Chinese Students' Cheating Techniques - Don't Try at Home

corbettw writes "According to a wire report on Yahoo! news, competition for university admissions in China are so intense that people are coming up with new, and sometimes dangerous, ways to cheat. The methods include microscopic earphones and wireless devices. In some cases, students are required surgery to recover from their cheating attempts. If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

Comments

another good idea.

[sjwt]

" If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?

Re:another good idea.

[nelsonal]

With schools you can open as many as you want but without professors it's just going to be babysitting for college students.

Re:another good idea.

[Lord of Hyphens]

Simple, it's more fun for the Gov't this way!
Besides, if they manage to off themselves (or each other) in their attempts, more room for the rest of the applicants.

Re:another good idea.

[virg_mattes]

Printing money (what you really mean is inventing monetary value, since physically printing money doesn't do anything to the economy) requires that you devalue the monetary value you currently have, since the money supply represents a "set amount" of value, and forcing it around to more people cuts into the value of what each unit holds. The same is not true of univeristies. That is, we're very far from the situation where opening another univeristy will so crowd the market for higher education that the value of an education will decline due to the presence of more of them. Therefore, your analogy is false, because it's based on a bad assumption about marginal value. They should consider opening more schools so more of their people can get a higher education without resorting to cheating.

Virg

Re:another good idea.

[sjwt]

and where do they find the stafff for trippling there university system overnight? they either overcrowed the calsses, or they higher underqulified staff, which devalues the education that the studentes recive.

Re:another good idea.

[CastrTroy]

Exactly, because in China, I'm sure the schools are all state run (they are communist). They open as many as they can. They also maintain high standards so that people graduating with be worth something. If you give everyone a degree, a degree is no longer worth anything. On a side note, they may just be better off studying. Most of the time when I was in university, I saw many people trying to cheat, and thinking up these elaborate schemes, or spending hours typing notes into their programmable calculator. If they spend half the time they did cheating on just doing the work, the probably could have gotten at least a B average. People would spend hours running around the engineering building looking for answers to an assignment that could be completed in 45 minutes.

Re:another good idea.

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

now if only we could print senses of humor in the same way the GP joked about printing money. . .

Re:another good idea.

[miskatonic alumnus]

Since schools also produce professors, I don't see the problem.

Re:another good idea.

[jawtheshark]

If you give everyone a degree, a degree is no longer worth anything.

Tell that to the government of my country. That is *exactly* what they do at high school level. They actually say it: "No kid should leave school without a degree." With the result that the degrees aren't worth the paper they are printed on. *sigh*

Re:another good idea.

[Daengbo]

I can't talk about now, but when I lived in China twenty years ago, people were slotted for jobs. If you scored well on the tests, you went to a good university with a major decided for you and a job afterward, but if your scores were lower you went to a "normal" (teachers') college or just went straight to work. People then really didn't have any choice in the matter. Things may have changed some, but I doubt they turned 180 degrees.

Re:another good idea.

[b4upoo]

I've dealt with Iron Curtain scholars in the past and found that many were of the very highest ability. Even under the absurd communist regime in Romania many engineers of the first order were created. As an American I found that sort of a shock at first. It surprises me how ethnocentric I can be as I was even taken back by the ability of Canadian scholars. It seems that we are sort of brain washed to believe that we are somehow out front of the pack in all circumstances. We are not.

Re:another good idea.

[virg_mattes]

> and where do they find the stafff for trippling there university system overnight?

You know, I went back through my reply in great detail, and try as I might I can't find where I mentioned "overnight" anywhere in it. Could you point it out for me please, or are you busying yourself looking for the medication for that jerking knee?

Virg

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Yuan is pegged to the dollar, so they can invent as much monetary value as they like as long as no one discovers that it's not actually floating and the value will stay the same. Until someone finds out they were floating it and the Yuan crashes.

Re:another good idea.

[CastrTroy]

Would this really be that much worse than what we have in western countries. Currently, there's many people going into programs that don't have any jobs at the end. Or people going into something that they really don't have the brains to do. Lets face it. People are different, not everyone has the brain to be an engineer, or has the patience to work as a teacher, or has the physical ability to work as a labourer. If everyone was trained for a certain job (or if no training was required, given a job), then there would probably be a lot less people out of a job, or doing something below their skill level.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh!

Re:another good idea.

[Lord Apathy]

" If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

Because you need someone to dig the ditches.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

mod parent up; mod grandparent down to, say, 2

Re:another good idea.

[t3ch lawy3r]

Actually, there are diminishing marginal returns on the value of college degrees in China since there is a high-end job shortage. It is already the case that many students can't garner jobs comensurate with their degrees. Adding more students with degrees will only lower their expected value. Given that in the short-run, the demand for high-end labor is essentially fixed, there is a fixed amount of "value" so to speak for college degrees. Adding degrees, like printing more paper money, only lowers the expected value of a degree. China's problem is not a lack of higher education, it's a lack of high-end industry demand for advanced degrees. Hence the printing money analogy is pretty good.

Re:another good idea.

[Caffeinated Geek]

Just because you train someone and slap the title professor on them doesn't mean they can teach. I think everyone has had at least one teacher that they could not guess how they managed to keep a job. If they rush the production of teachers just to open schools, the problem becomes worse.

Re:another good idea.

[Peeteriz]

With government-paid higher education you can only allow as many students as much you have money for, and you do contests to determine the students most suited for this government funding - just like in fully paid stipend/grant allocation in USA or UK.

Re:another good idea.

[Catbeller]

"And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?"

Thanks, Bill O'Reilly, for the neocon view. Never invest in a better world, 'cause it's useless and a crutch to the poor. Let, say, McDonalds open private academies to train the proles for their true place in life. Are there no workhouses?

And by the way, we're taking back all those highways we built with public monies to move the big asses of university graduates around for free. After all, why not print money and give it to them, if free roads work sooo well?

And BTW, Bush is printing and borrowing money, the biggest amounts in history, not to solve poverty, but to finance tax cuts for the wealthy and build a police state around the world. It apparently is okay to print money to solve wealth?!

Re:another good idea.

[Austerity Empowers]

If you print more dollars, all dollars become worthless. Education increases in value as more people have it. There may be a threshold where building another school would only appeal to those whose commitments to education are so low that they wouldn't receive any benefit, but clearly that's not the case in China if people are hurting themselves just to get admission.

Some may just be cheating for a free ride, but I clearly remember the SATs here. The ones I remember trying to come up with the most exotic cheating methods were the ones religiously doing the "1600 SAT questions" guides and were the people that would already have scored better than 90% of their peers. The difference between a 1600 and a 1500, in their minds, was going to mean the difference between MIT and a serving fries at Micky D's.

Re:another good idea.

[Pirogoeth]

It's kind of like overexpansion in baseball. There's too many teams right now and there are over a hundred players on major league rosters who would have been only good enough for the minors before.

You could suddenly fund a hundred new schools, but the staff you'd get for them would have to come from a pool that was never good enough to teach at the current schools, lowering the quality of education.

I'm sure that over time, quality professors could be developed, but "build more schools!" won't work as well.

Re:another good idea.

[Tiro]

There is DEFINITELY such a thing as academic credential inflation. There was no such thing as an MBA fifty years ago, yet people managed to run very large companies.

Re:another good idea.

[drsquare]

With schools you can open as many as you want

There are only so many decent professors to go round. They could open a thousand new universities, but people would still be putting microphones in their ears to get into the good ones.

Re:another good idea.

[mrchaotica]

The problem is that if you continue, you'll just end up with 100% of the population being professors and the economy will collapse because nothing gets done. In other words, I'm guessimg that China is intentionally limiting the number of students in University, probably for some economic purpose. I'm not saying that China is right or wrong about it, but there is some optimum percentage of the population that ought to be college-educated, and the rest (who would be doing vocational-type tasks) shouldn't be (according to the whole "command economy" philosophy they've got over there).

Re:another good idea.

[mrchaotica]

...or doing something below their skill level.

Or above their skill level, don't forget.

Re:another good idea.

[alienw]

You are completely, 100% wrong. There is a limited pool of talented and knowledgeable subject matter experts that are fit to be professors. In order to have a workable university system, this pool has to be concentrated at a small number of large and prestigious institutions. By lowering standards, you end up with a large number of mediocre institutions, all of which produce poor-quality product. The US has managed to combine the two approaches: there are a few dozen schools worth going to, and thousands of extremely mediocre ones. The only result of that is that a college education has become an overpriced equivalent of the high school diploma.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?

The reason is that that solution would be only half of the solution.

Printing more money where the number of consumer products is fixed only makes people compete more for the same number of items.

If you want to solve poverty, first you must agree on what constitutes poverty, and no you can't draw the line on the number on dollars. For the same amount of dollars a month by which you would be poor in New York, you would be insanely rich in Quito (the capital of Equador).

So you need to produce those items and then distribute them among the population. Well it turns out that all people would have to work or people would have to work longer hours. In Socialist countries behind the Berlin wall (also known as ex-comunist countries)people worked up to 30 hours a week, not more. Why? Because everyone had to work, and having a surplus of items is useless (except the needed stock), so people had to go home at 2 pm every single day. No people living in the streets.

