China’s education system: good for communication and creativity?

• Source: Global Times
• [22:38 July 02 2009]
• Comments

After all, I think it is more of a challenge to the foreign teachers to try and find ways to get the students engaged than it is a failure of “the system” or “the students.” That is not to say that there are no challenges to universities and students, of course.

Most importantly, it feels as if Chinese universities, having grown so quickly, are at a point where universities in my country of origin, Austria, were about a decade ago: with universities standing apart from normal work life.

Universities were trying to argue that their purpose is to produce scientists. Having had to become more responsive to the job market, every study course now has to explain not only what knowledge the students will have to learn, but what skills that they can offer to employers they will acquire, and what careers this opens up. In the future, a university diploma alone will probably not be enough in China, either.

So, it is up to the students to look for ways in which they can deepen their skills and work
on their employability.

In China, this challenge of proving oneself and one’s worth, given the highly competitive nature of the job market for graduates, is certainly even more of a challenge than in Europe or the US.

It is also an approach that universities have barely started using. And universities need to consider what their reason for existence is: to equip students with the skills they will need to build a successful life and a strong country, not merely to hand out a diploma.

For teachers – and first of all, I’m grabbing myself by my own big nose when it comes to this – the challenge is to be responsible for their students, learning to be even better themselves, too.