7 ms·
As a Chinese I can elaborate a bit more about the logic: 1. Middle income parents don't want children to fall down from the social ladder. 2. Education is sti
by markus_zhang 5y ago
As a Chinese I can elaborate a bit more about the logic:
1. Middle income parents don't want children to fall down from the social ladder.
2. Education is still their best bet. Well you definitely have better tools but they don't have access to them (easily).
3. When everyone is competing for better education, it becomes an arms race, with people throwing in literally millions of bucks for
1) (学区房) Apartments that are in good school districts. The usual trick is to purchase a very small apartment (may still cost some 2-3 million USD in Beijing for example for a something like a 20 m^2 one). One recent policy (before this one) is to completely remove those districts and randomly pick schools for the kids (I think it's still based on geography but a larger one)
2) For-profit school (what this news is about). Parents are willing to pay good teachers some 150-200 USD per hour for these schools. Since most For-profit schools just hire the best teachers of the public schools this poses a couple of major issues: A) Teachers are inclined to make as little effort in public education as possible, and B) It poses a tremendous pressure on the parents and the kids, monetary and psychological. Some kids literally burn candle every day, 7/24.
Now you combine all these and no wonder those kids will NEVER want to give birth to their own kids and go over the hell again.
But I don't think these policies will work. The policy-makers are just cutting off the shaft and ignoring the arrow. You see, the competition is still there, and even more because parents have to figure out new ways to join the arms race, which guarantee that they will waste a lot of money trying new things. I figured the whole bureacratics probably received some order from high-up, maybe Xi himself, but chose to do lip service instead of spending real money.
One golden rule about government policy (to tell if it's real or not) is to see whether they are going to spend money on it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Aperocky 5y agoI'm more optimistic. I think it's going to work if simply because the ban on advertisement for tutoring. Advertisement works and it opens up new market segments that previously are not interested in these things, and in a resource constrained environment (as in the admissions are more or less constant), it forces everyone to act. That and the almost complete bulldozing of the current tutoring infrastructure are going to leave that space blank for a good while - hopefully to some better childhoods at least in the near terms. It's never about changing it for everyone, if it works on enough families, most families, or even some families, that were previously going to impose that insane tutoring on their kids, then it's worked in the right direction. Personally, I think this obsession is illogical, a better major is a far better indicator of success than the differences in college a few points of Gaokao are going to make.
- markus_zhang 5y agoI really doubt. It's just going to either go underground or use other names as a facade. New players, old story. The competition is still there.
- Aperocky 5y agoWell, depend on how serious the directive is, snitching are going to be very useful. Kids will figure that one out quick.
- markus_zhang 5y agoYeah let's wait and see.
- ChemSpider 5y ago> snitching That is not a good thing to teach kids.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoThat is a major part of political education in some places? https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-launches-hotline-netizens-report-illegal-history-comments-2021-04-11/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-launches-hotline-n...
- Aperocky 5y agoEver heard of 'See something, say something?'?
- mensetmanusman 5y agoFriend grew up behind the iron curtain, she said a key to govt power was to make people distrust each other by encouraging snitching.
- markus_zhang 5y agoSecond thought: Maybe it will work out, not because of the policies, but because the current generation that went through those arms race think it's enough and decide not to play the game a second time.
- robertwt7 5y agoWow I was about to ask the reason why Chinese government is doing this. Thanks for giving us such detailed answer and context
- oreally 5y agoThanks for the nuanced view. While I'm sure these measures do some good overall, I hope this doesn't escalate the chinese education system into cultivating a bubble of thought similar to colonial era china. Eventually, they should let the kids be exposed to the thoughts of the wider world when they are of age.
- markus_zhang 5y agoI think the goal is to put more educational resources into public systems a.k.a. a more equal world. But the competition is there so unless they decide to tickle that one (gonna take a lot more than a few policies) no policy is gonna work.
- SubiculumCode 5y agoYours is a positive take; mine is much more pessimistic. Now, companies that tutor students will have to register as non-profits and won’t be able to raise money or receive investment from foreign companies. It is this last bit that really drives this policy. Banning foreign influence in tutoring is in line with Xi's continuing desire to monitor and control all aspects of thought and influence. Bloomberg reports that "all foreign tutors and foreign curriculum will also be banned."