There you go, you have a solution. Now the problem is that there is no incentive on producing more, on buying better machines, and the economy erodes, until it is too late to recover. Too late to recover, you think? Sure, everyone has a job, remember? There is no one willing to change jobs to produce the new machines. Also remember that there is only one employer, the government, so if your invention screws it up, no promotion, and worse yet, no job. There is no need to write a resume, there is no one to hire you. Starvation because of failure, not a pretty picture, huh?

Capitalism is the only way to go, the only problem is that new machines and new techniques mean that companies that have the new technology grab more market share at lower prices, leaving other less sofisticated companies bankrrupt, those companies fire their employees or they succumb like Enron. Unemployment is a direct consequence of capitalism, and a necessary one, because when you want to start a new business you need people looking for a job, willing to learn, etc.

So capitalist countries (mainly us, canada, australia and europe) invented something called "social security", in which all workers are required to pay a considerable part of their income, and unemployed people recieve the same amount.

What's the benefit? 4% to 10% of unemployment is considered normal, which means 100 workers pay for 4 to 10 unemployed. The government uses the extra money to build bridges and roads. Everyone is happy. Well, in practice people who pay social security are not so happy, but then it means that the demand for food and housing is steady, which means lower prices, also people in developed countries are not used to work for pennies like in undeveloped countries, simply because they can stay at home and make more. So companies in developed countries prefer to hire people from undeveloped countries who are willing to work for pennies.

It works like a charm. The demand is not going down, but the costs are certainly going down. In the end people in developed countries will have to raise the Social Security, so that only people from undeveloped countries work and pay Social Security and people stay home making more.

Look at Abu Dabi, where natives do not work, only aliens do the work. I think the future looks like that. That's exactly what happened in Ancient Rome, where Romans did not work, but only slaves. The problem was eventually that slaves rebelled and burned Rome, they ware called the Goths, who were Germanic tribes, the VisiGoths in Spain and the OstroGoths in Italy. And now the US, in which English is the first language, and English is a Germanic language, is going in the same avenue as the old masters.

It all began trying to go the other way (everybody free) and so far it has worked. The Roman Model is mindlessly coming again as a natural reaction to the action of freedom. Paradoxically, isn't it? It can happen in the follwing 100 yea

Re:another good idea.

[RockClimbingFool]

Mod parent up.

Since there are very few high end jobs, the competition is for the jobs. Its not about just getting into school, but getting into the best schools to get those few jobs.

There have been riots recently at Shenga University because the students there thought they would be getting degrees from the more prestigious Zhengzhou University. ( Quoted from the BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5098204.st m/ )

Re:another good idea.

[kimvette]

I was going to make a rude comment based on your spelling and imply there are obviously many unqualified teachers in schools already, but I see you're syldexic, er, xyldesic, uh, I mean dyslexic. ;) (I could not resist jumbling up the word dyslexic. No offense intended.)

Re:another good idea.

[Gulthek]

Ahh, the dream of the service-based society. Where all are educated, everyone has a degree, and all have jobs that pay well above average.

Re:another good idea.

[posdnous]

The problem is not that there isn't enough schools, the students don't want to go to ust jANY university. The students want to get into the TOP brand name universities, there-in lies the problem. It's a matter of employment, there are literally millions of unemployed university graduates in china, a university degree is the foot in the door for ANY white collar position.

Having a degree from a brand name university if almost the only ticket to a well paying job for most chinese. I mean you go to any office and the LOWEST most UNDERPAID person, usually the office boy will almost certinaly have a bachelors degree. University graduates are so common in china there is just not enough work for all of them. That's why you have to get into a brand name one.

Re:another good idea.

[Fred_A]

Ok but if they open a thousand universities and ten thousand new schools, it sounds like a great time to get in the microphone business... Or possibly into reconstructive surgery. Or both maybe. Ah opportunities !

Re:another good idea.

[jeremymiles]

According to the Times Higher Educational Supplement (I think you need a subscription).

Last year, colleges and universities enrolled 5.04 million students, nearly five times as many as in 1998. Yet over the next six months 60 per cent of new graduates will be unable to find work, as the number of graduates jumps 22 per cent from last year to more than 4 million, while the number of available jobs will have dropped to 1.66 million.

So, yep, it looks like you're almost right. It's not too many professors, it's too many graduates.

Re:another good idea.

[atomico]

" If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

That's what they did in my country! (somewhere in Southern Europe)

The result: very low academic standards, sky-high graduate unemployment, entry-level salaries for most professions (lawyer, doctor, engineer; programmers have it even worse!) lower than for most manual workers.

Re:another good idea.

[phaggood]

> there is some optimum percentage of the population that ought to be college-educated

By that logic, there's probably already a great enough percentage of the planet's 6B souls that have college degrees, so the rest of us should just stay at home and watch TV.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The orginal analogy is good, I beleive that there are good intrinsic returns in China to higher education, but this is not necessarily so. Spence's Nobel prizing winning on-job market signalling suggests that education would be valuable just as a signalling tool http://www.answers.com/topic/michael-spence even if the education does not cause people to be more productive. In short, more degrees = printing money => reducing marginal value of signalling.

Re:another good idea.

[Zemran]

And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?

or rather, in this case, why not just post them a degree as if they are cheating it is not the lack of universities that is the problem but their inability to perform at the required level to get in. More universities or more money will not make them better unless of course maybe the money could be spent on better high school education. I work in high school ATM and most students do not do well because they cannot be bothered to do the work so no matter how much is spent they will not perform any better. I personally think that we should fail more at high school while they are young enough to learn from that. Because, currently, they know that the teachers will carry them through they get progressively more lazy and then the shock of university where no one carries them is too much for them. Universities are already being dumbed down, even in China, to get more degrees out the door. I think that this just makes the future look less bright.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

And why don't we simply produce more food to "solve" starvation?

Ah ha! Because social issues such as poverty and starvation have nothing to do with supply and demand. So please don't confuse the issue by attempting to draw such a comparison. All you do is waste your time, and annoy the pig.

Re:another good idea.

[Ryan Amos]

All of your points are totally correct. However, none of it means anything when trying to get a job where they care about a degree. What a college diploma seems to mean these days is "I was able to keep my life from falling apart for 4 years, I'm a stable person!" Of course, 7 year graduation rates for college freshmen are around the 50% mark at most schools, so that may be more of an achievement than it sounds.

And we need the American university system, if only for the reason that our public school system doesn't teach people enough. I had never had a history class that said anything bad about America (they were taught from the textbooks purchased by the state government, what do you expect?) I never had a chemistry or physics class that taught more than the most elementary calculations.

Our public school systems are not producing adults who can compete in a global work force, so we need the exact kind of university system we have: a couple really prestigious places, and a whole lot of "teaching colleges." Last I heard, only about 25% of Americans had a 4-year college degree, so it's not quite so ubiquitous to be meaningless. If anything, we need MORE universities that cater to the lowest common denominator: not everyone can go to Yale, but everyone should be able to get an education, even if it is from community college.

Re:another good idea.

[mrchaotica]

Pretty much, yeah, except that the rest of us should get fast-food and unskilled-labor jobs instead of slacking off.

I never said the system was fair, just efficient.

Re:another good idea.

[tfarrell67]

All that intelligence and yet too stupid to appreciate sarcasm. Or could it be that you simply have way too much time on your hands?

Re:another good idea.

[the web]

Either you're a product of said system, or you just don't want to say the name of your country! I hope the latter!

Re:another good idea.

[el cisne]

This is my experience as well, not personally, but from my wife and friends who grew up in mainland China. If you scored well on the test in high school, you could go to university, if not, you could go to some 'lesser' school, or go right to work. Often you could take over your parent's job wherever they worked, or you could get set up to work someplace else, espcecially if you know someone that knows someone, etc.

But basically if you don't score well enough on the exam, you don't go.

Getting into a university there is not as easy as it is in US, although US doesn't exactly take 'walk ins', either.

If you can get in to a decent-to-good university, get a degree, you have a chance at getting into a graduate program in another country, (US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, etc), maybe even with a sufficient scholarship, and later land a job with a company in that country and eventually get naturalized. It is 'apparently' deuced difficult for a non-university grad to get a student visa to an undergrad program in the US. You might get admitted, but that in no way means the US consulate will grant you a visa. If you get into some grad program where they are going to fund you, it is easier to get a visa from the US consulate.

Re:another good idea.

[Lockz]

Physically printing money doesn't do anything to the economy? If the government printed out five billion dollard and gave it to me, that wouldn't do anything? I'm sure that the influx of cash to my local economy might have a little affect, can we say inflation?

Re:another good idea.

[Ubergrendle]

A more appropriate Heinline quote (paraphrased from memory):
"The society that values the artist over the plumber merely because art is more noble, has neither good art nor good plumbing."

Re:another good idea.

[Enonu]

Exactly. Only the Alpha students can have degrees. The Betas and lower should only consider jobs that correlate to their position in life. Too many alphas might actually try to change society to have more high-end jobs, and at that point the goverment would have less power. Nope, we certainly can't have that.

Re:another good idea.

[Marc2k]

With a total of 1.3 Billion people, I think they've got that covered.

Re:another good idea.

[ajs]

what you really mean is inventing monetary value, since physically printing money doesn't do anything to the economy

Ah... no. Printing money can cripple an economy. Of course, you can say that it's not the printing of the money, but the distribution of it, but that's a semantic point that is widley circumnavigated in disucssion of economic policy, since it is assumed that "printing more money" doesn't involve storing it in a warehouse. Thus, someone (or many entities such as banks, foreign investors or government agencies) will be recieving this money, and they will then have increased purchasing power relative to the rest of the economy. This devalues the purchasing power of those who already hold currency and can result in near-instantaneous inflation.

