What's Wrong with China's School System?

It is not uncommon to see school students, especially high-school students, staying up late to study for their upcoming exams. But can you imagine what would happen if you take that too far and force students to study too much every day? That's exactly what the Chinese education system has done...

The Chinese education system has been met with constant criticism from countless individuals and organizations from the Western world, and more recently, even from China itself. All this criticism doesn't come for no reason, as there indeed is a lot wrong with this system.

In China, the stress of school comes as early as the first year of middle school (equivalent to grade 7 in the American system). From this point onward, students are confronted with more and more homework, tests and exams, with notoriously difficult questions (especially in math), on a daily basis. It's extremely common for Chinese middle schoolers to not finish homework until midnight or occasionally even later. Can you imagine how harsh this must be on 12- and 13-year-old students who have just barely left their childhood?

And when students reach their high school years, the stress is only going to become even more pronounced. The average high school in China holds classes from as early as 6 or 7 AM, all the way to as late as 9 or even 10 PM. And that's not even including the insane amount of homework assignments they have to do, which if taken into account could easily push study times to 18-20 hours a day.

To make matters worse, students are also heavily pressured by their parents to excel academically, putting even more stress into their already-stressful lives. More often than not, Chinese parents will send their children to various kinds of cram schools from a very young age, out of the expectation for their kids to get a competitive edge in the later years of schooling. And in case you're wondering, competition in Chinese schools is fierce (more on that later).

Let's face it: Chinese education is mostly, if not entirely, about preparing for exams. The most notable exam in China is the Gaokao (also known as the College Entrance Examination), which is infamous for its difficulty and the way students prepare for it - virtually all of the 12 years of schooling in China is dedicated to the preparation for this one exam taking place over three days.

The Chinese way of teaching things is essentially: "remember this, and remember that, because they will appear on the exam". Students are never taught the importance of independent thinking, questioning and innovation, only memorizing knowledge for the purpose of passing tests. This is in stark contrast to the Western system, where standardized tests have their place but are far from being the only criterion for academic success.

A moderate level of competition in schools is (arguably) often good for students. However, the Chinese education system has taken this too far, leading to a phenomenon known as "involution", where competition continues constantly without real progress. The Haidian district of Beijing, which is home to two of the most renowned Chinese universities - Peking University and Tsinghua University - is especially notorious for its fierce competition. According to some, a student from another district of Beijing could barely answer a question in a test from the Haidian district. Just imagine how cruel the competition must be. On top of that, competition also takes place over the temporal dimension - you can see this from the ever-increasing difficulty of homework, tests, and exams in Chinese schools.

Not that competition itself is a bad thing - it's just that the Chinese mode of competition is bad for school students. In fact, pretty much anything can get bad when taken too far.

Chinese schools enforce too many unnecessary rules, although Chinese people tend to view them as essential for one's moral and academic excellence. For example, first-grade elementary school students are often taught to sit on their chairs in a pre-defined posture, such as sitting with hands above laps or with hands on the desk. And why is this rule enforced, you ask? Well, according to Chinese people, it's because sitting in a non-standard posture "can cause bad habits to form". That is complete nonsense. Students should be allowed to sit however they want, as long as the posture is not too offensive or inappropriate.

These kinds of "rules" are also seen in the academic side of things. For instance, students are often taught a so-called "correct format" for answering a math question. If students don't follow this format, they will lose marks even if their answer and working are all correct. These "rules" make Chinese students especially cautious - on a completely redundant aspect - when doing homework or tests. They also add extra stress to the students' already stressful daily lives.

Short version: I don't see any.

Long version:

In recent years, the Chinese government has been trying (and failing) to improve its education system. For example, starting from the 2021-22 school year, the so-called "Double Reduction Policy" took effect, which among other things imposed limits on homework completion times and attendance of cram schools for students. However, three years later, in 2024, the government secretly began to revoke this policy, leading to a resurgence of cram schools across the country. It is said that the policy's failure is mainly driven by cultural inertia, where Chinese values are deeply entrenched into the minds of teachers and parents, as well as economic impact, since cram schools are a major contributor to the Chinese economy.

There have been similar government efforts prior to this, but all of them ended in failure. And I don't really see any reason to believe that these efforts will succeed anytime soon, given that the traditional exam-oriented education style and the values associated with it are deeply ingrained into Chinese people's minds.

I am Chinese, and I was a victim of the Chinese education system for 8 years. It was not until I received Western-style education that I started to realize the problems with the Chinese system, and I am glad I even had the opportunity to do so. Most Chinese students can only receive Chinese-style education for the entirety of their school years, not knowing how terribly flawed the system is. I sincerely hope that my own country's education system will one day be changed for the better. However, as it stands, that appears to be extremely unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future.

Thank you for reading.