EDUCATION OF CHINA
Since 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded, The Chinese government has placed priority on developing education, putting forward the strategy of revitalizing the country through science and education, making constant efforts to deepen the reform of educational system, and implementing the nine-year compulsory education. Governments at all levels are increasing investment in education and encourage people to run education through different channels and in different forms.
A good education has always been highly valued in China, as the people believe that education ensures not only the future and development of the individual but also the family and the country as a whole.
History of Chinese Education
Chinese education can be traced back to about 2200 B.C. during the ancient Xia Dynasty. It was exclusively an elite privilege during this time. It wasn’t until the advent of Confucianism 1000 years later that education became, in theory, accessible to common people.
The history of Chinese education is closely related to Confucian thought. Confucianism is a philosophy that is based on the teachings of a Chinese sage, philosopher and political advisor that lived from 551 BC – 479 BC. At first Confucianism was not China’s main philosophy and at times it was even persecuted. From the Han Dynasty until early modern times, however, Confucianism was the dominant philosophy in China.
Confucianism teaches that education is the path to self-improvement and that anyone can rise up through study and perseverance. The most famous Confucian text, the Analects, mentions that “In teaching, there should be no distinction between classes.” Starting in the early 600s AD, anyone in ancient China could work their way up in life by passing a series of examinations given by the government. The higher the level of exam one passed, the higher rank one could attain as a government official.
The Essay on Taoism And Confucianism People Government Class
Taoism And Confucianism Taoism and Confucianism both combine to play an important part in Chinese Philosophy. Though in essence the two are opposite in many ways they do not contradict each other. They each deal with different matters of everyday life. Confucianism dealt with the success of the state and the job of the upper class to rule the lower class. It made five rules which should be ...
A Confucian education emphasizes basic skills like reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as music, art, poetry and skills like horseback riding and martial arts. Confucian education also focused on creating gentlemanly scholars that would be good moral examples for others and give sound advice to rulers. Students spent years studying and memorizing classic Confucian texts.
At the end of China’s last imperial dynasty in the early 20th century, the Confucian system and imperial examinations were abolished as it was thought that this style of education didn’t encourage scientific advancement. Reformers believed that only Western-style education could allow China to become a powerful country.
In the early 1900s the new Republic of China attempted to instate its own educational program but it was largely failed because of disunity, civil war and the Japanese invasion during World War II. After the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, centralized compulsory primary and secondary education was instated under the Ministry of Education.
In the last 60 years there have been tremendous improvements in education in China. Illiteracy has fallen dramatically and the vast majority of Chinese are able to graduate from secondary school. China ranks high for a developing country of the Human Development Report’s Education Index, with a score of 0.83. The higher education system in China has seen a renewed emphasis on science and technology and the government is seeking to create a number of world-class institutions.
Education system of China now includes pre-school, primary school, secondary school, high school, university and college, as well as graduate school education.
The Essay on Should High School Education in China Be Free?
Ancient philosopher Confucius, who was considered the first professional teacher in China, opened an old-style private school in his hometown. The school enrolled more 3,000 students, and those students just paid a symbolic tuition fee as some crops and meat. The old-style private school has been followed for more than 2000 years. Therefore, the simplest and best way to disseminate knowledge is ...
Pre-school education is for 3-5 year olds and takes place in kindergartens.
Primary education is from 6-11. Primary schools are usually run by local educational authorities and over free tuition, although there are some private schools owned by enterprises and individuals.
secondary school is for children from 12-17 years of age. Education of this kind is run by local governments and various business authorities. State-run secondary schools include junior middle schools and senior middle schools, both with three grades or years. The first three years of secondary school are compulsory and tuition is free. Senior middle school is not compulsory and students must pay minimal tuition fees. Private secondary schools often offer specialized education and have a more vocational bent, but the qualifications they offer are considered to be on the same level as those of state-run middle schools. However, graduates from secondary professional schools are seen to have achieved a higher level in some ways akin to a university education. Students graduating from junior middle schools usually go on to senior middle schools, although some move to vocational high schools or secondary professional schools for 3-5 years of study.
For higher education there are vocational courses as well as undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral degrees. Higher education is offered in universities, colleges, institutes, and vocational colleges. These institutions conduct academic and scientific research and provide social services as well as offering courses to students. To enter a university or college, students have to take the national entrance examination, which takes place every June and is now open to people of all ages. Selection is based on each student’s marks in this exam, and due to the number of people sitting the exam. Getting into university is highly competitive.
adult education comprises of schooling, anti-illiteracy education and other programs oriented to adult groups. China’s adult education has evolved rapidly since the Liberation. Adult ‘higher learning institutes’ include radio and TV universities, workers’ colleges, farmers’ colleges, correspondence colleges, evening universities, and colleges giving in-service training to government employees or secondary school teachers. ‘Secondary schools’ for adult education include vocational secondary schools, middle schools and technical training schools. ‘Primary schools’ for adult include workers’ and farmers’ primary schools and literacy classes.
The Homework on Schools: Education and Students
There have been many recent reports, and research studies about cheating among students in schools. There are many different versions of cheating: copying home work, looking at another individual’s test paper and plagiarizing. This serious issue affects many students throughout their education and should be dealt with. Cheating in schools, caused mainly by students’ fear of failure or their ...
Special education
The 1985 National Conference on Education also recognized the importance of special education, in the form of programs for gifted children and for slow learners. Gifted children were allowed to skip grades. Slow learners were encouraged to reach minimum standards, although those who did not maintain the pace seldom reached the next stage. For the most part, children with severe learning problems and those with handicaps and psychological needs were the responsibilities of their families. Extra provisions were made for blind and severely hearing-impaired children, although in 1984 special schools enrolled fewer than 2 percent of all eligible children in those categories. Today, China has 1,540 schools for special education, with 375,000 students;
Teachers
In 1985, the government designated September 10 as Teachers’ Day, the first festival day for any profession and indicative of government efforts to raise the social status and living standards of teachers.
