Chinese Higher Education

A letter to James Fallows, for his excellent China blog:

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One of the things I've taken from my experience in Chinese education is that issues of efficiency and real-world usefulness play second fiddle to an entirely different concept of fairness than what Westerners are used to. It's hard to spot unless you ask the right questions. A case in point is shoving 50 students into a classroom with huge variances in ability simply because they all happened to be ranked, sorted, and placed in a homeroom-style class studying a major they cannot change and may not have actually chosen. I have nearly fluent students mixed with those who melt when asked how their weekend went.

When I've asked the local teachers why this is, and why not have foreign language classes based on ability (Conversational English I/II/III) that students work their way through, they looked genuinely shocked. It would be unfair - how could you think to punish a struggling student by putting him into a bad class? All students deserve the best possible English class.

If you look back at the old imperial exam system, it had in in-built check against nepotism. Theoretically, anybody could memorize a vast amount of nearly useless texts written in an obscure non-vernacular language and rise to the highest ranks of government. It was mindless meritocracy at it's best, measuring tenacity and at least one sort of mental skill.

I think we're witnessing the same thing today. Though my students *hated* the Gaokao and know it has little correlation with intellect, I get that same shocked expression when I ask if it's the same as in America - richer students get higher scores, getting into better colleges, repeating a cycle. Most of my students got fairly low scores, but blame it on break-ups, stress, or simply being lazy. Despite everything, they do believe it's fundamentally fair and most students at the top schools did, legitimately, earn their way to the top however ridiculous the contest was.