Re:another good idea.

[neoform]

How fast do they produce more professors?

If the timeframe is less than an election term then, sure expect that sort of thing to work. Then again, this is China we're talking about..

Re:another good idea.

[iminplaya]

Ah, the old "Without poverty, who will do the work?" theory. Nothing more natural than using starvation to motivate people. Very successful it is, all over the world. We have to convince everybody that there is not enough. To think that some believe that knowledge is a limited resource, to be metered out only to those that are worthy. Pretty freaky I think. So far, the only unrenewable resource I have figured out is time. Everything else recycles. Funny that we actually choose to live that way as it becomes more obvious that we could all live like kings. I mean, it IS why we build machines, right? So we don't have to subjugate people any longer? Yes, I know. There are some who would feel naked without that power over others. What can I say? Power is a chick magnet. That "alpha male" thing works just as good with humans as it does with other animals. So let's all muzzle up and see if that power rubs off on us.

Re:another good idea.

[gwayne]

On the contrary, this is basic supply and demand. Just like fiat money--the more educated/skilled workers you produce, especially where demand is higher for (cheaper) workers than existing (more expensive) ones, the lower the value of those educated/experienced/skilled workers. Just look at the outsourcing fiasco.

Eventually, as more educated/skilled workers come into the market, the balance between the haves and have-nots equalizes, driving up consumer demand and prices (India). Demand for cheaper labor increases (Asia). It's a vicious circle.

Re:another good idea.

[edmicman]

Careful, that's a slippery slope you're approaching!

Re:another good idea.

[melandy]

Since schools also produce professors, I don't see the problem.

That's already answered by the GGP's inflation analogy. If you just print more money to fix poverty, then you devalue the money. Do it enough, and the money becomes worthless. Produce more graduates, and you devalue education in the same way. The labor market would become so flooded with graduates that a degree in $foo would be meaningless.

Re:another good idea.

[electricalchemist]

As stated before, more money = less value, more education does not equal less value(in most cases.) As for the "few" high end (requiring education) jobs available, consider the thought of perhaps becomming a professor at one of the new universities? hmmm high end job that MIGHT actually require a degree, so the more schools that are opened the more jobs available. That doesn't include the concept of non education jobs available at the such as the IS/IT jobs, electrical work, construction jobs, maintenance, clerical, and other such positions that would become available. Given not all of these require degrees, but they would stimulate the economy, and allow for potentially more business operations to become available with the education recieved. Perhaps a "high end job" isn't available yet, but that doesn't mean that the future graduates can't be innovative enough to create a new technology, begin production, and eventually mass production causing a factory, or office to be opened creating more jobs. In short.... don't be silly, money and education are completely different. P.S.

Re:another good idea.

[smokeslikeapoet]

You have it completely wrong. People say that we will always need ditch diggers and toilet cleaners. With technology we've invented backhoes and ditch witches, toilet cleaning additives and tank drop-ins that keep toilets clean much longer.

The economic issue in play is the Chinese Government that is rationing education for their own benefit. Privatizing and deregulating the educational process will introduce economic competition that will spur growth in the education industry and increase the supply.

A private system would be detrimental to the totalitarian state that is the Peoples Republic of China. Keeping people dumb keeps them under your thumb. America's elementary and secondary educational system is run in much the same way. Privatization of education is the only real solution.

Re:another good idea.

[poot_rootbeer]

Education increases in value as more people have it.

Does it?

Employers today expect every applicant to have a bachelor's degree, even for work that might not have required a high school diploma a couple of generations ago. Many workers today are finding it a barrier to career advancement if they don't have a masters degree, or even a doctorate.

Re:another good idea.

[GigG]

+5 Insightful. PLEASE, let this be on my meta-mod list.

Re:another good idea.

[cg0def]

OK so you seem to have some command of economic term though it is rudimentary at best. Unless you are a specialist in Chinese economy ( and I highly doubt that ) your statements are full of hot air. Unless there is a shortage of a specialist of a certain kind ( and this is not te case in most countries ) them producing even 1000 more specialist ( read graduates from a given major if you wish ) would create unemployment and hence would devalue the preexisting workers. You can basically lower the wages as a whole and you will still find enough people to work for you even at the lower price point. No think about the fact that most Chinese schools are pretty large and that in order to solve the current problem you would need to open up at least 50,000 more places ( each year ). Yes China is growing economically really fast but 50,000 - 100,000 more graduates each year would put some serious strain on the economy ( education in China is paid for by the government ). There is a lot more that free markets working here and the Chinese educational system is nothing like the American one. So I'd suggest that you don't run your mouth next time and first do some research. Also solving a cheating problem is a pretty huge task by itself. Almost in all cases you cannot just remove the reason why people are driven towards cheating so the solution would have to involve some change in the way people think. Only morale changes take a very long time. Also if you have enough money to pay for some high-tech toys then buying books is no problem for you and the rest is really up to the person. If you want to go to college you can sit down and learn. So this whole article should be more about the lengths to which lazy Chinese go in order to avoid studying and still go to college.

Re:another good idea.

[climberkid]

I believe the parent was being sarcastic...

Re:another good idea.

[dwandy]

Education increases in value as more people have it.

That statement is both true and false. (this assumes we are looking at the economic value of an education, not the 'I got the degree for me, not for a job' crowd...)
While the economy is, over the long term, stronger with a better education system, the relative value to an individual decreases as more people have it.
30yrs ago it was enough to have a generic BA to get a job, now a BA is just about worthless, and higher management positions want not just some kind of business specific degree, they want a Masters.
In other words: to the individual, the value of a degree has diminished. All other things being equal, you need more education to achieve the same position.

Re:another good idea.

[petermgreen]

you have demonstrated that the ammount of menial labour needed to get a level of service/productivity is decreasing but backhoe drivers and factory workers (making those toilet bowl additives) don't need degrees either. Neither do most jobs in things like retail.

what i'm not convinced of is increasing the ammount of subsidized education (and afaict getting unsubsidized education has always been relatively easy if you have the money, though you may have to go abroad in some countries at the university level) and thus leading to more highly educated people than can be absorbed (china already has this problem, thats why people are fighting so hard to get into its top universities rather than just into university at all) is benificial economically.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you build more schools, you'd just have the same situation as in the US... where everyone and their pet has a college education... and nobody wants to work in a factory/manufacturing... that form the base of any economy.

Re:another good idea.

[element-o.p.]

Quote: That is, we're very far from the situation where opening another univeristy will so crowd the market for higher education that the value of an education will decline due to the presence of more of them...

Well, not exactly. Think about it. There was a time in our nation's history where a high-school education was above average. Then, as more people began earning a high-school education, it became the standard, rather than the exception. Now, a four-year degree from college is the norm. How many *good* jobs are available with only a high-school diploma on your resume?

The same thing happened with IT certifications. When too many people began earning MCSE's, Microsoft decided they needed to raise the bar so the MCSE "meant something". Likewise with Cisco and the CCNA.

While the money<-->universities argument may not be entirely accurate, there is some degree of parallel. As a credential becomes more commonplace, it does, in fact, become devalued.

Re:another good idea.

[irm]

"Education increases in value as more people have it."

You've got to be kidding me. More people finish high school now than 50 years ago, and as a consequence a high school diploma is now insufficient in the job market. One can easily see a similar trend occuring at the undergraduate level: BAs and BScs are a dime a dozen now, and the only way to signal to the market that your skill set has value is to pursue more education.

Without exception, the more common a resource, the lower its value.

Re:another good idea.

[Cylix]

Welcome to Boston, MA

Re:another good idea.

[Bastard of Subhumani]

The problem is not that there isn't enough schools, the students don't want to go to ust jANY university. The students want to get into the TOP brand name universities

Well build more TOP universities, then. Do I have to do all the thinking round here?

Re:another good idea.

[Maradine]

If you print more dollars, all dollars become worthless.

In the Spirit of Science, I accepted your challenge. However, all my high-quality color laserjet will produce are sheets of paper that state "Please hold your position while our quality specialists triangulate your printing problem." Maybe I should move to high-quality inkjet?

Re:another good idea.

[gfxguy]

Right, because when we all have college degrees, the robots will do the manual labor anyway. Plumbing will become self-healing, roofs and roads will be self-repairing, buildings will build and paint themselves! Robot tractors will simply pull containers through the fields while fruit and vegetables just leap into it.

Interestingly, many people take jobs to do these things because they feel obligated to work because they can, not because someone is threatening them with starvation; they feel obligated to not leech off society if they don't have to. Some people actually feel guilty taking money from others because they are not pulling their own weight. They are not doing it to feed someone elses power trip.

Re:another good idea.

[Moderatbastard]

It's a matter of degree (if you'll pardon the pun). Increasing the number of graduates by 5 or 10% might not make much difference. Doubling the numbers will.

So, insightful my arse.

Re:another good idea.

[mrchaotica]

It's not that some people have to face poverty and starvation, it's that -- pretty much by definition -- not everyone can be a leader (and I mean that in the sense of lead engineers, cutting-edge research scientists etc., not just politicians or managers). For the concept of "leadership" to mean anything at all, there have to be followers. So then you might say, "well, just do away with 'leadership' by making everyone a leader," which would be reasonable except that some people will always be more capable than others.

