Sunday, December 12, 2010

Two Looks at Education in China

The state of education in China is a big topic this week. First up: an interesting article in the NYTimes, China's Army of Graduates Struggles For Jobs. Last May, China graduated more than six million young people from college. Many of the new graduates come from families who spent their life savings putting their one child through college. But there's not enough professional-level jobs to go around.

As I've remarked before, education doesn't create jobs. The economy creates a certain number of highly-paid jobs, and most of them go to people with college degrees. But that doesn't mean that increasing the number of people with college degrees will improve the economy. If the economy isn't creating more professional jobs, the new college graduates could wind up unemployed (or underemployed) with unsustainable college debt.

Gee -- think that could happen here? I wonder about the graduates of KIPP and HSA. If they actually get through college, then what? Is there still a ladder for them to climb, or will they find themselves adrift in a brutal economy, without all the supports that are available to middle-class kids?

From Yong Zhao, here's an interesting look at the downside of China's testing culture: A True Wake-up Call for Arne Duncan: The Real Reason Behind Chinese Students Top PISA Performance. Apparently Chinese students are compelled to spend endless hours on soul-sucking test prep. A Chinese mother reports:

This kind of practice has seriously damaged students’ health. They have completely lost motivation and interest in studying. My child’s health gets worse day by day. So is her mental spirit.

5 comments:

  1. I have to wonder if we wouldn't do well to re-invigorate the idea of apprenticeships instead of a college degree for at least the majority of American students. :)

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  2. PsychMom says:

    I think we have to call them "internships" or some other newly invented name, but I agree with you, Happy. Most of the kids graduating from high school didn't need Grade 11 and 12, let alone a college degree. If they had a tailor made apprenticeship-like training program lasting 4 years (or more depending on what you want to do) beginning at age 16....that allowed them to make some money too, we'd have the start of some sanity in education. Grades 11 and 12 would be for the book learners..the ones who actually want to be college professors or surgeons.

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  3. Happy Elf and Psych Mom, I agree. Actually, I'm in favor of almost any reasonable alternative to the system we have now.

    I really don't see how encouraging every student and her dog to get a college degree, at enormous expense, is helpful in a bad economy.

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  4. "This kind of practice has seriously damaged students’ health. They have completely lost motivation and interest in studying. My child’s health gets worse day by day. So is her mental spirit." I saw this at my daughter's high school. The school pushed the kids to the breaking point, but in this case, it wasn't so much the mom lamenting, but the child.

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  5. To add, I was specifically addressing the psychological wear and tear of the Asian students. Not that the rest of us were immune, by an means.

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