Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World

by Yong Zhao

  Excellence in one paradigm does not mean excellence in the other. Quite the contrary. When a school or system becomes extremely good at preparing employees, it is not necessarily good at preparing entrepreneurs, because different paradigms lead to different arrangements of educational institutions and systems. Given its primary goal to efficiently and effectively transmit predetermined knowledge, the employee-oriented education paradigm requires an apparatus with clearly defined learning outcomes for all students, well-trained teachers knowledgeable about the content to be transmitted and skilled at doing so, engaged students willing and able to learn the content, standardized measures to monitor the progress of each student and institution, and other resources aligned with the prescribed content. Uniformity, consistency, standardization, competition, data-driven practices, and an emphasis on outcomes are the features of employee-oriented education.

  In distinct contrast, entrepreneur-oriented education maximizes individual differences. Schools following this paradigm have no standardized, common curriculum. Each child pursues his or her interests and passions, and teachers respond to and support those individual pursuits and assess students' progress accordingly. Variation, diversity, tolerance (or indulgence), autonomy, and student-driven education are features of entrepreneur-oriented education.

  Today the world's measure of excellence in education follows the old paradigm. Excellence is defined as effectiveness and efficiency in homogenizing children and transmitting the prescribed content, indicated by standardized test scores in a few subjects. Schools and nations that produce higher test scores are considered to have better educational systems. Hence China has been made the model of excellence.

  But it is an excellence of the past.

  To cultivate the talents we need for the twenty-first century, we must redefine excellence in education. Instead of effectiveness in homogenizing students, an excellent education should support the development of diverse talents. Instead of suppressing creativity and individual differences, an excellent education should deliberately encourage and shape them. Instead of preparing compliant employees, an excellent education should intentionally encourage children to be entrepreneurial. Instead of overemphasizing global competitiveness, an excellent education should foster a global perspective. Excellence in education should thus be measured by its effectiveness in providing personalized education that promotes diversity and creativity, engaging children in global interactions, and inspiring entrepreneurship and innovation.38

  Chinese education is the complete opposite of what we need for the new era.

  First, the educational excellence in Shanghai is no more than an illusion. The primary evidence that has been used to support the claim that Shanghai has an excellent education is its students' PISA scores in three subjects. Given the exam's technical problems and compared to the true purpose of a modern education, these scores are hardly evidence of greatness. Tucker, Friedman, and other like-minded observers have been trying to offer lessons about “Shanghai's rise to the top of the PISA league tables.”39 In reality Shanghai has not risen to the top. It already stood at the top in 2009, the first time it participated in PISA. If Shanghai's students had taken the PISA in 2000, they would have made top scores then as well, because the magical ingredients have been present for thousands of years. So unless PISA scores are the ultimate goal of education, there is no reason to admire, envy, or copy education in China.

  Second, behind the illusion of excellence is an insufferable reality that the Chinese have long been trying to escape. Historical and contemporary evidence, as presented in previous chapters, suggests that the Chinese education stifles creativity, smothers curiosity, suppresses individuality, ruins children's health, distresses students and parents, corrupts teachers and leaders, and perpetuates social injustice and inequity. In other words, what has given China its stunning PISA scores has cost China dearly. The authoritarian education system and tradition are at least partially responsible for the humiliating military defeats by Western powers in the 1900s; the slow development of scientific and technological innovations over the past century; and the shortage of innovative and creative talents China needs desperately if it is to transform its economy into one that is productive and innovation driven. The Chinese have long recognized the damages of their education system and have taken drastic actions to change it for over a century, but they have had little success. China continues to struggle with traditions that appear to be mechanisms for excellence, yet hold China back from any real, meaningful change.

  Third, at the core of Chinese education are the three basics that Zhang Mingxuan, China's PISA director, uses to explain Shanghai's success: Chinese families' high expectations, hard work and diligence, and the examination system. As we've seen, the high value Chinese parents place on education is simply a survival strategy to cope with an authoritarian regime. Since all other possibilities for success have been removed by the authoritarian regime, education—or, rather, test preparation—is the only path to success.

  Chinese students' diligence is the result of an ancient ploy designed to deny the existence of social injustice and individual differences and suppress individuals' desire to question authority and demand equality. Hard work, effort, and struggle are of course important for both learning and life, but denying the important influence of human nature and family conditions can do great damage. One consequence is the vast inequality of opportunities. The likelihood of attending a college is much higher for a child born in an urban area than for a child born in a rural village, even if the child in the village works harder than his urban peer.40 Another damaging consequence is the loss of great talents. Hard work can help with rote memorization and preparing for exams, but for true creative and innovative work, one needs passion, interest, and some innate strength. Moreover, the belief that everyone can succeed the same way as long as they work hard has led to the virtually complete negligence of children with disabilities and special needs.

  Zhang calls the exam, or gaokao, a great equalizer. It may appear so, because it seems that test scores are the only incorruptible measure in China. However, the gaokao, like any other exam of that nature, is inherently discriminatory, favoring those who have the resources to prepare, the propensity to do well, and the interest in what is being tested, and working against those who are unwilling or unable to comply.

  These elements are intuitively seductive and very difficult to undo. Unless the West wishes to be stuck with a system that cannot be easily broken, it is best not to use China as a model.

  Education in the West must go through transformative changes. A paradigm shift will be necessary if teachers are to prepare children to live successfully in the new world.41 As traditional routine jobs are offshored and automated, we need more and more globally competent, creative, innovative, entrepreneurship-minded citizens who are job creators instead of employment-minded job seekers. To cultivate new talents, we need an education that enhances individual strengths, follows children's passions, and fosters their social-emotional development. We do not need an authoritarian education that aims to fix children's deficits according to externally prescribed standards.