Among the most pressing problems facing education reformers was the scarcity of qualified teachers, which has led to a serious stunting of educational development. In 1986 there were about 8 million primary- and middle-school teachers in China, but many lacked professional. Estimates indicated that in order to meet the goals of the Seventh Five-Year Plan and realize compulsory 9-year education, the system needed 1 million new teachers for primary schools, 750,000 new teachers for junior middle schools, and 300,000 new teachers for senior middle schools.
The Essay on How China became Chinese
Jared’s Diamond’s “Guns, Germ and Steel” is an historical narrative that focuses on alternate explanations to the rise and fall of civilizations and the development of cultures and societies by tracing evolutions and nuances in world and human history dating as far back as 13,000 years ago to the present. It is an historical treatise that moves away from a largely Eurocentric model of the world ...
Literacy and language reform
The continuing campaigns to eradicate illiteracy also were a part of basic education. Chinese government statistics indicated that of a total population of nearly 1.1 billion in 1985, about 230 million people were illiterate or semiliterate. The difficulty of mastering written Chinese makes raising the literacy rate particularly difficult. In general, language reform was intended to make writing and the standard language easier to learn which in turn would foster both literacy and linguistic unity and serve as a foundation for a simpler written language. In 1951 the party issued a directive that inaugurated a three-part plan for language reform. The plan sought to establish universal comprehension of a standardized common language, simplify written characters, and introduce, where possible, romanized forms based on the Latin alphabet. In 1956 Putonghua (Modern Standard Chinese) was introduced as the language of instruction in schools and in the national broadcast media, and by 1977 it was in use throughout China, particularly in the government and party, and in education. Although in 1987 the government continued to endorse the goal of universalizing Putonghua, hundreds of regional and local dialects continued to be spoken, complicating interregional communication.
A second language reform required the simplification of ideographs because ideographs with fewer strokes are easier to learn. In 1964 the Committee for Reforming the Chinese Written Language released an official list of 2,238 simplified characters most basic to the language. Simplification made literacy easier, although people taught only in simplified characters were cut off from the wealth of Chinese literature written in traditional characters. Any idea of replacing ideographic script with romanized script was soon abandoned, however by government and education leaders.
A third area of change involved the proposal to use the pinyin romanization system more widely. Pinyin (first approved by the National People’s Congress in 1958) was encouraged primarily to facilitate the spread of Putonghua in regions where other dialects and languages are spoken. By the mid-1980s, however, the use of pinyin was not as widespread as the use of Putonghua.
Retaining literacy was as much a problem as acquiring it, particularly among the rural population. Literacy rates declined between 1966 and 1976. Political disorder may have contributed to the decline, but the basic problem was that the many Chinese ideographs can be mastered only through rote learning and can be often forgotten because of disuse.
The Term Paper on A Comparative Study on China English, Chinglish and Their Influences
A Comparative Study on China English, Chinglish and Their Influences Abstract: This paper attempts to explore the possible differences between China English and Chinglish as well as the influences they have brought to the language itself and the society. By a comparative study of the two interlanguages, we can gain a general idea about their differences and their impact Key words: China English, ...
Overseas Students
The number of foreigners wanting to study in China has been rising by approximately 20% annually since the reform and opening period began.[26] According to official government figures 195,503 overseas students from 188 countries and regions came to study on the mainland in 2007 although the number is believed to be somewhere around the 300,000 region, because the government’s figures do not include students studying at private language schools. This makes China the world’s sixth-largest study abroad destination.
China has signed agreements with almost 40 countries such as France, Great Britain, the United States of America, Russia, etc., to recognize each other’s diplomas. Many Chinese universities now offer degrees in English enabling students with no knowledge of Chinese language to study there.
English Education
China’s first contact with the English language occurred between the Chinese and English traders, and the first missionary schools to teach English were established in Macau in the 1630s. However, the emphasis of English education only emerged after 1979 when the Cultural Revolution ended, China adopted the Open Door Policy, and the United States and China established strong diplomatic ties. An estimate of the number of English speakers in China is over 200 million and rising, with 50 million secondary schoolchildren now studying the language.
In China, most schoolchildren are taught their first English lesson at the age of 10. Despite the early learning of English, there is widespread criticism of the teaching and learning of the language. Schools in China are evaluated and financed based on test results. This causes teaching to be geared towards the skills tested. Students focus on rote-memorization (written and oral repetition) as the main learning strategy. These methods, which fit very well with the Chinese way of learning, have been criticized as fundamentally flawed by Western educationalists and linguists.[31] Furthermore, newly learned words are seldom put into use. This arises because everyone in China communicates through Mandarin and English is perceived to be of little use in the country. This is further reinforced through the national Band 4 examination where 80% of the test was the writing component, 20% was devoted to listening, and speaking was excluded entirely. According to a national survey, only half of the teachers consider that vocabulary should be learned through conversation or communication. A far smaller percentage support activities such as role playing or vocabulary games.
The Essay on The use of dictionaries in language learning in high school
... type of dictionary for their students makes a huge impact on English learning. We will explain the different ... Core Concepts in English Language Teaching” Printed in China, 2012 Pages from 182 to183 http://educatorspodium.com/presentation/using-english-dictionary-esl-classroom ... way to complement a dictionary investment is strong study skills. As teachers we play an important ...