In other words, there will always be the "haves" and "have nots;" it's just that what those terms mean depends on the prosperity of the civilization. For example, here in the US we've progressed to the point where being a "have not" means only owning a regular TV instead of an HDTV and working in the service industry (e.g. fast food) instead of being a "professional." It's still a far cry from being an impoverished subsistence farmer or something, though!

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spain? Just guessing from the nickname, email, and web address. Also I lived in Spain and his description matches what I knew of Spain.

Spain was under an opressive regime for 50 years ending in the 1970s, so they do have some economic catching up to do.

They do have a good football squad though...

Re:another good idea.

[1u3hr]

I mean you go to any office and the LOWEST most UNDERPAID person, usually the office boy will almost certinaly have a bachelors degree. University graduates are so common in china there is just not enough work for all of them.

What a load of bullshit. Graduates may not get the jobs they'd like, but they are certainly NOT common. See these Unesco figures for the number of students enrolled in tertiary education as a proportion of the tertiary school-age population. In 2002, China's ratio was 16%, compared to 83% for the US, 51% for Japan, for example. Whatever offices you're visiting (Fortune 500 branches?) are extremely untypical of China as a whole.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

"over there" huh? And what do we have here? Do you really see a massive push for educating America's lower masses? I mean, beyond the smoke and mirros of congress? What do you think illegal immigration is really about? In fact, most of the world has (albeit to a lesser degree in many places) the same requirement for different tiers of educated people.

Re:another good idea.

[posdnous]

Graduates may not get the jobs they'd like, but they are certainly NOT common. See these Unesco figures for the number of students enrolled in tertiary education as a proportion of the tertiary school-age population. In 2002, China's ratio was 16%, compared to 83% for the US, 51% for Japan, for example

Read your own figures, ratios are all very nice and pretty, however multiply those ratios by their repespective countries populations.

ooo, China has 1.3 BILLION people, and it's economy is smaller than that of the UK, where are all the jobs?

American economy is 5 times the size of the chinese one and Japan is twice the size.

American population is 1/5 the size of China, and Japan's is about 1/9.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

While were on the subject, let's solve poverty. Let's raise the minimum wage to $20.00 an hour. The price of everything rises, to the point where those in poverty are no better off and those who were better off are now at the poverty level. That's exactly the same thing that happens when you fire up the printing presses, since our money is no longer backed by gold. Democrats are always spouting raising the minimum wage when what they need to set is a maximum wage. CEO's who make 80 million another 100 million in stock options and perks then turn around through theft or fraud steal another 30 to 400 million need to be shot along with their board of directors, accountants and lawyers.

Re:another good idea.

[Opie812]

I think everyone has had at least one teacher that they could not guess how they managed to keep a job

Ironically enough, in my case its been Chinese profs that fit that profile.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how that follows. Are you saying that the only value of an education lies in increasing your finances? Does profit drive everything?

Re:another good idea.

[drmancini]

As someone who was born in the former Soviet block I must let you in on a secret. Not everything in communist countries must submit to the laws of economy, logic or physics for that matter. A loose translation of one of communist soviet mottos goes like this: We shall rule the winds and rain! Don't try to argue that this causes that and that has to be because so ... Almost everything under communist rule is centrally planned. A very good 20 year-old example from my home country is that someone in the central planning committe has created a plan of banana imports. That amount of bananas was purchased one week before Chritmas and noone cared that people were qeueing up for hours to buy bananas. Bananas were therefore available only that one week before Christmas and usually in short supply. Demand doesn't drive the supply! In communist regimes the regime fucks you!!! You'd have to see it to believe it.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, here in the US we've progressed to the point where being a "have not" means only owning a regular TV instead of an HDTV and working in the service industry (e.g. fast food) instead of being a "professional."

And doing without a vehicle, and doing without health care until it's an emergency, and not being able to afford your own home, and not being able to finance your childrens' education, &c.

Re:another good idea.

[Mister Whirly]

Danny Noonan: I've always wanted to go to college, but it looks like my folks won't be able to afford it.
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/

Re:another good idea.

[shimage]

You don't have to rush the production of teachers. Opening more schools makes the "pipes" wider, not shorter. And as was alluded to, this is a positive feedback system, so I don't see how you could possibly have a long-term shortage of professors. The issue is one of pacing, since you don't want to open up more schools than you can manage at ay given time.

Re:another good idea.

[naiv]

having a degree in china means that you can be turned down for that many more jobs. a bachelor's degree means that you get a better job in a factory or a mine.

Re:another good idea.

[Mister Whirly]

Um, don't you mean Tuttle, Oklahoma??

http://www.tuttle-ok.gov/

Re:another good idea.

[pete6677]

There are many talented public school graduates, and many good public schools. The problem is that we have a politically correct philosophy that everyone who attends for 12 years gets a diploma. No matter how little someone really tries, they can get a high school diploma just by showing up (and sometimes not even that). Therefore, a high school diploma is not useful for much other than getting into college. I shudder to think what will happen when a college education is considered to be a right that every young person is entitled to.

Re:another good idea.

[GravitySpec]

buildings will build and paint themselves!

You're not very far off... When I watched this on the Discovery Channel's "Extreme Engineering", they said that the three primary shafts would be autonomously constructed with a moving construction platform that would pull materials up as the shafts are constructed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_1000

Re:another good idea.

[1u3hr]

Read your own figures, ratios are all very nice and pretty, however multiply those ratios by their repespective countries populations.

You seem not to understand what a ratio is. Anyway, the point is that being a graduate in China is VERY rare still, (proprtionally, though in absolute terms there are millions of them; amongst the 1.3 BILLION population) your personal experience notwithstanding.

Re:another good idea.

[nasor]

In U.S. universities there is basically zero effort put into preparing people to teach college classes. One day a new grad student shows up to start their graduate school career and a week later they're standing in front of 40 undergrads trying to explain the difference between a joule and a watt. It's about the same with the actual professors; they generally just look at what sorts of research you've done and what school you got your PhD from, and as long as you can speak reasonably fluent english they don't worry about your teaching ability. It's certainly not a perfect system, but it seems to work well enough. There's no obvious reason why China's current universities couldn't produce more than enough professors to double or tipple their number of universities in a few years.

Re:another good idea.

[sgt_doom]

Hey!!!! There's only a finite number of offshored American jobs to compete for, dude!

Pretty obvious, if you ask me.....

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

...and because they're a communist country that needs a large, dumb, worker class to build cheap widgets for american consumers.

Re:another good idea.

[Kismet]

This same sort of thing already happened in America in the early 1900's. President Wilson is on record for having said that America already had enough smart people, and what we really needed were more highly-trained automatons to serve the economy. That's one reason why our colleges are designed to get us good jobs working in a mass production economy - as MBAs and managers mostly. Colleges and universities in America don't produce highly literate individuals, only highly trained individuals. The ability to read words is only the first tiny step toward actual literacy.

An interesing side note to all of this is that our English word "Liberty" comes from the latin, "liber," meaning free. Liber is also the latin word for book.

If you consider that books and literacy contribute to the idea of liberty, you will understand why world economies can't actively promote such things as higher education (i.e. Liberal Arts eductation). How will the economy survive if the population can't be endowed with artificial needs? How would marketing possibly work on individuals in possession of the ability to reason? How could employees be recruited for a mass production economy? How can a mere one or two political parties hold sway over millions and millions of individuals who know how to think for themselves?

In America, the idea of liberty was replaced with a "way of life," which is really just another way to say "the economy." Unfortunately, we still think of "liberty" and the "American way of life" as the same thing. This confusion (born of illiteracy) is unfortunate because it becomes a tool for some politicians to build rhetoric to support their view of America as an exporter and protector of liberty - but I digress.

America's economy needs lots of MBAs and managers. China's economy doesn't. Both are equal servants under the Invisible Hand.

Re:another good idea.

[nasor]

It is you who seem to be missing the point. There are only roughly about 1/5 as many "white collar" jobs in China as there are in the U.S. So, even though the percentage of Chinese workers with college degrees is much lower, once you take the massive differences in population into account there are far fewer white-collar jobs per degree-holding worker than in the U.S..

Re:another good idea.

[RipTides9x]

I actually have a friend that digs ditches for a living. Funny thing is, out of all the people I know, he makes the most money. He's not the sharpest crayon in the box by any means, but he is a Good ol' Boy and has connections with almost every contracter that works in our local metro area. He started in his late teens with a rented ditch witch and a beater pickup truck and now in his 30's he owns enough equipment to keep 5 crews going constantly, has paid off his home completely, and just built a workshop and started a small local dirt-track race team. This is compared to other friends of mine who have college degrees, 2nd mortgages on their homes to pay off school loans, and live month to month trying to keep up with the joneses.

Frankly, I'm wishing I never listened to my mom's advice when she would ask me "Do you want to grow up to be a ditch digger?". These days ditch digging seems to be paying off a lot better than my engineering degree.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful??

Centrally planned economies don't work like market economies, guys.

Re:another good idea.

[Kelev]

Section 1:
"Graduates may not get the jobs they'd like, but they are certainly NOT common. See these Unesco figures for the number of students enrolled in tertiary education as a proportion of the tertiary school-age population. In 2002, China's ratio was 16%, compared to 83% for the US, 51% for Japan..."

