During a symposium held by the Economic Observer, critic Zhongtian Yi asked educator Dongping Yang “Which one is more prospective, Chinese education or Chinese football?” Yang hesitated for a second, then replied with a sigh, “Education. Never mind whether football is prospective or not, education can never lose its future.”China has put a great emphasis on education since 1986, when the Compulsory Education Law of the People's Republic of China was implemented. With the economy growing fast, officials worked to rejuvenate the country. Since education is seen as one of the key factors contributing to economic success, it was considered a high priority. However, Chinese people are not always as enthusiastic about education on an individual level. Amy, a student at Nanjing University (NJU), is as pessimistic as Yang towards Chinese education, exclaiming “I don’t really think the government develops the education system with care, it has many defects.” Given Nanjing University enjoys a high reputation for its scholastic honor and rigorous scholarship, and is ranked comprehensively eighth among Chinese universities for 2015, I accepted Amy’s invitation to visit her university to see for myself.I was shocked as soon as I entered her Calculus class. The air smelt like old snacks and dirty laundry. It smelt like exhaustion. It smelt like each of the students had run a 3000 meter race and sat down in their sweat-soaked t-shirts. The classroom buzzed with voices. Paper and pages shuffled in every corner. Laughter echoed through the auditorium. The professor, bald and humpbacked, looked small in front of his five hundred students.Amy said she feels helpless, “Because my university has over 10,000 undergraduates, there is no other way to give everybody an education.”Contrary to NYU Shanghai, which mainly focuses on a western teaching pattern, circumstances at NJU are extremely different to ours. For example, “we only have about 50 students at most in a class…and only for calculus,” Skye, a freshman at NYU Shanghai clarified.But apart from the greater number of students, it was also interesting to see the Faculty of Foreign Languages (FFL) at NJU, where Chinese teachers teach English. Amy disapproved of this especially, “Why can’t they invite more professors who are English native speakers? Ironically, only my elective course, American Law, is taught by a Westerner.”Being a well-known university with large sums of national financial support, it is odd that NJU doesn’t to invite native English speakers to teach. It may just be that the university doesn’t want them to come, due to conservative Chinese values.According to a national survey, NJU ranked third for the number of articles published in academic journals and based on statistics found by the China Science and Technology Research Institute, NJU has been quoted the most SCI research papers since 1993. However this highlights a common contradiction. NJU gives out awards for publishing articles, so there is some doubt whether the numbers reflect academia or manipulation.Amy reflected, “Yes, we can have special credits added to our GPA, though I don’t know how the system works clearly, the rewards do exist ” adding “you can earn individual achievement and reputation through them. You know it will be easier to find a job if you have such experience, especially if you are in our graduate school.”Admittedly awards for academic papers may be necessary, but critics show that nowadays universities are over-concerned with them. Professors are already stretched thinly, without being being expected to write papers that win awards.On our way to the dining hall, I asked Amy about her school’s motto Aspiration, Perseverance with Integrity. It is a very serious saying, meaning NJU strives to nurture students to have a high level of professional skills. Different from the undergraduates at NYU Shanghai, NJU students learn professional courses in accordance to their predetermined majors. Except, students only have ten days to choose their majors. So after cheering with triumph after surviving the gaokao and being admitted into a famous university, a difficult decision has to be made, and quickly. Therefore, it is usually the major that chooses the student, as most choose according to their gaokao grades. Plus it is difficult to change your major once it is chosen.Obviously definitions of success differ enormously between Chinese and Western education systems. NYU Shanghai provides students with a core curriculum, which enables them to explore as many disciplines as possible.A documentary, Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School, made by the BBC, discusses the difference between Chinese and Western style education. It showed that Chinese education focuses on the conveyance of knowledge, whilst Western education places more emphasis on individual creativity.Traditionally used to diminish the gap between the rich and the poor, with the aim of everyone receiving an equal education, the Chinese education system is experiencing changes, mostly in the Western direction. “Now more and more undergraduates can have opportunities to study abroad. For example, over half of my classmates majoring in English will go overseas in their senior year,” Amy told me. So as for the future of Chinese education, perhaps more universities will want students to make the world their major. This article was written by Zhu Zhiwei. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Green Shanghai