow orders and be told what to do.

Again, the same thing happens throughout history in China. Most of the people in commanding positions in Chinese history had been uneducated people. Most of those who got extensive education prefer to stay in a position to follow orders.

Simply put? Chinese education system is at fault.

 

[solarz]

There is a difference between researchers and researchers. Most of the technicians in labs are Chinese as well. Most of them can get work done beautifully. However, when it comes to creative thinking, they become a little stagnant. I think this is caused by the filtering effect of Chinese education system. Most of the creative people don't care too much about the boring education system in China and that makes them unable to compete with those who diligently obey orders and study hard for everything thrown their way.

I think this effect, while certainly present, has been exaggerated. Spend a week in China and you will be amazed at how creative the Chinese are... at making money!

I think what's really happening is a perception of risk and the feeling of being in a foreign country/culture.

Any kind of creative initiative will always carry a certain risk, even if it's as benign as being rejected by one's superior (and thus resulting in a loss of face in Chinese thinking). Chinese employees who did not grow up in the Western culture (and even a good number of those who did) tend to be more risk-averse in the work place. That, more than anything else, is what I believe leads to this perception of "lack of creativity".

Like I said in my last post, I've had classmate/labmates who have been educated in China. from what I can tell, they depend a lot more on their advisers in terms of getting ideas for their research projects.

Perhaps it's not so much that they can't get ideas on their own, as they are trying to find out what kind of ideas would please their advisers? Or perhaps they think ideas given to them by their advisers are simply "better" for their resume than what they come up with on their own.

This actually brings up another topic, glass ceiling. It is well known that there is a glass ceiling for Chinese in the States. You don't see a lot of Chinese in executive positions in companies and universities in the US. So everyone automatically blame the potential discrimination against Chinese. I don't deny that at all. Let's face it, the American society is still a Caucasian-dominated one and all colored people face discrimination to some degree. However, there is another side of the story. Most of my Chinese friends and those I know in the States don't care so much about becoming an executive. When I asked them about becoming a manager, they simply say it's too much hassle and they simply want the easy way, which is to do work as told and be done with it. At the company where my wife works, one of her Chinese colleagues actually denied promotions to managerial positions TWICE! And then he would complain about all those who used be under him now become his superior...

My dad was in a manager role in Schering-Plough before it got acquired by Merck. With the merger, he got transferred to the R&D department as a senior scientist. He tells me that it's much easier working as a scientist than as a manager, and it's not because he's more at ease following orders. Indeed, the very reason that he came to North America is because he felt that he is unable to advance in a Chinese workplace.

The real issue at hand is simply language. Whenever my dad would ask a subordinate about why a job was done poorly, they would have a dozen perfectly "reasonable" explanations all argued more eloquently than my dad could ever manage to respond to. So it all ends up being more of a hassle than it's worth.

 

[vesicles]

I think this effect, while certainly present, has been exaggerated. Spend a week in China and you will be amazed at how creative the Chinese are... at making money!

Yet, but not many of these people are in the States. And if you look at the background of these people, most of the creative people that you talk about in China are not that well educated at all. Some of them barely finished grade school. Like I said in my previous post, this happening throughout Chinese history. Most of the people in commanding positions have not been educated. The chinese education system for 2000 years has been discouraging creativity.

Note that I am NOT saying all Chinese are not creative. I am saying that the Chinese education system filters out creative people and does not allow them to thrive.

Perhaps it's not so much that they can't get ideas on their own, as they are trying to find out what kind of ideas would please their advisers? Or perhaps they think ideas given to them by their advisers are simply "better" for their resume than what they come up with on their own.

that's exactly my point. Everyone can have original idea once in a while. While someone simply forget about the flashes of brilliance and go back to following orders, others would dare to challenge the authority and actually dare to put their ideas into action. It is these people who are seen as creative. It is the exact thought as you pointed out that have been drilled into most of the Chinese students' mind and cause them to be less creative.

Of course, being creative can be very hazardous. It means challenging the authority and making a lot of people angry. These people, of course, including those of your superiors. the Chinese education system punishes this kind of acts severely. I remember once when I was in grad school, I found this interesting phenomenon that, if confirmed, would prove my adviser's theory wrong. One of my labmates who came from China told me not to pursue it since this could potentially anger our adviser. He told me to simply continue with my original project. I thought about it and still decided to pursue that interesting finding. Of course, my adviser was not happy about being proven wrong. However, I have been branded as a creative researcher by my adviser. It is the courage to challenge the authority that makes a person creative and the Chinese education system punishes this kind of courage.

 

[latenlazy]

I think this effect, while certainly present, has been exaggerated. Spend a week in China and you will be amazed at how creative the Chinese are... at making money!

I think what's really happening is a perception of risk and the feeling of being in a foreign country/culture.

Any kind of creative initiative will always carry a certain risk, even if it's as benign as being rejected by one's superior (and thus resulting in a loss of face in Chinese thinking). Chinese employees who did not grow up in the Western culture (and even a good number of those who did) tend to be more risk-averse in the work place. That, more than anything else, is what I believe leads to this perception of "lack of creativity".



Perhaps it's not so much that they can't get ideas on their own, as they are trying to find out what kind of ideas would please their advisers? Or perhaps they think ideas given to them by their advisers are simply "better" for their resume than what they come up with on their own.

...Sorry, but as someone who has both studied in China, and someone who has talked to people who teach in China, this phenomena is for real. That's not to say everyone in a Chinese secondary institution exhibits this tendency, but to my knowledge and experience it is far more prominent in China than the US. Like vesicles said, it's not that they're not capable of creative thinking, but instead are not trained to recognize, develop, and utilize creative thinking processes.

 

[solarz]

Yet, not many of these people are in the States. And if you look at the background of these people, most of the creative people that you talk about in China are not that well educated at all.

Note that I am NOT saying all Chinese are not creative. I am saying that the Chinese education system filters out creative people and does not allow them to thrive.

that's exactly my point. Everyone can have original idea once in a while. While someone simply forget about the flashes of brilliance and go back to following orders, others would dare to challenge the authority and actually dare to put their ideas into action. It is these people who are seen as creative. It is the exact thought as you pointed out that have been drilled into most of the Chinese students' mind and cause them to be less creative.

Not necessarily. Chinese university students are often amazingly creative... at cheating on their exams.

Perhaps a more accurate description would be that the Chinese education system does not adequately channel the creativity of its students. That is different from the idea that the student's creativity is "stifled", as those same students that you describe as "uncreative" would amaze you with their creativity if you put them in an environment where they can feel safe and self-confident.

 

[latenlazy]

Not necessarily. Chinese university students are often amazingly creative... at cheating on their exams.

Perhaps a more accurate description would be that the Chinese education system does not adequately channel the creativity of its students. That is different from the idea that the student's creativity is "stifled", as those same students that you describe as "uncreative" would amaze you with their creativity if you put them in an environment where they can feel safe and self-confident.

Well, that kind of creativity is very...technical...and honestly not very hard. Besides, cheating of the sort is only really effective for multiple choice, mathematical problems, and short answers. Cheating on writing...is very difficult, and impractical in a test, and practically impossible on a project.

The real challenge is abstract and constructive creativity, which is usually what's needed for success at the graduate and postgraduate levels. The Chinese education system is simply not very conducive to that.