China's Students Take on Tough Gaokao University Entrance Exam.
Every year, police road blocks are set up around schools and nearby construction sites are ordered to fall silent as the country is plunged into two days of "Gaokao fever".
This year, 9.15 million Chinese high school students are sitting the notoriously tough university entrance exam.
Critics say that for most of them, it is the culmination of a year of cramming, of repeating past papers and in large part, learning by rote.
In fact, almost everyone - students, parents, teachers and policymakers - seems to accept that the system is squeezing creativity out of students.
But despite the criticism, China's exam machine just keeps on squeezing, and more horror stories emerge each year.
Most recently, photographs emerged of a classroom in Hubei province, showing students taking energy-boosting amino acids from intravenous drips hung from the ceiling.
Miserable experience?
But is the Gaokao experience always so taxing and miserable?
The BBC followed pupils at Zhabei Number 8 High School in Shanghai for a year. The school has a population of almost 500 students, spread over three grades.
In terms of the ability of its intake, it ranks near the bottom of the 10 state-funded schools in its district.
But the first thing that strikes a visitor is that this school shows no sign of the discipline problems that might be found in schools elsewhere in the world with large cohorts of relatively disadvantaged students.
It costs the taxpayer a little more than $2,000 (£1,291) per pupil per year. The buildings are modern and smart, the pupils are well turned out in their green tracksuits, and the classes are orderly.
And, like everywhere else in China, cramming and intense exam preparation are very much in evidence.
Long hours
Ma Li, 18, fits the profile of a beleaguered final-year student toiling on the exam treadmill.
Hard working and bright, she regularly puts in an extra six hours at home at the end of a 10-hour school day.
"This studying lifestyle is pretty hard," she says. "There's not much time to relax, but we're all in it together, and we encourage each other."
Ma Li, who hopes to study shipping logistics at Shanghai Maritime University, a top-tier college, is a good illustration of an aspect of China's education system that often goes unreported.
Her parents are migrant workers who moved to Shanghai in 1993 and she has profited from the city's now three-decades-old commitment to provide universal education.
In China, it is certainly true that like so many other places, students from wealthier backgrounds get into the better schools and therefore the better universities.
But the education system appears to be better than many at acting as an effective check on the opportunity gap growing too wide.
Shanghai's recent ranking as the world leader in maths, science and reading test scores in an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study underlines this point.
The data was not just based on the city's elite students, but on the scores of a cross-section of students from all abilities, including the children of migrant workers.
Not stereotypical
It's not hard though to find students who are less engaged.
Ding Zhenwei is in some ways a refreshing antidote to the stereotype of China's results-obsessed student masses.
He has set his sights relatively low and plans to study interior design at a second-tier private college.
So he is coasting, confident he would make the modest Gaokao mark he needs, and is doing barely any extra studying outside of school hours.
"Even if I do fail to get in, I'll find another way of making a success of my life," he says.
In fact, 80% of Zhabei's final year students make it into either a first or second-tier university every year.
That is impressive, given the school's intake of less advantaged pupils, but it is also a sign of China's higher education boom.
In the past decade, it has massively expanded university places to reach about 30 million, the highest number in the world by far.
While that change has done nothing to reduce competition for the most prestigious institutions, it may be leading at least some students to question the value of cramming for the Gaokao.
After all, what is the point of all that pressure and stress if it leads only to a place among the ranks of the country's unemployed?
More than one million fewer students will take the exam this year compared with the peak in 2008, and observers are wondering if that fall is due to some kind of "Gaokao fatigue".
But there are still those students who see the test as important enough to have a second go.
Wang Yu, 19, is repeating her final year at Zhabei Number 8 High School because she did not get the Gaokao score she needed last time round.
"I already know the shame of failure," she says.
She is determined to do better this time so that she can rejoin her contemporaries who have started university without her.
Shining example
Education policy chiefs have long admitted the shortcomings of the Gaokao and have taken limited steps to try to introduce a more balanced and rounded education.
There is evidence in Zhabei, that students are now being trained to integrate knowledge and apply it to real-life problems.
The city's teachers are being extensively trained and there's lip service being paid to cutting those long study hours.
