Chinese Education Question

[Zak]

The last day or two I’ve been poking around trying to do some research on the Chinese education system. Oddly, I’ve not turned much up. Most articles – both academic and otherwise – deal mostly with small corners of the larger issue of the system, i.e. hukou issues, ethnic issues, or even teacher training issues. Though interesting, it’s not what I’m looking for.

Since a lot of folks here teach or have taught, I was wondering if anyone has found a really great explanation of the Chinese Education System? I’m particularly interested in high school to college, college to grad school stuff. Aside from basic “lots of people take the gaokao and it’s really hard” sort of article/essay, I’m interested in a distillation of how students are sifted for schools, selected/select majors, and then the process of grad school student selection. Numbers would be awesome. Articles in Chinese and English are both OK.

All of my Chinese friends seem to have an in depth understanding of their odds for passing a certain test. For example, I have a friend taking a test to become a party worker. He quoted “1 in 55 applicants are selected.” I asked him how he knew that and he said everyone knows that. Another friend was taking a test to become a translator in Jiangsu. She said 3 out of 1000 will get selected (popular major, logical and secure job I guess). She also couldn’t point me to a source.

If anyone has any insight, I would be very grateful. Thanks!

Zak

[Charlie]

Hi Zak,

It seems like there’s a mountain of information readily available on this topic, no?

There are a few posts on the gaokao in particular on Chengdu Living, here and here.

[Zak]

Hey Charlie,

First, lmgtfy is awesome.

Second, most of the information is either shallow or is offered up the government, and so has disputing facts in different pages that go beyond those that result from policy changes. I will say though that your lmgtfy turned up a solid HKU site which has proved useful.

Third, man I can’t figure out if I’m just the world’s biggest idiot or not but I can’t seem to send you a private message effectively. A long while back you offered some help with job stuff and I’ve sent you a few messages but without much luck. Insights?

And, last, I have read the gaokao posts. Both were instructive and just generally good reads. The info I’m particularly interested in is post gaokao stuff, like how the results are matriculated, how majors are selected, and then after that I’m interested in the grad school testing.

This probably should have been ordered slightly differently. :/

Zak

[Author]

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