Why do Chinese students outperform Indians?

[Blackwater]

Shows their dedication and hard work and if I were you, I would not laugh at them.

Just compare PRC with India and you will know we are not really in a position to mock them.

still they are good in copying onlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

[Soorya Dhanush]

February 3, 2012

By Arindam Chaudhuri

A handful of weeks back, in the ACER PISA test — the OECD's annual global assessment of students' skills (for South and South East Asia) — India came second from the bottom defeating Kyrgyzstan while China topped the list. This acts as the final nail in the coffin of India's dented education system.

In spite of arrays of pan-Indian educational programs, India still has not been able to make education inclusive for all. On the contrary, China since the last four decades has been rolling out ambitious plans to revamp their education system.

The current Chinese education system extends from the guidelines that Premier Zhou Enlai gave in 1974; guidelines that are popularly known as sì gè xiàn dài huà or the 'four modernisations'. And what are these? The education system in China revolves around agriculture, industry, technology and defense — that, as per the Chinese, are pivotal for the country's development.

China today has installed key schools meant for highly academically inclined students. China has adopted a policy of providing nine-year compulsory education to all with a special emphasis on vocational training and higher education.

Contrast this with India, where a high-school student is unable to solve a basic mathematical problem or frame a sentence on his own.

Moreover, Indian rural schools are mired with problems of infrastructure and above all suffer largely from the curse of teachers' absenteeism. On an average, more than 30 per cent of teachers are found absent in rural schools.

China's focus on vocational education is also unique. In 2007, China allocated 14 billion yuan to be spent on vocational schools over the span of four years.

Vocational education in China, unlike India, is not just confined to manufacturing but encompasses sectors like information technology, tourism and medicine.

The government has also introduced projects like the State Project 211, State Project 895 and State Project 111, where special importance is given to top top 100 higher education institutes to enhance the quality of their graduates.

Back in 2003, China invited foreign universities to set up campuses; India passed a similar bill seven years later. Foreign universities have elevated the level of education to fantastic levels. Consequently, China is doing exceedingly well in global rankings of late!

Even in 2009, when the Paris based OECD, representing 34 countries, released its programme for International Student Assessment, the Shanghai region outperformed everyone else to be the top performer in all academic categories! According to OECD, China's success is more because of its special emphasis on elite schools (key schools) where one is expected to shine par excellence.

In 2003, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranking showed that there were 23 Chinese universities amongst 35 featured in total. The top three Chinese universities that entered the top 200 worldwide university ranking included National Taiwan University, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Tsinghua University.

There are more on the list of the top 500, including institutes likes Beihang University (formerly known as Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics) and Beijing Normal University, which entered the ranking for the first time.

In comparison, India produced a big blank sheet! Not only does India not figure anywhere in ARWU, but it is also invisible in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings. India is way behind China in terms of even the number of universities.

There are 545 universities in India compared to 2,236 in China. Even in medical colleges, there are about 630 colleges in China compared to 251 in India.

The total enrollment in Indian universities is only 4.7 million compared to 11 million in China. The situation was similar some years back too when, in 2004-05, India churned out 464,743 engineering graduates while China produced 600,000 for the same year.

According to National Alliance for the Fundamental Right to Education (NAFRE), in about 600,000 Indian villages, the education imparted is only basic, literacy instruction by semi educated (often not even that) teachers! Aping China, India did set up numerous vocational schools.

Yet, even now, India has only 5,100 ITIs and 1,745 polytechnics (mostly dysfunctional) compared to China's 500,000 VETs (Vocational Education and Training institutions).

Clearly, not only is India far behind in the number of quality institutions, but India is decades behind in framing the right kind of policies.

China is turning its population into this huge advantage, while we are ruining this massive possibility. Given the burgeoning population that we have, it is an imperative to educate everyone — or else the dividends would soon turn into a liability, if they've not already turned into one!

By Arindam Chaudhuri — The author is a management guru and hony director of IIPM Think Tank. (The views expressed in this column belong to the writer and do not reflect those of this newspaper.)

Why do Chinese students outperform Indians? | Deccan Chronicle

Reward for hardwork..

 

[niharjhatn]

Exercise problem for elementary school 4th grades（10-year olds）in China：

There is a pack of playing cards with 54 cards， from which two people draw several cards alternately， min 1 card and max 4 cards at a time allowed.

He who draws the last card loses.

Question: He who draws first must start with how many cards and follow what methodology to ensure victory？

Are you suggesting that every Chinese person is able to easily solve such problems?

In terms of difficulty, UK Junior Maths Olympiad is much tougher, and that is from a nation that typically isn't associated with a very strong maths focus.

The top Unis in the US have an even lesser focus on such aspects of prospective students, with institutions like MIT and UC Berkley far favouring what Indians and Chinese would term "intangibles" and hence of no relevance. You can have relatively poor scores and still manage to land into such top institutions because they value personality etc so much more.

Hell, the same even applies in medicine. I hope to get into a surgical program (maybe) soon, and in such programs they don't check knowledge, or even if you are mildly capable with your hands. Rather, they look at other traits, like tenacity, adaptability, etc. One of the consultants even once told me (I daresay he had heard it from someone else) that he would have the most hard working person as a surgeon rather than the most talented sculptor. Their thinking is skills etc can be taught. But not the "intangibles".

Unfortunately, our own education system throws "intangibles" out of the window and only focusses on results.

 

[niharjhatn]

Looking at your english here and how you lag any understanding of punctuation or grammar you really have some balls coming here and telling us what we are.

His english there wasn't THAT bad. I got the essence of the problem, but it is hardly a difficult problem.

Some of the Junior Enrichment Challenge questions I have seen from UK and Australia are relatively much tougher.

 

[mylegend]

His english there wasn't THAT bad. I got the essence of the problem, but it is hardly a difficult problem.

Some of the Junior Enrichment Challenge questions I have seen from UK and Australia are relatively much tougher.

It is a forth-grade question... Can't expect it to be hard... that was type of question that we all do when I was in the elementary. however I live in the city, I do not know how country school is like. From my understanding, school in villiage lack funding, but most teacher do get a diploma on what they teach.

 

[Tshering22]

I didn't know you lived in China. :shocked:

My dear friend, I am talking about Indian education system. I reside in India.

 

[TTCUSM]

Exercise problem for elementary school 4th grades（10-year olds）in China：

There is a pack of playing cards with 54 cards， from which two people draw several cards alternately， min 1 card and max 4 cards at a time allowed.

He who draws the last card loses.

Question: He who draws first must start with how many cards and follow what methodology to ensure victory？

The first guy must draw 3 cards (now there are 51 cards in the deck).

The second guy will always draw N cards from the deck, with N being between 1 and 4.
Any time the second guy draws N cards, the first guy must respond by drawing 5 - N cards.
This will lead to a sequence where both guys alternate, and decrease the deck size by 5 cards each time.

At the very end of this sequence, there will be 1 card left in the deck. The second guy has to draw this card, so he loses.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Interesting thread..

Wont last long..