Shanghai was one of the first municipalities in China to stipulate a maximum amount of homework and set a minimum of one hour of physical activity a day.
How strictly those limits are being applied is another matter of course - at Zhabei, physical activity often seems to involve little more than a few minutes of choreographed group stretching exercises on the parade ground.
There is a consensus that China still leans far too much on preparation for exams and leaves too little time for real learning.
If future test takers from Zhabei Number 8 High School are really going to be given the chance to be tomorrow's creators, leaders and thinkers, then the system needs to change much faster.
If it does not, then some critics warn, that China may struggle to keep its economic boom on track.
Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18349873
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Showing posts with label Shanghai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shanghai. Show all posts
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Is China The World's Cleverest Country?
Is China The world's cleverest country?
China's results in international education tests - which have never been published - are "remarkable", says Andreas Schleicher, responsible for the highly-influential Pisa tests.
These tests, held every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, measure pupils' skills in reading, numeracy and science.
Pisa tests - the Programme for International Student Assessment - have become the leading international benchmark.
The findings indicate that China has an education system that is overtaking many Western countries.
While there has been intense interest in China's economic and political development, this provides the most significant insight into how it is teaching the next generation.
'Incredible resilience'
The Pisa 2009 tests showed that Shanghai was top of the international education rankings.
But it was unclear whether Shanghai and another chart-topper, Hong Kong, were unrepresentative regional showcases.
Mr Schleicher says the unpublished results reveal that pupils in other parts of China are also performing strongly.
"Even in rural areas and in disadvantaged environments, you see a remarkable performance."
In particular, he said the test results showed the "resilience" of pupils to succeed despite tough backgrounds - and the "high levels of equity" between rich and poor pupils.
"Shanghai is an exceptional case - and the results there are close to what I expected. But what surprised me more were the results from poor provinces that came out really well. The levels of resilience are just incredible.
"In China, the idea is so deeply rooted that education is the key to mobility and success."
Investing in the future
The results for disadvantaged pupils would be the envy of any Western country, he says.
Mr Schleicher is confident of the robustness of this outline view of China's education standards.
In an attempt to get a representative picture, tests were taken in nine provinces, including poor, middle-income and wealthier regions.
The Chinese government has so far not allowed the OECD to publish the actual data.
But Mr Schleicher says the results reveal a picture of a society investing individually and collectively in education.
On a recent trip to a poor province in China, he says he saw that schools were often the most impressive buildings.
He says in the West, it is more likely to be a shopping centre.
"You get an image of a society that is investing in its future, rather than in current consumption."
There were also major cultural differences when teenagers were asked about why people succeeded at school.
"North Americans tell you typically it's all luck. 'I'm born talented in mathematics, or I'm born less talented so I'll study something else.'
"In Europe, it's all about social heritage: 'My father was a plumber so I'm going to be a plumber'.
"In China, more than nine out of 10 children tell you: 'It depends on the effort I invest and I can succeed if I study hard.'
"They take on responsibility. They can overcome obstacles and say 'I'm the owner of my own success', rather than blaming it on the system."
Education's World Cup
This year will see another round of Pisa tests - it's like World Cup year for international education. And Mr Schleicher's tips for the next fast-improving countries are Brazil, Turkey and Poland.
Mr Schleicher, a German based in the OECD's Paris headquarters, has become the godfather of such global education comparisons.
Armed with a spreadsheet and an impeccably polite manner, his opinions receive close attention in the world's education departments.
The White House responded to the last Pisa results with President Barack Obama's observation that the nation which "out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow".
The next round of global league tables will test 500,000 pupils in more than 70 countries - with the results to be published late next year.
Education ministers will be looking nervously at the outcome.
"In the past, politicians could always say we're doing better than last year - everyone could be a success," he says, describing the tendency for national results to rise each year.
The arrival of Pisa tests sent an icy draught through these insulated corridors.
No excuses
Perhaps the biggest discomfort of all was for Germany - where "Pisa shock" described the discovery that their much vaunted education system was distinctly average.
And the biggest change in attitude, he says, has been the United States - once with no interest in looking abroad, now enthusiastically borrowing ideas from other countries.
