Terrible universities

By Chen Mo
0 CommentsPrint E-mail China.org.cn, June 29, 2010
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In the last 30 years, China's universities have gone through three upsurges: Market-oriented in funding (beginning to charge tuition and no employment guarantee for graduates), Internationalization (building world-class universities and merging colleges), and Industrialization (expanding enrollment and building "university towns").

Terrible universities, bad companies

After reinstatement of Gaokao, the national college entrance exam in 1977, more than 54 million students have had the opportunity to get college education. But China's universities are no longer what they were before.

Universities become mixed with functions of government and enterprise. They are public service entities, but parents have to pay high tuition bills. The schools are market-oriented in funding, but have huge debts. They sell their educational products, but offer no after-sale service. College is a business investment, but it cannot ensure a return on your investment.

Ideas of universities are confusing, and everything about them is problematic, including administration, courses, exams, teachers and students. Rampant plagiarism among professors and students corruption makes Chinese universities a laughing stock. Universities are not training students to be people with independent minds. They teach students to obey and take tests. College students believe unwritten rules, but don't consider knowledge and ability to be very important.

"We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers leave them kids alone.

Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!"

–Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd

These radical words are not suitable to today's education system. After students enter college, schools only have a commercial purpose: selling educated students as goods.

The marketing of the company

A high school senior must be dizzy after seeing handbooks of university majors for the Gaokao for more than 10 years. All kinds of popular majors are emerging in quick succession. What majors that seem to be popular are the majors that are implemented at the universities.

As a result, after graduation, students who are economics majors go on to be accountants or salesmen; students who are business administration and commerce majors graduate to pyramid-selling or selling health food.

The most popular major when you enter college will be worthless after your graduation. China's universities have this special ability.

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