- milofeynman 5y agoDoes that mean foreign English teachers in China just lost their jobs?
- AlfeG 5y agoThey were pretty much under high pressure already. Lot of them returned home. I guess now they have no other options and return.
- BossingAround 5y agoThat's a lot of the buzz in TEFL communities I've seen. Not sure if it's true, but the panic is definitely there. With the rising xenophobia in China, I wouldn't advise people to do TEFL there anyways.
- archibaldJ 5y agoThis makes more sense to me. It's very cheap to enforce too. After having been in China for a while, I realize policies there, when enforced, often don't directly target the population. Instead, they always target organisations and businesses. And let them shape the ecosystems people are in. This is a more efficient way of eroding the (economic and political) power of the masses. Meanwhile, the affluent and well-connected would always find a way out, either to study in Singapore or attend Harvard.
- rutherblood 5y agoThis exact problem plagues India. The public education system is essentially irrelevant here. Teachers hardly make money, even in private schools are hence incentivised towards joining the after-school private coaching industry training highschool kids for hyperc-competitive college entrance exams which is where the real money lies given parents are blindly willing to spend fortunes for even a small chance their kids might do better. Everyone knows regular high-school hours are quickly becoming irrelevant in a country obsessed with entrance exam coaching. Even many schools are getting in on the action with "intergrated post-school coaching". Education has truly become a gigantic business in your country the day even Amazon wants to get in on the action & does.
- chakkepolja 5y agoI was brought up in rural environment and education was very less competitive untill I finished 12th. When I got into city into a private engineering college with much high fees and hostel cost, everything in education also felt rushed and sub-optimal. Nobody has the incentive to teach properly. But until I entered the big college, the pretentiousness of 'heavy' education (which is basically making us grunt work because the professors are relatively very unskilled ) and associated stress was low. And that's one of the "top" colleges of the state. Professors couldn't properly write a java program using threads or collections and had the audacity to tell us to write every program two times __on fucking paper__. This country's education system is pretentious AF. The institutions are mostly incentivized to sell snake oil to rich urban parents. The urban parents are pushing their kids into a rat race. Edit: sorry for venting out here.
- rdedev 5y agoI stayed in one of those integrated school/coaching centers. It was miserable. The sole purpose of the place was make us learn as much as possible for engineering exams in those 2 years and nothing else. Luckily I had some good teachers and learnt how to learn stuff on my own. So I'm not completely bitter about it.
- crossroadsguy 5y agoOne of those places in Hyd by any chance? That city is famous of this.
- karmasimida 5y agoIt honestly gets so crazy that my nephew has only 6 hours of sleep on Saturday. And the way those online education companies are advertising should be simply illegal. Usually advertisements should bring positivity, showcasing the benefits of the products. But in this case, they broadcasting negativity and anxiety to parents, blatantly sending the message that if they don't sign up the courses, their kids would be left behind and have no future. And ofc, they would be happily using the collected money to create more demand, namely even more anxiety. What those education commolergqates are doing is to drain resources from public service, and reprice them on private market. CCP is playing CCP here, but this crackdown is objectively a good thing for everyone, except the investors.
- throwSZ99 5y agoI think that the 996 work culture will be the next domino to fall. Many ambitious Chinese "work" from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. It's "work" in the sense that 996 is well-padded with unproductive face time and phone time. Office buildings stay lit well into the night and young office workers barely have time to date let alone form families. In the last two years, the popularity of foxi (buddha-like apathy) and more recently, tangping (lying flat and abandoning the rat race), show the degree of stress young people are under. Stressed out people are less likely to form families and have children. China needs more children. Here's a video that discusses the rat race and potential effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDc8-lNSFR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDc8-lNSFR0
- rorykoehler 5y agoMaybe more children isn’t the answer. Not only for China. We’re pillaging the planets resources to the point where there will be nothing left for future generations unless we find a different economic model AND improve the efficiency of current technologies and methods.
