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News on China’s Education Sector

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Olivia’s Cambridge Diary

Chinese students mull UK virus response
Apr 24, 2020 (WiC 492)

In the past five weeks I’ve seen only two Chinese people in person. Cambridge is eerily empty, and that is more starkly obvious given its tiny size. I’m lucky enough to be quarantined in my college’s extensive graduate accommodation, ...

With the gaokao delayed, online education brands are still busy
Apr 17, 2020 (WiC 491)

On the last day of March China’s Ministry of Education announced that for only the second time in over 40 years the annual college entrance exams – the gaokao – would be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Since 1979 the ...

Nursing a grievance

New row as children of medical staff get extra points for high school
Mar 5, 2020 (WiC 485)

Parents are stressed. Schools are closed and no one knows when important end-of-year exams will take place. Adding to the unsettled mood: late last month several provincial governments announced a change to the system that allocates places to ...

Education in China: Chinese students and how they study

What you need to know about the Chinese education system
Feb 28, 2020 (WiC 485)

An old saying in China is that ‘to enrich your family, there is no need to buy good land, as books hold a thousand measures of grain’ and it’s true that many Chinese are fixated on educational achievement, or perhaps more accurately by the ...

In praise of folly

Sycophantic academic paper about mentor’s “nobility” draws fire online
Jan 31, 2020 (WiC 481)

A decade ago Xu Zhongmin was awarded a government grant of Rmb2 million ($288,317) to write a paper on the interplay of economics and ecology in the preservation of freshwater springs. But at least two chapters of his paper were spent praising ...

Olivia’s Cambridge Diary

Spanish for beginners
Jan 17, 2020 (WiC 479)

In sociolinguistics, we talk about learning languages as accumulating “linguistic capital” – investments with stable returns both personally and professionally. Today, it is estimated there are 10 million Chinese speakers of English, just ...

Olivia’s Cambridge Diary

Food friendship with Chinese classmates
Dec 6, 2019 (WiC 477)

A spontaneous decision, fuelled by the need to find a better work-life balance, led me to a house party just north of Jesus Green. Upon arriving, I gravitate towards a friendly-looking Chinese student in the corner of the kitchen. His face is ...

Olivia’s Cambridge Diary

Month one: my Chinese cohort
Nov 15, 2019 (WiC 474)

I’m hunched over my laptop punching in the key words and concepts that my professor is spewing at an unholy speed. Then he leaps up mid-sentence to announce we’re going to play a game. I glance at my neighbour who is equally startled, ...

Henan school case puts spotlight on bullying teachers
Oct 25, 2019 (WiC 471)

The Chinese media has a bleak expression to describe the methods employed by some of the country’s 17 million teachers. Dama Jiaoyu literally means ‘teaching by cursing and beating’ – and reports of this pedagogical brutality ...

Don’t count on it

Education bureau blocks new maths teaching
Oct 4, 2019 (WiC 469)

The history of maths scholarship in China is illustrious, dating back to the second millennium BC, when bamboo rods were arranged to represent the numbers one to 9, and then into columns to represent tens, hundreds and thousands. The ...

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