How China Is Addressing Education Inequality

How China Is Addressing Education Inequality



In China, children are subjected to severe educational pressures that begin while they are very young. "In kindergarten, children already need to spend the entire weekend memorising pinyin," a Shanghai mother said of her six-year-old child's schooling needs. Pinyin is a way of romanizing letters based on their tones and Standard Chinese pronunciations. "Then there's arithmetic, which encompasses addition and subtraction up to 20," she says, "as well as English." She claims that without this preparation, a student's chances of "catching up" to other pupils and the following grade's curriculum are slim.

However, "catch[ing] up" with the educational curriculum may not be sufficient. These children also attend weekly after-school piano, computer programming, Mathematical Olympiad, and chess—both Chinese and foreign varieties—to "go ahead," as the mother puts it.

According to responses to a Chinese Ministry of Education questionnaire filled out by teachers, parents, and students in June 2021, waking up at 6:40 a.m. and going to bed at 10:30 p.m. six days a week has become common practise among Chinese children, with 67 percent of primary and middle school students not meeting the national sleep requirements—which are "nine hours per night for primary school students and eight [hours] for middle school students."