Comments on: The Gao Kao 高考 : A Creeping Giant http://www.chinaoutsider.com/2009/06/03/the-gao-kao-%e9%ab%98%e8%80%83-a-creeping-giant/ Sun, 21 Feb 2010 02:26:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Thomas Rippel http://www.chinaoutsider.com/2009/06/03/the-gao-kao-%e9%ab%98%e8%80%83-a-creeping-giant/comment-page-1/#comment-11 Thomas Rippel Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:02:32 +0000 http://www.chinaoutsider.com/?p=19#comment-11 Thanks for the great comment! I agree that it would seem like the government's priority right now is not to push creativity. But having gone to the University of Melbourne, you wonder how creative they are as well. Most people in my major were completely disinterested in most of the subjects and just did it for the sake of getting a degree. The times where only people who want to go to university out of genuine interest are long gone. Now, if you don't at least have a bachelor, you have little chances in the professional world, and this has created a degraded learning environment everywhere. Let's face it, most courses would be better off if a majority of the students would not take the course. I think in Switzerland it is still more like the "good ol days" where only the 15% who are genuinely interested to go to university get the Matura (high school diplooma) Thanks for the great comment!
I agree that it would seem like the government’s priority right now is not to push creativity. But having gone to the University of Melbourne, you wonder how creative they are as well. Most people in my major were completely disinterested in most of the subjects and just did it for the sake of getting a degree.
The times where only people who want to go to university out of genuine interest are long gone. Now, if you don’t at least have a bachelor, you have little chances in the professional world, and this has created a degraded learning environment everywhere. Let’s face it, most courses would be better off if a majority of the students would not take the course.
I think in Switzerland it is still more like the “good ol days” where only the 15% who are genuinely interested to go to university get the Matura (high school diplooma)

]]> By: carine neier http://www.chinaoutsider.com/2009/06/03/the-gao-kao-%e9%ab%98%e8%80%83-a-creeping-giant/comment-page-1/#comment-9 carine neier Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:08:32 +0000 http://www.chinaoutsider.com/?p=19#comment-9 hey, i liked your articles, i hope you'll put more in the future, i'll keep an eye on them. (yeah, i think maybe we should start by speaking in english, as i haven't spoken german in a long time and so we can get to know each other better now, as potential future roommates =) ) i think the scariest thing about this system is that chinese universities are very hard to get in, but very easy to get out of once you've passed gaokao... so gaokao is not just a test that doesn't make much sense that then allows you to go on to getting a challenging education that will require you to develop academic and creative skills... most people who get into university (i'm not talking about the top ones, but i can tell you about minzudaxue) can graduate. gaokao is pretty much the only hard test you'll experience. that's probably why college students have a hard time finding jobs... the diploma doesn't have much value in itself. and why many students spend so much time taking exams outside school (like toefl, economics tests and so on depending on the subject)... sure, some students spend a lot of time studying things they're interested in on their own, but still, most people do not like (or even hate) their major, and are only taking all those classes to fill in their schedule and get the credits. I've been taking history classes here for a semester, well, some just come with their english exercices, or listen to music with their ipod, sleep, chat, read the papers, prepare homework for other classes, and so on and so on. i know it's hard to improve the quality of the education in such a huge country in a short time, but it's not by selecting people who tested well in english rather than the passionate biology student for biology master programmes that it's gonna get better... the last point is a little different, though, it comes from the will of the gvt to encourage english learning (some people say that india's advantage now is that they speak english and so they need to catch up with it, which is creating an amazing imbalance with other languages, maybe not so productive after all, kind of reminds me of "everybody makes steel, cause that's what makes an economy advanced"), but maybe it all comes down to the same problems....... they don't want creativity. hard to produce Einsteins in such conditions. hey,

i liked your articles, i hope you’ll put more in the future, i’ll keep an eye on them. (yeah, i think maybe we should start by speaking in english, as i haven’t spoken german in a long time and so we can get to know each other better now, as potential future roommates =) )
i think the scariest thing about this system is that chinese universities are very hard to get in, but very easy to get out of once you’ve passed gaokao…
so gaokao is not just a test that doesn’t make much sense that then allows you to go on to getting a challenging education that will require you to develop academic and creative skills…
most people who get into university (i’m not talking about the top ones, but i can tell you about minzudaxue) can graduate. gaokao is pretty much the only hard test you’ll experience.
that’s probably why college students have a hard time finding jobs… the diploma doesn’t have much value in itself.
and why many students spend so much time taking exams outside school (like toefl, economics tests and so on depending on the subject)…
sure, some students spend a lot of time studying things they’re interested in on their own, but still, most people do not like (or even hate) their major, and are only taking all those classes to fill in their schedule and get the credits.
I’ve been taking history classes here for a semester, well, some just come with their english exercices, or listen to music with their ipod, sleep, chat, read the papers, prepare homework for other classes, and so on and so on.
i know it’s hard to improve the quality of the education in such a huge country in a short time, but it’s not by selecting people who tested well in english rather than the passionate biology student for biology master programmes that it’s gonna get better…

the last point is a little different, though, it comes from the will of the gvt to encourage english learning (some people say that india’s advantage now is that they speak english and so they need to catch up with it, which is creating an amazing imbalance with other languages, maybe not so productive after all, kind of reminds me of “everybody makes steel, cause that’s what makes an economy advanced”), but maybe it all comes down to the same problems…….
they don’t want creativity.
hard to produce Einsteins in such conditions.

]]> By: Neo Zhang http://www.chinaoutsider.com/2009/06/03/the-gao-kao-%e9%ab%98%e8%80%83-a-creeping-giant/comment-page-1/#comment-5 Neo Zhang Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:40:11 +0000 http://www.chinaoutsider.com/?p=19#comment-5 the truth is cruel.it still can be cheated.not on a massive scale but i have some live instances.it seems to be the best way to avoid Guanxism but from things i experienced i wud say its crap.well,maybe i happened to be the one whos unlucky on this.actually,i hope the system being kept before Guanxism dies out.but it has to be devoloped into something else otherwise it wont make any difference. the truth is cruel.it still can be cheated.not on a massive scale but i have some live instances.it seems to be the best way to avoid Guanxism but from things i experienced i wud say its crap.well,maybe i happened to be the one whos unlucky on this.actually,i hope the system being kept before Guanxism dies out.but it has to be devoloped into something else otherwise it wont make any difference.

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