"Education is a field dominated by beliefs and traditions, it's inward looking. As a system you can find all kinds of excuses and explanations for not succeeding.
"The idea of Pisa was to take away all the excuses.
"People say you can only improve an education system over 25 years - but look at Poland and Singapore, which have improved in a very short time, we've seen dramatic changes."
The biggest lesson of the Pisa tests, he says, is showing there is nothing inevitable about how schools perform.
"Poverty is no longer destiny. You can see this at the level of economies, such as South Korea, Singapore."
Fair comparison?
A criticism of such rankings has been that it is unfair. How can an impoverished developing country be compared with the stockpiled multiple advantages of a wealthy Scandinavian nation?
Here Mr Schleicher makes a significant distinction. It might not be fair, but such comparisons are extremely relevant. "Relevance and fairness are not the same thing," he says.
Youngsters in the poorest countries are still competing in a global economy. "It's a terrible thing to take away the global perspective."
He also attacks the idea of accepting lower expectations for poorer children - saying this was the "big trap in the 1970s".
"It was giving the disadvantaged child an excuse - you come from a poor background, so we'll lower the horizon for you, we'll make it easier.
"But that child has still got to compete in a national labour market.
"This concept of 'fairness' is deeply unfair - because by making life easier for children from difficult circumstances, we lower their life chances."
'Sorting mechanism'
So why are the rising stars in Asia proving so successful?
Mr Schleicher says it's a philosophical difference - expecting all pupils to make the grade, rather than a "sorting mechanism" to find a chosen few.
He says anyone can create an education system where a few at the top succeed, the real challenge is to push through the entire cohort.
In China, he says this means using the best teachers in the toughest schools.
The shifting in the balance of power will be measured again with Pisa 2012, with pupils sitting tests from Stockholm to Seoul, London to Los Angeles, Ankara to Adelaide.
"I don't think of Pisa as being about ranking, it tells you what's possible. How well could we be doing?"
Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17585201
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
China's results in international education tests - which have never been published - are "remarkable", says Andreas Schleicher, responsible for the highly-influential Pisa tests.
These tests, held every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, measure pupils' skills in reading, numeracy and science.
Pisa tests - the Programme for International Student Assessment - have become the leading international benchmark.
The findings indicate that China has an education system that is overtaking many Western countries.
While there has been intense interest in China's economic and political development, this provides the most significant insight into how it is teaching the next generation.
'Incredible resilience'
The Pisa 2009 tests showed that Shanghai was top of the international education rankings.
But it was unclear whether Shanghai and another chart-topper, Hong Kong, were unrepresentative regional showcases.
Mr Schleicher says the unpublished results reveal that pupils in other parts of China are also performing strongly.
"Even in rural areas and in disadvantaged environments, you see a remarkable performance."
In particular, he said the test results showed the "resilience" of pupils to succeed despite tough backgrounds - and the "high levels of equity" between rich and poor pupils.
"Shanghai is an exceptional case - and the results there are close to what I expected. But what surprised me more were the results from poor provinces that came out really well. The levels of resilience are just incredible.
"In China, the idea is so deeply rooted that education is the key to mobility and success."
Investing in the future
The results for disadvantaged pupils would be the envy of any Western country, he says.
Mr Schleicher is confident of the robustness of this outline view of China's education standards.
In an attempt to get a representative picture, tests were taken in nine provinces, including poor, middle-income and wealthier regions.
The Chinese government has so far not allowed the OECD to publish the actual data.
But Mr Schleicher says the results reveal a picture of a society investing individually and collectively in education.
On a recent trip to a poor province in China, he says he saw that schools were often the most impressive buildings.
He says in the West, it is more likely to be a shopping centre.
"You get an image of a society that is investing in its future, rather than in current consumption."
There were also major cultural differences when teenagers were asked about why people succeeded at school.
"North Americans tell you typically it's all luck. 'I'm born talented in mathematics, or I'm born less talented so I'll study something else.'
"In Europe, it's all about social heritage: 'My father was a plumber so I'm going to be a plumber'.
"In China, more than nine out of 10 children tell you: 'It depends on the effort I invest and I can succeed if I study hard.'
"They take on responsibility. They can overcome obstacles and say 'I'm the owner of my own success', rather than blaming it on the system."
