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Getting A's not enough, takes a toll

Updated: 2011-03-29 07:52

By Wang Hongyi (China Daily)

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SHANGHAI - A 10-year-old boy takes English and math classes three nights a week and all day Saturday. An 11-year-old girl's new year holiday was consumed by classes and homework, with no time for the "nice long lie-in" she had hoped for.

Getting A's not enough, takes a toll

 

This is the life of young students today in China. It's hard on them and their parents. The results? Academic success, they hope. And stomachaches.

"I like Spring Festival holiday, because it often comes with days off and wonderful gifts from parents and relatives," said the girl, whose mother didn't want her name published. But on the first day, her mother took her to Shanghai Book City and bought exercise books covering almost all subjects.

The fifth-grader is an A student, but she is preparing for the entrance exam for middle school - in June 2012. "I know she's tired, but the competition for a good middle school is so fierce," the mother said. "If she doesn't hold on, she will lag behind soon."

An international study published last year in Archives of Disease in Childhood, a peer-reviewed journal of the British Medical Association, said a third of Chinese primary school children suffer from psychological stress.

British and Chinese researchers surveyed 2,191 students ages 9-12 in East China's Zhejiang province. They found that about 81 percent worried "a lot" about exams, 63 percent feared being punished by their teachers for poor work and 73 percent had been physically punished by their parents.

More than one-third of the children had reported physical symptoms typical of stress, including headaches or abdominal pains, at least once a week.

'I am really tired'

Parents feel the anxiety, too. And exhaustion.

"The focus of my life is my son, with whom my husband and I spend almost all of our time," said Zhang Ping, an accountant. The extra classes for their 10-year-old cost about 1,800 yuan ($275) a month, "nearly one-third of our family income", she said.

"I am really tired and so is my husband. But what else can we do? Both my husband and I are from ordinary families. We hope my son can study hard now and have a better life than us."

"Students taking after-school classes is not uncommon in my school, and it is often that students who have high grades are more active and involved in such classes," said Liu Jin, who teaches English in Wanquandao Primary School in Tianjin municipality. "Many parents often come to ask me what after-school classes can improve their children best and fast."

"Parents, especially those who had limited educational opportunities themselves, are determined to see their children succeed in life and constantly push their children," said Yang Liang, a counselor and teacher at Zhejiang University. "This does more harm than good."

A life of competing

The country's Education Ministry has continually emphasized the importance of cultivating students' all-around development but the entrance exams for higher-level schools, especially for college, are impossible to avoid.

"Many parents equate high academic grades to greater job opportunities," said Xiong Bingqi, an education expert at Shanghai Jiaotong University. "Therefore, the competition for prestigious universities was brought forward to the onset of primary school and even kindergarten."

Last July, in an outline for education reform, the government required high schools and colleges to adopt enrollment policies that go beyond just examination marks.

Yang Liang sees the heavy load on students as a social rather than an academic problem. "People who want to succeed have to keep competitive in each aspect of life," he said. "Even if every student gains entry to college, they still face highly competitive graduate careers in a nation of more than 1.3 billion."

China Daily

(China Daily 03/29/2011 page1)

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