- xwolfi 5y agoBut the problem is that if we in China weaken now, then others will benefit from the planet while we struggle in a long slow decline. It's probably of our own making and not something foreigners do care about - but the problem today is how to make people comfortable at life enough to at least have 2 children, something that is the basis of a functionning society (meaning it can renew itself). You can have less children if you want, but us I think we need this as a goal: we already do pretty much less than 1 per woman, so we already achieved your dream.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- BossingAround 5y ago> But the problem is that if we in China weaken now, then others will benefit from the planet while we struggle in a long slow decline. We all will struggle in a long, slow decline, given that the earth will be able to maintain fewer and fewer people in the century to come due catastrophes like global warming. The "China cannot get weak because that leads to others prospering and we wouldn't want that" thinking is deeply flawed.
- rorykoehler 5y ago> The policy-makers are just cutting off the shaft and ignoring the arrow. OT: That’s a super analogy. Is it colloquial in China? Regarding the apartments in good school districts, how many of these exist? Are the prices this high due to these neighbourhoods being very elite/limited in supply or has Beijing property market gone crazy?
- belzebalex 5y agoI think your analysis is great, but a better solution might be to just pay and consider teachers better. Here's a data point: in France, after high school, we're put for two years into a "preparatory class" where we prepare during two years for engineering school entrance exams. Preparatory class selection occurs on high school achievements but don't matter at all: the teaching is roughly the same between the preparatory schools. And, teachers in preparatory schools are usually the best you can find: they're very well paid and hugely respected. Plus, they have to pass an exam where they are filtered on their teaching capabilities. In my two years there, I've had very good teachers. The curiculuum is very intensive. The normal workday is 8am-6pm of regular classes and extends until sleep for most students. It is rough, but long enough so that the only way to survive is to keep a healthy work-life balance. I didn't work a lot during holidays, slept for 9 hours every night and kept partying most weekends but still managed to get into France's second best engineering school. And, private teachers don't help much. The state already employs the best teachers you can find and there's so much school time that it would be hard to find time for private lessons. Furthermore, exams are made in a way that is very hard to game. I still think the best way to go into an elite engineering school is to be genuinely interested in engineering, maths and physics.
- DisjointedHunt 5y agoI'd love to read more about these prep schools. Have you a recommended link by any chance?
- S4M 5y agoYou might like the wikipedia page about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_pr%C3%A9paratoire_aux_grandes_%C3%A9coles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_pr%C3%A9paratoire_aux_g...
- yomly 5y ago>1) (学区房) Apartments that are in good school districts. The usual trick is to purchase a very small apartment (may still cost some 2-3 million USD in Beijing for example for a something like a 20 m^2 one). One recent policy (before this one) is to completely remove those districts and randomly pick schools for the kids (I think it's still based on geography but a larger one) Just to add some flavour to this, recently a celebrity on a reality TV show complained that 650 RMB (~100USD) per day isn't even enough money to eat and was lampooned on social media for being out of touch with money. Meanwhile parents in the school rat race are forking out millions of USD in Beijing to try outmanoeuvre each other. That's how BIG education is in china
- cromwellian 5y agoCouldn’t they fix this problem by instead attacking the gaokao and credentialism inhiring? The whole reason people tiger their kids into oblivion with tutoring is to score better on the gaokao because it’s a make or break for many poorer families if your kid gets into a top tier school. All they seem to have done is push this underground. Are the parents who spend so much money on tutoring going to stop? No, I feel it’ll just become more of an informal cash business hiring people over DMs, etc because all of the hyperconpetitive pressures with respect to getting into a top ranked school have not disappeared.
- zozbot234 5y ago> Couldn’t they fix this problem by instead attacking the gaokao and credentialism inhiring? Public examination systems similar to the gaokao are a very old Chinese tradition, so I don't think they're going to do this. It's a matter of national pride to keep such links to China's glorious past in place.
- raincom 5y agoThis has to do with the lack of economic mobility. When 100 million poor families try to their get kids to 500,000 spots in top schools, this is an expected result. The 'how' of getting to these spots varies: test prep (in China and India); well-rounded ness, volunteering in Africa, exotic sports, (for kids in the US); etc. When one path is made harder, the problem (of poor people trying to move up the economic ladder) does not disappear.
- yangff 5y agoTo be fair, banning for-profit school hurts the tax from these corporations since they cannot make profit from this. That's the goverment cost of the policy.