Education's World Cup
This year will see another round of Pisa tests - it's like World Cup year for international education. And Mr Schleicher's tips for the next fast-improving countries are Brazil, Turkey and Poland.
Mr Schleicher, a German based in the OECD's Paris headquarters, has become the godfather of such global education comparisons.
Armed with a spreadsheet and an impeccably polite manner, his opinions receive close attention in the world's education departments.
The White House responded to the last Pisa results with President Barack Obama's observation that the nation which "out-educates us today will out-compete us tomorrow".
The next round of global league tables will test 500,000 pupils in more than 70 countries - with the results to be published late next year.
Education ministers will be looking nervously at the outcome.
"In the past, politicians could always say we're doing better than last year - everyone could be a success," he says, describing the tendency for national results to rise each year.
The arrival of Pisa tests sent an icy draught through these insulated corridors.
No excuses
Perhaps the biggest discomfort of all was for Germany - where "Pisa shock" described the discovery that their much vaunted education system was distinctly average.
And the biggest change in attitude, he says, has been the United States - once with no interest in looking abroad, now enthusiastically borrowing ideas from other countries.
"Education is a field dominated by beliefs and traditions, it's inward looking. As a system you can find all kinds of excuses and explanations for not succeeding.
"The idea of Pisa was to take away all the excuses.
"People say you can only improve an education system over 25 years - but look at Poland and Singapore, which have improved in a very short time, we've seen dramatic changes."
The biggest lesson of the Pisa tests, he says, is showing there is nothing inevitable about how schools perform.
"Poverty is no longer destiny. You can see this at the level of economies, such as South Korea, Singapore."
Fair comparison?
A criticism of such rankings has been that it is unfair. How can an impoverished developing country be compared with the stockpiled multiple advantages of a wealthy Scandinavian nation?
Here Mr Schleicher makes a significant distinction. It might not be fair, but such comparisons are extremely relevant. "Relevance and fairness are not the same thing," he says.
Youngsters in the poorest countries are still competing in a global economy. "It's a terrible thing to take away the global perspective."
He also attacks the idea of accepting lower expectations for poorer children - saying this was the "big trap in the 1970s".
"It was giving the disadvantaged child an excuse - you come from a poor background, so we'll lower the horizon for you, we'll make it easier.
"But that child has still got to compete in a national labour market.
"This concept of 'fairness' is deeply unfair - because by making life easier for children from difficult circumstances, we lower their life chances."
'Sorting mechanism'
So why are the rising stars in Asia proving so successful?
Mr Schleicher says it's a philosophical difference - expecting all pupils to make the grade, rather than a "sorting mechanism" to find a chosen few.
He says anyone can create an education system where a few at the top succeed, the real challenge is to push through the entire cohort.
In China, he says this means using the best teachers in the toughest schools.
The shifting in the balance of power will be measured again with Pisa 2012, with pupils sitting tests from Stockholm to Seoul, London to Los Angeles, Ankara to Adelaide.
"I don't think of Pisa as being about ranking, it tells you what's possible. How well could we be doing?"
Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17585201
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Thursday, June 21, 2012
How China is Winning the School Race
How China is Winning the School Race.
China's education performance - at least in cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong - seems to be as spectacular as the country's breakneck economic expansion, outperforming many more advanced countries.
But what is behind this success?
Eyebrows were raised when the results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's international maths, science and reading tests - the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests - were published.
Shanghai, taking part for the first time, came top in all three subjects.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong which was performing well in the last decade of British rule, has gone from good to great. In this global ranking, it came fourth in reading, second in maths and third in science.
These two Chinese cities - there was no national ranking for China - had outstripped leading education systems around the world.
The results for Beijing, not yet released, are not quite as spectacular. "But they are still high," says Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's head of education statistics and indicators.
Cheng Kai-Ming, Professor of Education at Hong Kong University, and closely involved in the Hong Kong and Shanghai tests, puts the results down to "a devotion to education not shared by some other cultures".
Competitive Exams
More than 80% of Shanghai's older secondary students attend after-school tutoring. They may spend another three to four hours each day on homework under close parental supervision.
