Education is not free in China... (1)

 

Peter Wu & Others

30 November 2012

 

Peter Wu:         http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/asia/in-china-schools-a-culture-of-bribery-spreads.html?ref=global-home

What the article is saying is that if you want the best education for your children in China best school, best teachers, best facilities, favoritism etc you have to pay.

We all know that. Competition breeds corruption, especially in the absence of strong governmental guidelines and a robust regulatory framework.

Looking back, I didn’t see too much of these palm-greasing going on in NMC.

What I saw was a climate of equalitarianism, of mutual assistance, strong teacher guidance, of fierce but healthy competition, and striving to do our best.

But I am aware of discrimination and prejudice against kids coming from a lower socio-economic background in some famous elitist schools.

That can make life a misery for these kids and may hinder instead of helping their education advancement.

 

Dr. Hon:            http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20498356

A new global league table published by education firm Pearson ranks Hong Kong the third and the UK the sixth in the developed world.

The top two are Finland and South Korea which both value the importance of education and its moral value.

New Zealand ranks eighth and Canada the tenth, the USA at sixteenth.

It seems that a culture supportive of learning and quality of teachers are two significant factors contributing to the success of the top education systems.

China, I'm afraid isn't among the top 20.

 

Tim Ho:             Yes, there is such a heading in the Mingpao Canada East, HK & Canada section. I would finish the reading today.

 

Stella Tse:         I wonder what criteria these people used to rank the education system, by saying that these countries value education is one thing, but how they develop children is another thing. If they value to the extreme, it can cause opposite effect. I am just happy that Canada is number 10, a nice place to be in.

 

Bob Choi:          I often take this kind of ranking with a grain of salt. The result is entirely a function of the criteria they used. I rank my mother as the best mum in the world, according to my own set of criteria...

 

Tim Ho:             Bob, I agree to your ideas as ranking is sometimes meaningless and I sometimes don’t understand what the ruler is.

Not known to overseas mates and many Canadians as they may not be aware of this local Canadian news headline. In some ranking, most of the peasants of the city Unionville where I now reside are considered are below the poor income line. In Interview with the Unionville councilors and MPP-Michael Chan Kwok Chi ( our NMC 68 mate ) on their comments , they all said that they don’t understand how this ranking is made.

 

----- To be continued -----