Section 2:
"China has 1.3 BILLION people, and it's economy is smaller than that of the UK, where are all the jobs? American economy is 5 times the size of the chinese one and Japan is twice the size.
American population is 1/5 the size of China, and Japan's is about 1/9."

Section 3:
"Read your own figures, ratios are all very nice and pretty, however multiply those ratios by their repespective countries populations.
You seem not to understand what a ratio is. Anyway, the point is that being a graduate in China is VERY rare still, (proprtionally, though in absolute terms there are millions of them; amongst the 1.3 BILLION population) your personal experience notwithstanding."

With all due respect, it would seem that the idea of a ratio is perfectly understood by the person who posted. As stated with, "...the number of students enrolled in tertiary education as a proportion of the tertiary school-age population..."

So, China has 16 out of ever 100 people who fit the above criteria going to college. All well and good. The United States is at 83 out fo those 100, so again, great news. Japan is at 51 out fo those 100. We all understand this, but what was introduced into the discussion is the question of how many college-enrolled people may be NEEDED in the current economy.

This is not a linear equation, and if you come up with a good one, you'll get an award from Sweden I'm sure, but let's take a quick and dirty look:

China's economy is 1/5 that of the US economy. The US is - for the most part - a tech and service industry with a great need for higher level education. China, while modernizing, is not modernized YET, and as such needs less people in the equiv. roles. For the sake of pure argument, let's assume a mirror image economy, but just smaller, and do easy math.

China econ x 5 = US econ
china college rate = 16%
16 x 5 = 80

That's very close, all things considered, to the US totals.
Reintroduce the idea that China is not modernized at this time, and the ECONOMIC need for more educated people becomes less... probably much less than the 3% our calculations show.

Of course, this data can also show someting else:

By keeping the supply lower (# of college spots), only the most deserving get in (# of applicants), and thus the quality fo the final product (graduates) is higher.

Who needs a degree to work a mine, work in a factory, or plow a field? When China's economy advances enough, there is little doubt that they'll increase the number of spots available.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The same is not true of univeristies. That is, we're very far from the situation where opening another univeristy will so crowd the market for higher education that the value of an education will decline due to the presence of more of them."

You clearly have not done any 'quota restricted' degrees. In many cases the simple reason for limiting the number of graduates to any degree is to ensure that you only obtain the top 2% or 3% of the educated population, either to ensure quality of graduates or to ensure the survival of the that industry. When universities start opening their gates to more medical students the result is ALWAYS a decrease in the quality of the course provided. Instead of forcing the students to obtain grades UPTO the level dictated the institutions start 'dumbing' down their courses to get the numbers through (this is the business model that m$ won the OS wars with). Yeah sure you can argue that this is a regulatory problem, but its simple numbers. More graduates = more profit.

On the other hand you can also consider the economy. Has it ever occured to you to question why the Governments in many contries restrict the number of students allowed to graduate from the legal profession? From an economic point it is to create an artificial barrier to entry which protects the integrity of that economy, not simply because you want to ensure that those getting a law degree are actually capable of doing the work to the appropriate level, but also because you are talking about people who are studying something that take 5-7 years from their life. That is 5-7 years earning below the minimum wage, and substantially less than those that started working in the trades. If you are starting any degree that will take you the better part of a decade to complete you need some guarantee that there is actually some economic benefit to compensate you for that time. I know when you think of lawyers the first thing that comes to mind is that they are rich, unfortunately for lawyers this is just a hollywood myth. In most cases you actually earn more money waiting tables during your studies than you will do in your first 3-4 years working as a lawyer. And even after this period your rate of pay is only guaranteed to rise to the level of any middle class working position already provided in the economy. We are talking about 8-12 years of your life working below that of decent workers. In Australia the absurd situation occurs where a Law graduate will earn $40-50k as a graduate, an IT graduate $50-60k, and a mechanic who did his apprenticship in 2 years can earn $80-100k a year. If any more law graduates flood this market then they really have no other choice than to take up an apprenticship and abandone their 'higher learning'. Hell im already reconsidering my studies, and I got into law.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Awful analogy!

Maybe it's because there's no such thing as education inflation?

Re:another good idea.

[Photar]

I don't know about the uni you went to but at mine they waved the "reasonably fluent english" requirement.

Re:another good idea.

[miskatonic alumnus]

The problem is that if you continue, you'll just end up with 100% of the population being professors ...

Please enlighten us as to the logical gymnastics required to reach that conclusion. Do you assert that universities only produce professors? Or do you assert that eventually every graduate will return to a university at some point to take up a career in teaching? Brilliant, simply brilliant.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

We had a quantum physics lecturer who didn't seem to be able to annunciate m and n clearly. He also scrawled in some kind of barstardised cursive, so you couldn't really tell the difference there either. Kinda makes life hard when the whole course uses tensor arithmatic with i,j,m,n as the indicies!

We complained. He got upset and scrawled a hugh n next to a huge m on the blackboard "See emma and enna!". Thing is, they were a foot and half high, but you still couldn't tell them apart.

Re:another good idea.

[knowledgeguru]

Well whats so hard about building brand-name univerities?

Re:another good idea.

[tbannist]

Strangely enough, most the unveristy students with the least ability to reason have been liberal arts majors.

Seriously, I think science and the scientific method is a very important part of what makes people free from irrationality. The simple belief that you can try things to see what works and what doesn't often seems trivial and unimportant, but it's amazing how the lack of that simple concept can totally cripple someone's ability to live freely.

The American obssession with employment is a result of the Great Depression. It became the goal of the United States to prevent such a man-made catastrophe from ever happening again. It became the national goal to ensure that there would always be jobs for the people, and it shapes the major policies of the U.S. government. It's all about the economy because it's what produces the jobs. Every great empire has a mission, a goal, an ideal. For the United States as a whole it has been getting as close to 0% unemployment as feasible since the 1930s.

Re:another good idea.

[QMO]

In U.S. universities there is basically zero effort put into preparing people to teach college classes.

My graduate math program focused very heavily on preparing the students be able to teach college classes. Possibly in part because teaching is such a good way to learn. What I know about other graduate programs suggests that mine was atypical, but not close to unique.

Re:another good idea.

[Abcd1234]

Actually, it's the trades, in general, that can be quite lucrative, assuming you're willing to work hard and put in the effort. Thanks to the public crush on post-secondary degrees, the number of people entering the trades has dwindled significantly, despite the constant need for them. Heck, here in Edmonton Alberta, Canada, we have a massive shortage of skilled and unskilled trades, to the point where there's construction boot camps popping up, in order to try and fill the need.

Re:another good idea.

[mrchaotica]

It's called "figurative speech." The point wasn't that they literally all become professors, it's that they'd all try to pile on to the occupations that require higher learning to the exclusion of everthing else, which just wouldn't work. I just used the example of professors because that's what the people I was replying to were talking about.

Re:another good idea.

[mrchaotica]

Exactly: everything will become automated and all the manual labor-type tasks will be done by robots... and the "have-nots" will be the ones fixing the automation systems and robots when they break. (The "haves" will be the ones designing the systems and robots in the first place.)

Re:another good idea.

[zCyl]

Keeping people dumb keeps them under your thumb. America's elementary and secondary educational system is run in much the same way. Privatization of education is the only real solution.

Yeah, private education will really help the oppressed in America to be able to climb out of their poverty and despair, with only a minimal expense of paying out several times their annual salary in tuition each year.

Re:another good idea.

[MarkGriz]

"And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?"

I agree. I've been doing that for years and it totally solved my poverty problem.

Re:another good idea.

[4D6963]

And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?

Right, let's not build more universities in China. Actually, let's destroy most universities in other countries so we get to the same point as chinese students. Things are very fine this way in China, let's not change anything [/sarcasm]

Re:another good idea.

[elcid73]

No. But what else are you going to do? Find the best teachers and genetically clone them? That's a glass half empty statement in my opinion that can apply to virtually any profession. It doesn't mean China should not train teachers though. I think your parent had it right.

Re:another good idea.

[cpt_rhetoric]

I have to correct you though, it's more like "You need someone to sew the Air Jordans together or create the cute little umbrellas that go into my mai-tai"

Re:another good idea.

[Austerity Empowers]

All you are saying boils down to "Having a degree is becoming a requirement for getting a job". That's really not relevant. Businesses are parasites on the ass of society that at times have selective and self-debilitating attachment criteria. One such criteria is applicants needing to have a piece of paper, regardless of their general competance. That's an argument for another place and I do not entirely disagree.

The argument is that those individuals that actually want to be educated about something, also need access to the resources that will enable them and access to those resources in China is so competitive that people are injuring themselves to stay ahead. The combination of professors with a good grasp on subject matter, lab space/tools for experimentation on concepts, and quality text books are usually important, at least in science and technology. Building more schools would enable more people. Apparently the original post felt otherwise, he didn't care to explain why.

The value of that education, across a larger number of people, should be pretty evident. We're building more new, useful things faster than we were 100 years ago. It has to be related to the education opportunities available to more and more people. Our Ivy League schools are not producing the only sources of innovation, in fact not even the majority.

Re:another good idea.

[fishbowl]

>And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?

Why do that when your great great grandchildren are happy to give loans so the richest people today can be richer?

Re:another good idea.