Such diligence also reflects the ferociously competitive university entrance examinations.
"Not all Chinese parents are 'tiger mothers'," insists Prof Cheng. "But certainly they are devoted to their children's education."
Certainly both these open and outward-looking cities set great store by education, willing to adopt the best educational practices from around the world to ensure success. In Hong Kong, education accounts for more than one-fifth of entire government spending every year.
"Shanghai and Hong Kong are small education systems, virtually city states, with a concentration of ideas, manpower and resources for education," says Prof Cheng.
The innovation in these cities is not shared by other parts of China - not even Beijing, he says.
Under the banner "First class city, first class education", Shanghai set about systematically re-equipping classrooms, upgrading schools and revamping the curriculum in the last decade.
It got rid of the "key schools" system which concentrated resources only on top students and elite schools. Instead staff were trained in more interactive teaching methods and computers were brought in.
Showcase Schools
The city's schools are now a showcase for the country. About 80% of Shanghai school leavers go to university compared to an overall average of 24% in China.
Meanwhile, dynamic Hong Kong was forced into educational improvements as its industries moved to cheaper mainland Chinese areas in the 1990s. Its survival as a service and management hub for China depended on upgrading knowledge and skills.
In the last decade Hong Kong has concentrated on raising the bar and closing the gap or "lifting the floor" for all students, says a report by McKinsey management consultants.
The report, How the World's Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, rated Hong Kong's education system among the best in the world.
But Hong Kong schools are undergoing another huge reform, lopping off the final year of secondary school and instead moving towards four-year university degrees from 2012 to align it with China.
Abandoning the old British model is a gamble and no-one knows how it will play out in terms of quality.
Top Teachers
However, Hong Kong believes it has laid solid, unshakeable foundations.
"In the late 1990s we moved to all-graduate [teachers]. If we want to have high achievement, subject expertise is very important for secondary schools," said Catherine KK Chan, deputy secretary for education in the Hong Kong government.
Hong Kong, like Singapore, now recruits teachers from the top 30% of the graduate cohort. By contrast, according to the OECD, the US recruits from the bottom third.
Shanghai recruits teachers more broadly. But it is already a select group.
Shanghai controls who lives and works in the city through China's notorious "houkou" or permanent residency system, allowing only the best and the brightest to become residents with access to jobs and schools.
"For over 50 years Shanghai has been accumulating talent, the cream of the cream in China. That gives it an incredible advantage," says Ruth Heyhoe, former head of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, now at the University of Toronto.
Migrant Children
The OECD's Mr Schleicher believes teacher training has played a part in Shanghai's success, with higher-performing teachers mentoring teachers from lower-performing schools, to raise standards across the board.
"What is striking about Shanghai is that there is quite a large socio-economic variability in the student population, but it does not play out in terms of its Pisa results," said Mr Schleicher.
"Some people have even suggested we did not include Shanghai's fairly large immigration population. Around 5.1% of the population are migrants from rural areas. Their children are definitely included," he said.
Last year Shanghai claimed to be the first Chinese city to provide free schooling for all migrant children. This year migrants outnumbered Shanghai-born children for the first time in state primary schools, making up 54% of the intake.
Prof Cheng agrees the Pisa results reflect a broad cross section. However the majority of migrant children are below 15 - the age at which the tests for international comparisons are taken. It is also the age of transfer to senior secondaries.
"If they were allowed to attend senior secondary schools in the city, the results would be very different," said Prof Cheng.
Even now "to some extent, where people are born largely determines their chances of educational success", said Gu Jun, a professor of sociology at Shanghai university.
Their societies are changing rapidly and for both Shanghai and Hong Kong, being top might prove to be easier than staying there.
Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14812822
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
China's education performance - at least in cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong - seems to be as spectacular as the country's breakneck economic expansion, outperforming many more advanced countries.
But what is behind this success?
Eyebrows were raised when the results of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's international maths, science and reading tests - the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests - were published.
Shanghai, taking part for the first time, came top in all three subjects.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong which was performing well in the last decade of British rule, has gone from good to great. In this global ranking, it came fourth in reading, second in maths and third in science.
These two Chinese cities - there was no national ranking for China - had outstripped leading education systems around the world.
