Rebel against Traditional Education—Money Games Played by Wealthy Families in China

Mi Meng, a Chinese social critic, columnist, and editor, published this article on her personal blog about two years ago. As China's economy soared in the past few decades, the distribution of the wealth among Chinese people became increasingly polarized and education inequality as a result began to draw attention. This post truthfully reflected on the harsh reality facing today's Chinese students and their parents. Mi Meng, a mother of a five-year-old, offered an unique perspective on such issues, which hopefully will give you a glimpse of the discourses on education in China. Click here to read the original post (in Chinese).

Rebel against Traditional Education—Money Games Played by Wealthy Families in China

By Mi Meng

I don’t want to spend time counting off the drawbacks of our education system. There is nothing new to that. However, over the past few years, I have began to realize that rebelling against traditional education system has become the money game joined exclusively by the upper class.

It is from the very beginning that economic disparity can make a difference in a child’s education. Many wealthy people would try everything they could to have their baby born with a Hong Kong or American  citizenship status, despite that they have to go through the troublesome visa process.  Those “anchor babies” emerge not because the parents want to evade the One Child Policy, but because they want better educational resources for their children, who could then potentially get into foreign schools easily due to their citizenship status. It normally costs from some tens of thousands to several millions Yuan (1 Chinese Yuan = 0.16 U.S. Dollar) to wade through the temporary emigration process and have a child born in Hong Kong or the U.S. In recent years, it has been become increasingly difficult to make such moves, due to policy constrains. However, there are plenty of parents willing to pay big price to send their children away from Chinese traditional education, starting from their births.

When your children reach the age of three, it is time to consider where to send them to kindergarten. Westernized kindergartens have been very attracted, for various reasons. First, they offer English class from early on and allow kids to learn in a relaxing environment. Second, the teachers there are more qualified and caring and could exert more positive influence on the kids. However, those types of kindergartens have a major drawback, which is the high cost. The tuition and fees for those kindergartens range from ￥4,000 ($660) to ￥10,000 ($1,650) per month, whereas traditional kindergartens charge no more than ￥1,000 ($160) per month.

After kindergartens, comes the question where to send your kids to elementary school. Are you thinking about international schools? Alright, wait till you learn about the tuition. In Shenzhen, one of the major economic centers in southern China, the two high-profile international schools, QSI International School of Shenzhen and Sheko International School, which operate under the regulation of U.S. Department of Education, cost more than ￥10,000 ($1,650) per month. Even if you could afford that tuition, you may not able to get your child in. Because, to be eligible, the children have to be non-Chinese citizens and at least one of the parents has to be a non-Chinese citizen. In order to get their children into those schools, some parents even try to get foreign passports through investment immigration, which of course costs a lot.

Even for the children who went to traditional primary and middle schools, going abroad for high school or higher education seems only a matter of when instead of how (particularly those from big cities). The only thing their families are contemplating is whether to send them for high school or college. If they choose to go as early as they reach middle/high school age, strong financial bases are needed to pay for costly private high school tuition and fees. Recently, I have learned that many good friends of mine are thinking about emigrate to the U.S., in order to send their children away from our high-stake standardized-tests-driven education system. I have a friend who himself is a principal of a prestigious high school. He wants to send his child abroad to get away from the hell-like test prep processes especially during the last year of Chinese middle and high school (9^th and 12^th grades). Well, of course, the starting price to make those moves is several million Yuan.

If you don’t have that money, that’s alright. You could just let your child stay in traditional schools. You may come up with some arguments trying to defend our traditional education system. However, one of my friends working in the education system said something quite to an extreme. He said: "most of the children who are taking the college entrance exam (the most critical and rigorous exam, based on the score of which college select students) are from ordinary families. Most of the wealthy ones have gone abroad during their middle/high school years." This sounds horrible. However, most of us would indeed find that the most creative and intelligent students around us are somewhere in the process of applying for schools overseas.

I had a chance to interview a millionaire recently. He wants his son to have broad horizon. His son has traveled with him all over the world, including the Antarctica at the age of four. His son has to be absent from school a lot because of the travelings. I asked his son if he would go study abroad or take the college entrance exam in the future. He retorted innocently: “are there still people taking the college entrance exam nowadays?” Those wealthy people really got on my nerves.

It is not that we parents don’t know about the drawbacks of our traditional education system. It is not that we don’t want our children to grow up happily and freely. It is not that we don’t understand test score does not measure growth. It is not that we don’t hate cramming and testing. It is not that we don’t despise those philistine teachers and nasty hidden rules within schools. If money is not an issue, everyone wants their children to have access to progressive, student-centered, and multicultural education. However, parents without that financial background can’t afford the risk of rebelling against traditional education. Because once you lose, the child is going to be the one who suffers. Therefore, the only choice left with those parents and children is trying to fit in with the traditional education hoping to get a good-enough test score.

… the author went on commenting on her personal commitment towards her son’s education. She ends the article by stating that nowadays if parents want their children to be happy (by “be happy” she means not to be subjected under the pressure of traditional value and societal judgment), parents have to work harder (to elevate themselves both monetarily and social-status-wise).