[iminplaya]

You seem to believe that full mechanization is impossible. And it will remain that way as long as that attitude prevails. It's just more of that "man will never fly" routine. The things you mention already exist on a small scale. With the exception of the leaping fruits(but you never know what will happan with genetically modified foods). Your robot tractors would still have to pick them. When nano-tech and robo-tech are ready for prime time, you just might see "self-healing" roofs, pipes, roads, planes, trains, and automobiles. There such is a lot of talk about self-healing computers right now. If nature can do it, there's no reason to believe that we can't. The only thing holding us back is good old fashion politics, greed, lust for power, etc. We spend almost all of our energies keeping people down. This whole "you can't live here because you're not from here" thing must go. National borders are the last legal line of defense for economic stratification. All other methods, like race, sex, religion, etc. have been dutifully outlawed in the more progressive countries. It's time to tear down that last barrier.

Nobody should be obligated to work. Everybody should work based only on their desire. Those are the kind of people that produce the best results. And in a mechanized society there will never be a reason to obligate anybody. Let the machines pull the weight. That's why we invent them.

Now what I'm really wondering is that should we actually restrict education so that only the select few can get a degree. The information is there for all to see, but we spend an enormous amount of energy to restrict access. What in the world could possibly be wrong with allowing everybody to get a college degree?? What do people other than the powerful few have to gain by this? Is there some irrational fear of a well educated public? I can think of only one reason to do this. And that is to maintain a certain level of poverty. And the worse part is that so many people think that this is a good thing. That without poverty society would collapse. The only thing that will collapse is the current slave-master relationships we have maintained since the beginning. Well, I'm the freak that wants a P2P society. That was the idea(on paper anyway) behind the great American fairy tale. That all people were created equal. That our government, our juries were made up of our peers. I was never saying that there aren't people who like to work. But let's let them do it because they like it. Not because Mr. Rockefeller needs a maid. But if somebody actually wants to spend time cleaing his house, then more power to them. I would be the last one to stop them.

Re:another good idea.

[aevans]

If only there were a reliable way to gauge the demand for teachers and assure their quality. Then a totalitarian communist education system would totally rock!

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

My girlfriend is from Hong Kong and still has many ties back there. It turns out that the poster you are disagreeing with is not that far off from the truth. The Hong Kong area in particular is seeing a large influx of Chinese who went abroad for an education and are now returning "home" (She said something about China welcoming its sons and daughters home). MBAs are worthless there because too many people have one.

Re:another good idea.

[aevans]

Probably in larger part because practically the only thing you can do with a degree in math is teach math.

Re:another good idea.

[aevans]

If I'm a have and my self-painting robot house breaks, I'm going to pay someone a premium to fix it for me. They'll probably end up with a newer model self-painter than me if they work hard.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simiarly, why don't we dig more oil fields to solve energy crisis?

Re:another good idea.

[KarMax]

I'm sure that over time, quality professors could be developed, but "build more schools!" won't work as well.

Don't be so sure about that, in theory you are right, but you are overestimating the "laziness" of the average human being.
The number of good professors doesn't growth so much in the lasts decades (it will be good if i have some material to sustain this).
Maybe the solution will be a "re-write" of "Education Models" rather than feed the actual one.

Sadly the "University Education" is an Economy Model/market...
And I'm sure that if in China there are only 2.5M students is more a "Political/Economic Decision" than a lack of resources.

Re:another good idea.

[susano_otter]

One day a new grad student shows up to start their graduate school career and a week later they're standing in front of 40 undergrads trying to explain the difference between a joule and a watt.

Which they really shouldn't have any trouble doing, on account of how they've dedicated their lives to mastering that particular field of knowledge.

I mean, they've had the difference between a joule and a watt taught to them at least once in their life. They've devoted themselves to the study of the nature and application of joules and watts. They've probably produced several essays, experiments, theses, and reports based on their understanding of--and love for--the difference between joules and watts.

Seriously, any grad student should be able to explain the basic concepts of their major to undergrads. After all, they just lived through the process themselves, just last year...

It really seems like the problem isn't so much "universities not producing competent teachers" as it is rather "universities not producing enthusiastic subject-matter experts, given a sizeable pool of people who wanted to study that subject matter in the first place".

Re:another good idea.

[Mean Ass Troll]

not always true...

chinese population has been expanding until recently. therefore the "pool" you talk about should also grow.

the other caveat is, especially in a student body as driven as chinaa, korea, that the quality of the faculty is not as important as the work ethic of the students. these people are self starters, and many of them would be able to manage their own education with just a written syllabus.

another point is school selection should not focus on performance; it creates a culture of irrelevancy in education, with the importance being pushed closer to jumping thuough the hoops just to get that piece of paper. but this is an old sophist complaint...you can teach rich offspring how to avoid paying debts, but not how to think. this holds true today across cultures, with true problem solving being a very rare ability in any field.

so the short answer is yes, create more universities, even with lower "pool" / calibre faculty. while you don't need to accomodate all of the 9.5 million from tfa, a significant portion above the 2.6 million spaces should be able to earn their keep/ be worth investing with a university education.

at that point you just let the market separate the wheat from the chaff, newer schools will have poorer faculty in the beginning, and poorer students, as the top will choose their schools. however it is the same as in med school, it does not matter who is at the top or bottom of the class, once they graduate, they are all doctors, and they will be evaluated on real life performance.

lastly, in an undergraduate setting, the argument of low calibre professors barely applies, as the "professor" will most often give a one hour lecture to a hall of 500 or so students. that is the only contact these students have with the professor, except that some of them do show up for exams. the course may be designed by the professor, but it is most often taught by several TA's (read MA student/slave earning sub welfare wages and studying at the same time). even the papers and exams are marked by hired temps.

sure this may be a north american outlook on university, but cutting edge faculty only really makes a difference in doctoral, or research settings, since the level of knowledge required to be at the top of the field is much too high for all but the most gifted of undergrads. students with such gifts blow by undergrad so quickly and easily that shitty faculty is only as important as the janitor who mops the floor at night.

Re:another good idea.

[Shajenko42]

In my experience, this is correct. I had a hellish time trying to find any type of IT job. I showed up at an adjunct faculty "job fair", and after they confirmed that I had enough graduate hours, they hired me on the spot. This is in spite of the fact that I'd never taught before.

Re:another good idea.

[FurryFeet]

Well, yeah, but back then they didn't leverage their capacities into proactive strategies to focus on the customer and become world-class organizations. So, even though they were "very large companies", they never maximized their potential to achieve unparalleled success.

Re:another good idea.

[CherniyVolk]

Right, becuase when we all have college degrees, the robots will do the manual labor anyway.

Capitalism will NEVER let this happen. Sure, you can cite examples where entire automotive manufacturing plants are 100% robotic, sure you can point to the lack of "arithmeticians" who were once well employed for scientific obscene and tedious mathematics on account of computers and mainframes.

But, despite all these computers, robots and such, the fact remains the agricultural technology (as an example) that exists today could feed the entire world twice over with the most elaborate dishes ever prepared. Yet, famine is still very real and Americans and Europeans alike throw away upwards of 30% of the food served at home or at restaurants. People still go hungry, and why? We still have electric and water bills... why? You know why, I know why, and we WILL be able to afford a loaf of bread at someone elses expense. There isn't an industry in existance that hasn't reached +200% profit margins on any of their products. Computers do NOT cost anywhere near the amount you pay; and, to be frank, their progress is NOT indicative to the amount of profit overhead INTEL and Motorola/IBM receive from sales of hardware. In other words, the speed at which the IT industry would not increase if everyone currently paid (most importantly could pay) 800 dollars more per computer. This is a FACT. The profit margins have far exceeded prospective timelines for research and development.

Speaking of Agriculture... here is a PRIME example of why your assertions are blatantly wrong. We DO have the technology to remove every human from the field. Infact, some of the largest farmed land held by the major food corporations like Dole and Kraft ARE infact completely automated. Problem is.... those machines capable of doing that cost so much even the corporations don't even own them, they lease them. (You think the US Military has a lot of money? Did you know, the engines to drive the aircraft carriers are so expensive they are leased and not owned by the US Navy? General Motors makes the engines for the boiler engines.) So, such technology is available, and even applied and used. But, still, most of the crop comes largely from smaller farmers who will NEVER be able to afford such a tractor. And as long as engineers and the like demand high prices for such equipment (which those tractors are satellite tracted and guided), and as long as such devices are less than "mundane", they will continue to always be exorbantly priced. Welcome to the benefits of "niche" market appeal. If you find a sustainable "niche" market, sometimes, that's better than having a "monopoly".

So, no, more educated students, better faster development, more mundane technology to use.... humans will STILL be digging ditches. And the ONLY difference, is years ago someone digging a ditch knew why he was digging one; "I don't have a high school diploma, what else can I do?". Now.... you have people who have a rationale and logical complaint becuase they are well educated and they are still digging that ditch. See, they are often "terrorists". Welcome to the real world pal.

Re:another good idea.

[entropy123]

I just finished my PhD and find the whole notion of 'teaching' to be absurd. Before my PhD I thought a great deal of the notion...but after being in the system for awhile I see being a student in a whole new light. Students learn what they want to learn from who they want to learn it. In other words, good students are able to overcome bad teaching any day of the week. Trouble occurs when the teachers either do not know the students or have no contacts for advancing the good students to where they want to go. As far as 'learning', the important thing is that the process be sufficiently hard for the students to have achieved a minium competence level in the subject. I'd say the most important thing about a college or university is the social status and initial job contacts it entails; knowledge rarely matters in a position but your friends do. I say open up as many universities as the market will bear.

