How culture influences everything

Dr. Yuk-Ching Hon

19 August 2011

It is true that pupils of Chinese and Indian origin in U.K. tend to do very well in exams, out-performing both the average and the scores of white pupils. The latest government figures show that at GCSE level, using national statistics of percentages of students gaining 5 or more GCSE A* - C grades, Chinese students are most successful, followed by Indian -origin, White, Pakistani- Bangladeshi-origin and Afro-Caribbean-origin students.

This is all to do with our attitude and culture towards education. We believe that our achievement in education or work is related to the amount of effort we put in rather than intelligence. As Chinese, we have tremendous cultural respect for education (the Confucian legacy). We still respect teachers and most Chinese are hungry for education and advancement and work hard to achieve. As parents, most of us, no matter where we are in the world, showed strong commitment to further our children's education. We even pay for extra tuition so that our children get higher grades, affluent or hard up parents alike. We have high (in some cases, like the Tiger Mum, too high) expectations for our children, secretly expecting them to do better than other children, especially the foreign devils! We care and keep nagging our children to do better whereas many white parents these days don't care that much anymore. I don't really do this to my sons but most of my Chinese friends would expect their children to get as rather than Bs in their grades.

We place a high value on education and achievement because we know grades and qualifications are fundamental elements towards higher social mobility. You can't be a successful accountant, like our Charles Tai Gor nor a rich kiwi banker like our Pedro unless you swot and get your grades.

However, it's not just our race; you can also find these value and beliefs in some white parents, especially Polish ones and Indians. Within higher education, we are now seeing a disproportional increase of academics with Chinese, Indian and Polish origins.

What we have to do in the UK to stem out the gang culture is to bring back the belief and respect to education, improve job opportunities, reduce teenage pregnancy and restore traditional family structure.

Schools and teachers in the UK have lost their confidence and authority. This is all because most heads and teachers still believe Dewey's dictum that 'they are not in school to impose certain ideas or form certain habits in the child'. A lot of teachers feel that it's patronising to correct or reprimand black pupils' disruptive behaviour. The problem is if we want young people to share our law abiding beliefs, schools and teachers must have the confidence to articulate these beliefs with authority! And many young delinquents interpret this failure as a failure to care.

And of course, another thing that can stop these young delinquents taking to the street is a job. However here lies the biggest problem. Just before the riot happened, statistics on illiteracy published show that at the age of 14, 63% or white working-class and more than half of the black Caribbean boys have a reading age of seven or less. Almost half of the 16 year olds lack basic qualifications in English or Maths! So what kind of jobs can they do? A generation ago all these looters would have been in work in factories, in manufacturing. Now all these jobs have gone! At the same time, immigration soared, these young illiterate young people are in competition with skilled and capable immigrants (like Poles) ready to work long hours for low pay. So they lose out every time and have to rely on meager benefits for living.

At our college, we used to run basic skills courses to help these disaffected young people to improve their reading and numeracy skills, but cuts in educational funding have depleted most of these provision. Unless there are more opportunities for retraining, they will be back on the street after their prison sentence.

Politicians are now demanding parents control their children. The truth is in this country in many homes, grown-ups are either absent or ineffectual. Many of these young delinquents have young single mothers. In this country we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. Instead of acknowledging the problem, since 1997 the previous Labour government increased a single mother's benefit by 85% making single motherhood an attractive proposition for teenage girls. So whereas boys leave school without qualification take to crime, girls get pregnant!

The press and ministers lament about family breakdown, the truth is there is no family to break down. Most of these single mothers have never lived with a husband or a boyfriend. The state has become both the husband and employer. What has to be done is intervention in the form of family education, information and support back at the school level to reduce teenage pregnancy and to restore traditional family structure. Children need to grow up with both father and mother figures.

The Y generation has had it too good. My observation is there is no longer any stigma attached to teenage pregnancy, they know their liberal-minded parents will be behind them, the state will come in to provide support and they feel grow up holding a baby. The problem is if these baby mothers can't even look after themselves, know what's right or wrong, how are they going to bring up their kids?