When beginning to study, students are motivated, but this quickly wears off when confronted with the lectures:
At a Henan province teacher’s college […] most first-year students begin with a good first impression of their school. “The campus environment is very clean, and the facilities are excellent. The classroom buildings and dormitories are all brand new,” says Zhao Jie, a local student. However, since she started her classes, Zhao Jie has only become more and more depressed as time has gone on. “Many teachers [do their jobs] half-heartedly, they rarely interact with us. They don’t have any personal charm or charisma […] My classmates are drowsy in class, and often fall asleep en masse. We’ve gradually stopped going to class as we feel it’s a waste of our time. We’re better off finding an internship.”
Students are looking for role models, but their teachers cannot live up to these expectations:
“Some teachers are too occupied with finding money-making opportunities [outside of school]. [As a result], they don’t seriously pursue [continuing education in] their field of expertise […] Many students get together and compare the salaries of their internships. They’re too concerned with how much money they’ll make in the future, and very few put any heart at all into their studies,” said Renmin University of China student Tu Lingbo. “The impetuous and rash spirit of the whole of society and utilitarianism has long spread into [the university system].”
The Chinese party controls all aspects of the university system:
Yang Deguang, former headmaster at Shanghai Teacher’s College, and current Vice President of China’s Committee on Higher Education, was recently interviewed by China Youth Online. During the interview, Yang explained the government’s absolute administrative rule over the university system. [According to Yang,] the Communist Party has absolute authority over the management, economics and evaluation of schools, nominating school administrators, assigning budgets and expenditures, opening classes, and conferring degrees [….] The survey also revealed that 72.2% of respondents believe that higher education’s [bias to Party political lines] is obvious. These respondents believed this to be the university education system’s second biggest problem.
What should Chinese learn during their education? Being able to think independently comes first, being able to learn comes second. Only comes domain knowledge. Earning a degree comes far behind:
[Finally], the survey also asked the public what they believe university students should get out of their education. First is the ability to think independently (78.2%). Second, learning fundamentals (58.1%). Third, knowledge specific to their major (54.6%). Other important traits to be learned include: building strong character (49.2%), the ability to live on one’s own (36.9%), professionalism (37.0%), meet friends (22.1%), earning a degree (14.8%), and prospects for a good future (14.8%).
The public thinks that in order for the students to exploit their potential in life they need to be able to think independently and continue to learn. But the current system doesn't teach them these skills. Sadly, this part of the questionnaire is slightly confusing. I assume that "the public" means the interviewed, that is the students.
Related to this matter is this article on how the Web censorship in China makes Hong Kong a very attractive place to study for Chinese students. According to the Internet consultant Paul Denlinger, "during the dotcom era [of the 1990s], head-hunters were looking for talent from universities in Shanghai and Beijing. Now they are coming to Hong Kong." The article also gives numbers that show that coming back to the mainland is not attractive. Only 3% of the graduates of the mainland China graduates from University of Hong Kong return to the mainland for a job. On a larger scope, 70% of Chinese students studying abroad do not return after graduation. The Chinese government tries to make the return attractive by privileges, such as better access to medical care. But this does not seem to be what Chinese students are looking for according to the above survey. They don't want privileges, but being able to think independently - something I don't see the Chinese government being favorable of.