Re:another good idea.

[Kismet]

Seriously, I think science and the scientific method is a very important part of what makes people free from irrationality. The simple belief that you can try things to see what works and what doesn't often seems trivial and unimportant, but it's amazing how the lack of that simple concept can totally cripple someone's ability to live freely.

And I would say that philosophy produces the best thinkers. ;) Scientists tend to be dogmatic and closed minded, only experimenting with things easily observed in the known objective realms. Mathematics - that abstract reasoning which provides the basis for concrete science - can be used to experiment in many areas not yet directly open to empirical observation.

The American obssession with employment is a result of the Great Depression. It became the goal of the United States to prevent such a man-made catastrophe from ever happening again. It became the national goal to ensure that there would always be jobs for the people, and it shapes the major policies of the U.S. government. It's all about the economy because it's what produces the jobs. Every great empire has a mission, a goal, an ideal. For the United States as a whole it has been getting as close to 0% unemployment as feasible since the 1930s.

I think work towards that goal was in motion long before the Great Depression, probably since post-civil-war economists determined that if capital couldn't be spent on slave labor, it could at least buy wages. Rich men have always been afraid of what might happen if they couldn't fit everyone into a bell-curve and thus predict revenues for the indefinite future. Americans were once a people with independent livelihoods who lived in local economies and enjoyed free, unrestricted (well, not artificially restricted) enterprise between themselves. Hired labor was culled largely from among the youth (apprenticeships) until they could establish themselves in their own local economy. In those days we had literate people who didn't feel that candle making was beneath them (e.g. Ben Franklin's dad). Education didn't necessarily translate into occupation. People educated themselves because it was the mark of liberty to expand the mind and soul - for the sake of knowledge alone. In the 21st century, it's inconceivable that any highly educated individual would fill an occupation "beneath" his education. We have learned that work and school are one and the same.

America had the lowest unemployment rate when there were fewest jobs. The man-made problem is the idea of a "job." In order to have plenty of jobs, Leviathan must consolidate and legislate, and all must be willingly subjected to the King's order. Businesses don't really mind this non-free enterpirse (Capitalism it's called now) because it provides such wonderful predictability.

We had a clear glimpse into this in 1934 when William Wirt testified to Congress that he had been party to a plan authored by some in the Roosevelt administration to prolong - on purpose - the Great Depression. Why? So that government control over banking and lending could be permanently secured. Did the administration admit to this? Yes! But it was just a joke, they told us, and Wirt was laughed out of town by the media (who, he had testified earlier, were at the beck and call of the Roosevelt propaganda machine). That's the shape of the memory hole in America.

Re:another good idea.

[entropy123]

Sigh. It doesn't matter whether or not the American workforce can compete on any level with workforces in other country. Labor costs in India and China are something like 1/10 that of the United States and liability is virtually nonexistent.

Application of the seeming laws of human nature are in force here. When most people buy a DVD player they want the least expensive model with the most features. Now a few consumers might pay for more, but most definitely want the $25 cyberhome. Even though the workers in the US might be the high end Sonys...the purchasers are much more willing to buy the cheap cyberhome...

Disagree with me? I just graduated with a PhD in engineering from a topflight school and this was the typical thrust of the 'Where is engineering going?' seminars hosted by Deans and top professors from other (better) universities. "Your undergraduate students who want to work in technical fields are screwed. Lucky they went to a top university so they have a good % chance of being picked up by a consulting firm. Your grad students are prolly ok too...pity the poor suckers at the state schools with excellent engineering departments; they are mediocre people and will not prosper here..."

Re:another good idea.

[pdbogen]

GP had citations for his statistics. Where's your proof?

Re:another good idea.

[theboyhope]

Don't you mean `waived`? I assume you have no plans to become a teacher. ;]

Re:another good idea.

[whimmel]

Well, yeah, but back then they didn't leverage their capacities into proactive strategies to focus on the customer and become world-class organizations. So, even though they were "very large companies", they never maximized their potential to achieve unparalleled success.

For a second there, I thought I was back at AT&T c.1993.

Re:another good idea.

[Krakhan]

The NSA hires teachers!?!?

Re:another good idea.

[timeOday]

So? Look at the per capita GDP over the last 50 years (it's gone up a lot). Look at almost any measure of economic well-being (i.e average home size... they've gone up a lot). Look at longevity (much higher). Even simple, objective things like fastest 100 meter dash show continued improvement. In many ways, the old standars of performance don't cut it any more.

Re:another good idea.

[timeOday]

But Boston isn't a closed economy. How much different would it look without a billion Chinese slaving away behind the scenes to keep the shelves stocked?

Re:another good idea.

[shimage]

It really seems like the problem isn't so much "universities not producing competent teachers" as it is rather "universities not producing enthusiastic subject-matter experts, given a sizeable pool of people who wanted to study that subject matter in the first place".

The problem isn't that the teachers aren't enthusiastic about doing science; they wouldn't be professors (or even grad students) otherwise. There are many reasons why an ethusiastic subject-matter expert might not be enthusiastic about teaching. E.g., just because physics in general excites me doesn't mean I want to explain units to an uninterested audience. It's boring material. If you really are interested in a field, what's exciting is areas of active research, not issues of nomenclature.

Furthermore, the distinction between an interested and a disinterested one is vitally important. I don't know a single professor that wouldn't jump at the chance to talk about their research to an interested party. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the vast majority of teaching (at least in physics) involves first-year, pre-med/engineering type stuff. So you have a teacher that is totally bored with the material, and students interested in it simply because they need to maintain that magic 4.0 for med/grad school. I don't know about you, but I don't think (especially at that level) it's the teacher's responsibility to make their students interested in the material.

Lastly, I find that it is typically those most expert in a field that either cannot remember what was difficult about learning material for the first time, or are simply so "brilliant" that the way they think about things (paradigms, if you will) is not understable by lesser beings (i.e. undergraduates).

Re:another good idea.

[Photar]

Haaah :)

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

MBA programs are full of people who aren't good enough to actually get jobs. I was at the University of Michigan in the late 90's and the business school's enrollment went sky high when the dot com bubble burst and all those would-be entrepreneurs suddenly found themselves with nothing to do.

Re:another good idea.

[GWBasic]

Which is a good rationale for government-sponsored programs like space exploration; it creates jobs!

Re:another good idea.

[susano_otter]

Hrm.

You may be right about that. Maybe the problem is not producing good teachers after all. Thanks for your input. You've given me something to think about.

Re:another good idea.

[alienw]

Well, the problem is that there are far more people attending college. This devalues college degrees, for obvious reasons. All this is doing is turning colleges into remedial high schools. The first two years of college in the USA are basically remedial education. In many other countries, this stuff is taught in high school.

The solution is to improve high school education, not to lower standards in college. It's already become bad enough. It's possible to get a Ph.D in computer science and not learn a whole lot. Many people go to degree mills like ITT, Devry, or about 20 others, hoping that with a "college" degree they will finally be able to get a decent job. Obviously, nobody would hire a Devry graduate, so they get screwed. The only people that profit are the ones that pocket all the money that the government hands out. Even the real colleges are horrible. Employers pretty much expect a new graduate to spend a few years on the job before they actually learn everything they supposedly learn in college, and the quality of new hires is steadily diminishing. We have a real crisis, and nobody is paying attention.

Re:another good idea.

[Ex-MislTech]

And why dont we just print more money to solve poverty?

Well we print money for dumber reasons, and the US is on a fiat currency:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_currency

You must have missed the fact that china is the fastest growing mercantile power
in the world, and recently built the biggest dam on earth.

You also must not realize that the largest building on earth is being built
there as a giant warehouse for Wal-mart.

This is their rail system:

http://www.nordling.nu/schaefer/chinamap.gif

Their phone area code listing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_Code_(China)

Keep in mind they plan to go to the moon, and mine it.

School can be done at home, or in communal meeting areas.

Dual use facilities could be used, they will look for something
more efficient. Telecommute alone has great potential.

Here in the US the school system has for "some" students become more of a day care
than a place where chidren learn.

The US spends more per student per capita than any other country, but
we are no longer even in the top five world wide.

Adapt or die.

Ex-MislTech

Re:another good idea.

[BJH]

And your conclusion is wrong.
Opening new universities doesn't help, as everybody who wants a higher education can get one already.
People are cheating because they want to get into a *particular* university, not just *any* university.

Re:another good idea.

[baxissimo]

Well whats so hard about building brand-name univerities?

Well what's so hard about building a credible competitor to the iPod?

It's hard, OK.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yeah, private education will really help the oppressed in America to be able to climb out of their poverty and despair, with only a minimal expense of paying out several times their annual salary in tuition each year."

The governemnt shells out many thousands of dollars per pupil, and many private schools(I dare say most) cost less than the government spends per pupil in similar areas. Here in Memphis Tennessee some private schools cost half of what the government spends per student. I think the original poster ment this senario: The government gives a student $xxxx.xx credit to a serious educational institution of his choice (the student doesn't have to spend a dime). That way schools compete.

So who wins in this senario?