  China's education represents the best of the past. It worked extremely well for China's imperial rulers for over a thousand years, but it stopped working when the modern world emerged. It continued to produce students who excel in a narrow range of subjects. But these students lack the very qualities the new society needs. This is why only 10 percent of Chinese college graduates are found to be employable by multinational businesses.42

  In no way can China serve as the model for the future. In fact, we don't yet have a model that will meet the needs of a global future.

  We will have to invent one.

  Notes

  1. Saga Ringmar, “Here's the Truth about Shanghai Schools: They're Terrible,” Guardian, December 28, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/28/shanghai-china-schools-terrible-not-ideal.

  2. Organization for
Economic and Cooperative Development, Ready to Learn: Students Engagement, Drive, and Self-Beliefs (Paris: OECD, 2013), 15.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development, Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for the United States (Paris: OECD, 2011).

  5. M. S. Tucker, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: An American Agenda for Education Reform (Washington, DC: National Center Education and the Economy, 2011); M. Tucker, ed., Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World's Leading Systems (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2011).

  6. M. Tucker, Chinese Lessons: Shanghai's Rise to the Top of the PISA League Tables (Washington, DC: National Center on Education and the Economy, 2014).

  7. W. Stewart, “Is PISA Fundamentally Flawed?” December 3, 2013, http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6344672.

  8. S. Kreiner and K. B. Christensen, “Analyses of Model Fit and Robustness. A New Look at the PISA Scaling Model Underlying Ranking of Countries According to Reading Literacy,” Psychometrika 72 (2014): 210–31; Stewart, “Is PISA Fundamentally Flawed?”

  9. S. T. Hopmann, Gertrude Brinek, and M. Retzl, eds., PISA zufolge PISA—PISA According to PISA (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007).

  10. Ibid., 10.

  11. Ibid., 12–13.

  12. Andreas Schleicher, “Attacks on Pisa Are Entirely Unjustified,” TESconnect, March 11, 2014, http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6345213.

  13. “Pisa 2012 Major Flaw Exposed,” Pace N. Ireland Education Weblog, March 13, 2014, https://paceni.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/pisa-2012-major-flaw-exposed/.

  14. Stewart, “Is PISA Fundamentally Flawed?”

  15. “Pisa 2012 Major Flaw Exposed.”

  16. S. Sjøberg, “PISA: Politics, Fundamental Problems and Intriguing Results.” Recherches en Education 14 (2012): 7, http://www.recherches-en-education.net/spip.php?article140.

  17. Ibid., 3.

  18. H. M. Levin, “More Than Just Test Scores.” Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 42 (2012): 269–84.

  19. Andreas Schleicher, “Are the Chinese Cheating in PISA or Are We Cheating Ourselves?” OECD Education Today, December 10, 2013, http://oecdeducationtoday.blogspot.com/2013/12/are-chinese-cheating-in-pisa-or-are-we.html.

  20. Tom Loveless, “PISA's China Problem Continues: A Response to Schleicher, Zhang, and Tucker,” Brookings, January 8, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brown-center-chalkboard/posts/2014/01/08-shanghai-pisa-loveless.

  21. Schleicher, “Are the Chinese Cheating in PISA or Are We Cheating Ourselves?”

  22. All data from OECD, Ready to Learn.

  23. Ibid., 62.

  24. According to Democracy Index 2012, an annual ranking of 165 countries' state of democracy produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit, an international research group. Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy Index 2012: Democracy at a Standstill (London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 2013).

  25. D. Baumrind, “Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior,” Child Development 37 (1966): 887–907.

  26. Based on aggregated data from OECD, Ready to Learn, 304.

  27. Based on aggregated data from ibid., 310.

  28. Stephen R. McIntyre, “The Works of Mencius,” http://nothingistic.org/library/mencius/mencius48.html.

  29. H. W. Stevenson and J. W. Stigler, The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 95.

  30. Alix Spiegel, “Struggle for Smarts? How Eastern and Western Cultures Tackle Learning,” NPR, 2012, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning.

  31. Kai-ming Cheng, “Shanghai: How a Big City in a Developing Country Leaped to the Head of the Class,” in Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World's Leading Systems, edited by Marc S. Tucker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2011), 21–50; Robert Compton, “Two Million Minutes: About the Film,” 2008, http://2mminutes.com/about.html; Alix Spiegel, “Struggle for Smarts? How Eastern and Western Cultures Tackle Learning,” NPR, 2012, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning.

  32. A. Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (New York: Penguin Group, 2011).

  33. “Xiao baiyou, suoyi, beida xiongmei” [Ergo, brothers and sisters admitted to Peking University], Shanghai Sanlian Shudian, 2011; L. Li, “Dajin Beida? Langba de ‘chenggong’ hennan fuzhi” [Beat them into Peking University? The “success” of Wolf Dad difficult to replicate], Sina, November 2, 2011, http://star.news.sohu.com/s2011/langba/.

  34. A. Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980), 58–59.

  35. D. Gribble, A Really Good School (London: Seven-Ply Yarns, 2001).

  36. D. Gribble, “Poisonous Pedagogy,” http://www.authoritarianschooling.co.uk/index.php/poisonous-pedagogy.

  37. Y. Zhao, World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2012).

  38. Ibid.

  39. Tucker, Chinese Lessons.

  40. G. Zhang and Y. Zhao, “Achievement Gap in China,” in Closing the Achievement Gap from an International Perspective: Transforming STEM for Effective Education, ed. J. V. Clark (New York: Springer, 2014), 217–228.

  41. I wrote about this in Zhao, World Class Learners.

  42. D. Farrell and A. J. Grant, China's Looming Talent Shortage (New York: McKinsey and Company, 2005).

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