What China Must Do To Cement Its Superpower Status
What China Must Do To Cement Its Superpower Status
Shaun Rein, 12.06.10, 1:10 PM ET
I found it both encouraging and discouraging. I sat surrounded by a roomful of Chinese teenagers who were asking probing questions about my academic experiences and other countries. They represented China’s best, China’s future, and they represented it well. But there was one big problem. They were all there to be interviewed by admissions officers from America’s top prep schools, because none of them felt they’d be adequately challenged in China’s schools.
I was in Beijing, accompanying my niece to school interviews. Like those other kids, she was thinking about going to high school in America. Why? Even at China’s most elite schools, many complain that their curriculum is all about rote learning, with little creativity. They don’t get enough opportunity to study art and drama or to pursue their passions.
I talked to parents, too, including a billionaire couple and a pair of high government officials. The billionaire father confided, “I worry my child is not getting taught morality and the whole human person. Everything is about test scores, not how to handle challenges in real life.” Other parents nodded in agreement. These were some of the people who have benefited most from China’s reforms over the last 30 years, and they all supported the direction the government has been taking the country in, yet, they worried about their children’s futures if more changes weren’t made.
[On Dec. 7, 2010, the day after this article was published, The New York Times ran an article titled “Top Test Scores From Shanghai Stun Educators,” which told of how students in Shanghai had outscored their counterparts in dozens of other countries in standardized exams. What those scores represented, though, was not Chinese educational superiority but an unhealthy focus on standardized testing. –S.R.]
Since the Great Recession began there has been a palpable shift in power away from America and toward China. Its effect on everything from commodity markets to global supply chains and military plans is undeniable. Unfortunately, not all the reforms in China are keeping up with the great economic and human rights ones the government has implemented.
To cement its superpower status, China needs to improve its educational system so it doesn’t just produce great academic research and innovation but also attracts the world’s top students. All great powers draw in the world’s best and train the future leaders of their allies and vassal states. That is soft power at its finest. The British have had Eton and Oxford, the U.S. St. Paul’s and Harvard. China needs its own global centers of learning.
China’s educational system at present causes its best and brightest to move abroad for their studies. Several hundred thousand Chinese study abroad every year, 128,000 in the U.S. alone this year. Nearly 20% of the non-European Union international students in the United Kingdom are Chinese. When I was a graduate student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences a decade ago I had more classmates from China than from any other nation except the U.S.
Even those who cannot afford to go abroad realize the weakness of China’s education system. In 1,000 interviews my firm, the China Market Research Group, conducted with 24- to 28-year-olds in five cities, 70% said they were willing to spend 10% or more of their disposable income on training, and 10% said they’d spend 20%. Chartered financial analyst preparation centers, as well as education and training companies like New Oriental, are booming, as people not only equip themselves to get ahead but work to acquire basic skills they realize they lack.
Unqualified college graduates are a serious problem. Many grads are underemployed, working as shop attendants or on factory lines, and not because there aren’t white-collar jobs open but because they aren’t qualified for any available positions. Companies from Microsoft to Starbucks to Intel have announced large hiring sprees in China, and Citigroup plans to triple its staff in the country to 10,000 within three years. Yet nearly 25% of this year’s Chinese university graduates have failed to find jobs, and multinationals report that their biggest headache is finding qualified talent.
What should be done? China should continue to encourage students to go abroad to gain expertise to bring back, but it also needs to strengthen its education system internally. Aside from introducing more liberal arts at the university level, as I have written before, reform needs to start at the primary school level.
First, more private schools should be allowed to choose their own curricula pending ideological approval at a city or provincial level rather than having to apply to the national government. Local education officials should compete to create the best educational programs just as municipalities compete to attract foreign investment.
Schools still should be kept from choosing their own curricula without any approval, to ensure quality, but they should be granted more leeway to choose their own course material and differentiate themselves from other schools. Private schools can respond to market demands more easily, by doing things like offering smaller class sizes, more extracurricular activities and more rigorous learning methodologies and materials.
Second, mainland Chinese passport holders should be allowed to attend international primary schools. Right now, because of ideological and religious worries, they can do so only if they hold foreign passports. This is an outdated policy. There simply haven’t been ideological problems raised by mainlanders educated abroad who have returned.
Similarly, foreign students should be allowed to attend domestic schools with Chinese classmates. They currently can attend local schools, but they’re usually placed in special classes for non-Chinese passport holders. Diversity in the classroom is proven to lead to better learning.
Finally, foreigners who study in China, even short term, should be allowed to work when they graduate. Getting a Chinese work visa is very easy for most foreigners, but it’s hard for young ones with less than two years’ work experience. That is a mistake.
Young foreigners often fall in love with the country and want to stay there or bring positive experiences home with them. They should be allowed to work in China, if only to build soft power. Their presence in offices also helps local workers. They do not take jobs away from Chinese. Under the current system, I wouldn’t have been allowed to stay in China and work after I completed my education.
Before China can become a dominant superpower it needs to continue to address problems with its education system, and it must do so by giving local ministry of education and school officials more discretion with course materials and learning methodologies, and by encouraging greater diversity in the classroom and workplace.
Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of the China Market Research Group, a strategic market intelligence firm. He writes for Forbes on leadership, marketing and China. Follow him on Twitter at @shaunrein.
Categories: Asia, The Big Picture