The results for Beijing, not yet released, are not quite as spectacular. "But they are still high," says Andreas Schleicher, the OECD's head of education statistics and indicators.
Cheng Kai-Ming, Professor of Education at Hong Kong University, and closely involved in the Hong Kong and Shanghai tests, puts the results down to "a devotion to education not shared by some other cultures".
Competitive Exams
More than 80% of Shanghai's older secondary students attend after-school tutoring. They may spend another three to four hours each day on homework under close parental supervision.
Such diligence also reflects the ferociously competitive university entrance examinations.
"Not all Chinese parents are 'tiger mothers'," insists Prof Cheng. "But certainly they are devoted to their children's education."
Certainly both these open and outward-looking cities set great store by education, willing to adopt the best educational practices from around the world to ensure success. In Hong Kong, education accounts for more than one-fifth of entire government spending every year.
"Shanghai and Hong Kong are small education systems, virtually city states, with a concentration of ideas, manpower and resources for education," says Prof Cheng.
The innovation in these cities is not shared by other parts of China - not even Beijing, he says.
Under the banner "First class city, first class education", Shanghai set about systematically re-equipping classrooms, upgrading schools and revamping the curriculum in the last decade.
It got rid of the "key schools" system which concentrated resources only on top students and elite schools. Instead staff were trained in more interactive teaching methods and computers were brought in.
Showcase Schools
The city's schools are now a showcase for the country. About 80% of Shanghai school leavers go to university compared to an overall average of 24% in China.
Meanwhile, dynamic Hong Kong was forced into educational improvements as its industries moved to cheaper mainland Chinese areas in the 1990s. Its survival as a service and management hub for China depended on upgrading knowledge and skills.
In the last decade Hong Kong has concentrated on raising the bar and closing the gap or "lifting the floor" for all students, says a report by McKinsey management consultants.
The report, How the World's Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better, rated Hong Kong's education system among the best in the world.
But Hong Kong schools are undergoing another huge reform, lopping off the final year of secondary school and instead moving towards four-year university degrees from 2012 to align it with China.
Abandoning the old British model is a gamble and no-one knows how it will play out in terms of quality.
Top Teachers
However, Hong Kong believes it has laid solid, unshakeable foundations.
"In the late 1990s we moved to all-graduate [teachers]. If we want to have high achievement, subject expertise is very important for secondary schools," said Catherine KK Chan, deputy secretary for education in the Hong Kong government.
Hong Kong, like Singapore, now recruits teachers from the top 30% of the graduate cohort. By contrast, according to the OECD, the US recruits from the bottom third.
Shanghai recruits teachers more broadly. But it is already a select group.
Shanghai controls who lives and works in the city through China's notorious "houkou" or permanent residency system, allowing only the best and the brightest to become residents with access to jobs and schools.
"For over 50 years Shanghai has been accumulating talent, the cream of the cream in China. That gives it an incredible advantage," says Ruth Heyhoe, former head of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, now at the University of Toronto.
Migrant Children
The OECD's Mr Schleicher believes teacher training has played a part in Shanghai's success, with higher-performing teachers mentoring teachers from lower-performing schools, to raise standards across the board.
"What is striking about Shanghai is that there is quite a large socio-economic variability in the student population, but it does not play out in terms of its Pisa results," said Mr Schleicher.
"Some people have even suggested we did not include Shanghai's fairly large immigration population. Around 5.1% of the population are migrants from rural areas. Their children are definitely included," he said.
Last year Shanghai claimed to be the first Chinese city to provide free schooling for all migrant children. This year migrants outnumbered Shanghai-born children for the first time in state primary schools, making up 54% of the intake.
Prof Cheng agrees the Pisa results reflect a broad cross section. However the majority of migrant children are below 15 - the age at which the tests for international comparisons are taken. It is also the age of transfer to senior secondaries.
"If they were allowed to attend senior secondary schools in the city, the results would be very different," said Prof Cheng.
Even now "to some extent, where people are born largely determines their chances of educational success", said Gu Jun, a professor of sociology at Shanghai university.
Their societies are changing rapidly and for both Shanghai and Hong Kong, being top might prove to be easier than staying there.
Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14812822
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)