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| "Exam" (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Perrimoon |
As you read this more than nine million young people in China are in strict training for the Gaokao, the Chinese National College Entrance Exam. There is little doubt it is a stressful and highly competitive affair. The test is gruelling and can last several days. The problem is that there is no other way into the Chinese University system. The competition is fierce so guess who holds all the cards?
Exam Factories are also not just a Chinese affair, they remain an international phenomenon. But why do we persist?
The truth is that we remain bound by a traditional view of education. Most of us don’t actually believe in its virtues but it still holds sway. In the corridors of power they are of the firm belief that this way of teaching and learning is not necessarily about the subject matter but instead about the methodology. They think it develops upwardly mobile citizens and character. We all know this falls short of the truth. We need to admit that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Do you remember the story? It took a child to point out the obvious whilst all the adults avoided the conflict.
Surviving is not easy. You have to be very good at playing the game and conforming but even that comes at a cost. Many fall off the treadmill as they can’t keep up. Some suffer the perils of high anxiety and many lose their growth mindset and innocence and become afraid of failure. There is no neutral ground here.
We are fond of saying “what doesn't kill you makes you stronger”. This is not always true, particularly when we pick apart the traditional view of education. I have seen too many young people take years to recover their former glory and sadly some never do. Instead they live with the belief that they are failures.
Education should liberate not debilitate.
In the UK we have award winning writers, engineers, architects etc but this has little to do with exam factories they attended in their youth. It is despite the system.
Traditionalists will point to our marvellous academic institutions as a sign that they are right. I love academia. It has a very important role in our society but it is not the vehicle through which we should judge the ability of everyone. Traditionalists will also say that we have our heads in the clouds but we don’t, they do.
In China they are still working sixteen hours a day. They have no time to read this blogpost because they are cramming information into their heads. I wish them well but surely there is a better way?
John Hassall
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