1) The Governemnt (by spending less)
2) The Student
3) Smart Qualified Teachers

And who loses?

1) Unnecessary Administrators
2) Worthless Teachers (and there are a lot of them)

BTW - I don't know if you have herd of the NEA but they have contributed (by far) more money to the democratic party than any other organization (or individual). Other teachers' unions give too.

Re:another good idea.

[1u3hr]

It is you who seem to be missing the point.

The "point" I was disputinug was your claim that "the LOWEST most UNDERPAID person, usually the office boy will almost certinaly have a bachelors degree". From my experience of working in China and Hong Kong over the last 10 years, this is completely untrue. The statistics I quoted support that. What supports your position?

Re:another good idea.

[1u3hr]

let's take a quick and dirty look: China's economy is 1/5 that of the US economy

This is indeed dirty, i.e., meaningless. For one thing, economic statistics in China are notoriously unreliable; under-reported to avoid tax and duties, over-reported to meet targets. Secondly, salaries in China are much, much lower than the US, so the "size of the economy" doesn't tell you how many jobs it supports.

Also, the number of graduates has been increasing explosively (see the stats I linked earlier). While there is a hump of very recent graduates finding it hard to get a job; as a group, graduates are still a very small part of the workforce. Which fits in with my own personal experience, having lived and worked in Hong Kong for the last 10 years.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the TOP brand name universities could seize upon this as an opportunity to start a franchise -- license their name along with plan and rules to enterprising individuals wanting to start their very own university with a nice employer-approved brand name.

Re:another good idea.

[donscarletti]

While I agree that private schools have many merits, privatization is not the only way to success. I attend a "Times Higher Education Supplement" world top 20 university owned by my government. I pay about US$4k a year for the privilege, supplied by a government interest free loan. I'm not the only one either, 40 thousand other students can say the same thing. In another top 20 university 5 KM away, 60 thousand students get their education for the same price. It is cheap and plentiful.

It occurs to me that no US private universities (of comparable academic value) supply degrees to as many students as mine for as cheap as mine does. Also, it occurs to me that the only US university that has both a brilliant academic reputation and enough alumni to supply its fair share of the worlds education needs is the University of California, a public institution.

Re:another good idea.

[QuesarVII]

Holy crap! Someone mark the date!

I think this might be the first time in /. history that someone thought about someone's response instead of starting a flame!

Re:another good idea.

[ross.w]

You're forgetting that the more of your people become educated, and taught to think for themselves, the more likely they are to question your judgement and your leadership.

This risk is something I'm sure is not lost on the Chinese authorities.

There is some tension between needing people with education to run stuff and making sure that that education doesn't create a thinking, questioning population.

By making education hard to get and making sure that only "suitable" people receive it, you preserve your grip on authority.

And that's a big motivator for the Chinese Authorities, and all those Maoist groups out there also.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they don't have an army of ditch-digging robots yet. Duh.

Re:another good idea.

[Savantissimo]

You've been reading John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education (full text link), I see. Great book!

Re:another good idea.

[dcam]

the students don't want to go to ust jANY university

How exactly did that j migrate 4 letters?

Re:another good idea.

[cloricus]

There are down sides you must admit...For example the government raised the fees 22% on a whim; sure most uni's said they wouldn't in flict all of this on students though, as you know, our unis have a very well known ability to lie. Not that I'm still overly annoyed about that - it is just an example. There is no competition to level it out. Having gone to private schools all my life it is kind of weird to finally be in the public sector where no person or group matters as this big black cloud (read: government) just hangs over the system. Remembering of course that this black cloud is the same one that doesn't support those brilliant academics once they are finished. Maybe I just think our whole uni system is broken and it needs a decent rethink and shouldn't be put forward as a good model.

Also I'm sure we pay interest on our loans, I know mines going to be a killer to try and pay back...

Re:another good idea.

[Savantissimo]

No, only certain trades which require certification or expensive equipment such as electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators, etc. If you live in the Southern US or near a big city that attracts Mexicans and Central Americans, you better speak Spanish and expect illegal-immigrant wages if you want to work in construction.

Re:another good idea.

[Savantissimo]

You are completely, 100% wrong.

There is a limited pool of people fit to teach at the unversity level, however they are seldom hired by the top schools. The top schools couldn't care less about ability to teach - all that counts is the prestige of the prospective hires' degrees, their publications list and whether they have the "diversity" that the school wants. Top scools do not get their reputations from teaching well but by admitting top students. The best teaching is at the schools that do the least research.

A better standard for judging the quality of education a school provides is how well it improves its stuents' abilities. One objective measure of this is how far to the right is shifts its student body's standard test score distribution between matriculation and graduation (without overtly "teaching to the test", of course).

Re:another good idea.

[Savantissimo]

If you raise the minimum wage and set the maximum wage properly, there is no net expansion of the wage base and, assuming corrections in the calculation for spending patterns at different wage levels, demand-side economic stimulation, and increased welfare for those who truly aren't worth the new minimum wage, there will be no net inflation. If corporate profits drop due to increased wages, that can serve the same function as a personal wage cap, although the corporate spending patterns are different, and coming up with an estimate of excess profits that would otherwise have been wasted in unproductive investment and other expenditures is going to make some corpratist apologist economists turn green and froth at the mouth.

Re:another good idea.

[virtigex]

> Probably in larger part because practically the only thing you can do with a degree in math is teach math.

Interesting.

With my degree in math I've worked for several companies including a large software company that you may have heard of, a large computer manufacturer and OS supplier who has also started making consumer audio equipment, a cellphone manufacturer, a couple of automobile companies and most recently an audio and music production company. The stuff I learned for my math degree comes in really handy in all of these jobs.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently not! It's "waived.

Re:another good idea.

[Tablizer]

Our public school systems are not producing adults who can compete in a global work force,

What exactly does that mean? It is cheaper to do physics and math overseas because of the labor rates. Rather than fight over 3rd world scraps in math and phyz jobs, one needs to focus on the U.S. comparative advantage, which is unfortunately sleazy marketing. That is why HP is gutting their US R&D and becoming a Dell Clone, a company that admitted they were not a technology company.

Re:another good idea.

[knowledgeguru]

Maybe humor is just lost on the /. crowd

Re:another good idea.

[HolyGadzooks!]

Not sure if you've ever seen a toilet in China, but for the most part they generally resemble ditches (fairly unsantiary ones at that).

Re:another good idea.

[stalebread]

I just finished my PhD and find the whole notion of 'teaching' to be absurd. Before my PhD I thought a great deal of the notion...but after being in the system for awhile I see being a student in a whole new light. Students learn what they want to learn from who they want to learn it. In other words, good students are able to overcome bad teaching any day of the week. Trouble occurs when the teachers either do not know the students or have no contacts for advancing the good students to where they want to go.

As far as Doctoral studies go, I'd agree with you. The professor's reputation and contacts are more important than his teaching ability. The professor is more mentor than teacher. But for undergraduate studies, the professor's teaching ability makes a huge difference. The undergraduate education is classroom based, and with the right professors, going to lectures can be a real pleasure. They can also be a complete waste of time with poor professors. A good student will still do well in poor professor's classes, but that's just because they score higher than the average student in any class (study study study). The whole scale is lower. From the best student to the worst, they'll all learn less with a poor professor. I had a professor who couldn't teach to save his life. When it came time to take exams, the class average was around 25%. If you could achieve 30% correct, you'd get a B. The highest grade in the class was 50%. I managed a B, but I walked away feeling as if I hadn't learned a thing.

Re:another good idea.

[Cederic]

Using GDP as a measure of economy,

China :
Population 1,313,973,713 (July 2006 est.)
GDP $2.225 trillion (2005 est.)

UK :
Population 60,609,153 (July 2006 est.)
GDP $2.228 trillion (2005 est.)

Source : CIA World Factbook.

Re:another good idea.

[master_p]

Not only that, but formation and implementation of new "open source" ideas can never come out of private education. Freedom does not only apply to software, but to many things.

Re:another good idea.

[bronney]

Ze reason is in itself. These "future potential professors" are cheating to get in school. And you want your kids to be taught by them. I don't chink so.

Re:another good idea.

[nikanj]

It's a well known fact that the sum of ones knowledge in pedagogy and whatever the subject they're teaching is constant. Hence, the more someone knows about their field of speciality, the worse teachers they are.

Re:another good idea.

[xPsi]

Actually, in science, contrary to simple cliches, being a good researcher ("knowedge in the subject", as you put it) and a good teacher are generally correlated. Historically, the best teachers were the best researchers and vice versa. In my experience, most so-called "good researchers" who couldn't teach were really "talented technicians", not scientists. Of course, the world needs talented technicians. Just don't call them professor and put them in front of a classroom with a bunch of people trying to learn a new topic.

Re:another good idea.

[RocketRainbow]

Nasor said:
"One day a new grad student shows up to start their graduate school career and a week later they're standing in front of 40 undergrads trying to explain the difference between a joule and a watt...as long as you can speak reasonably fluent english they don't worry about your teaching ability."

That's astonishing! The first physics teacher I ever had, on my first day of university, came in with his apparatus set up and let off a few rockets, just to make sure we were all interested. He then taught us the first unit of first year physics, took an interest in all the struggling students and connected with us, gave us encouragement. There were excellent notes, his explanations were all crystal clear and he made sure we understood every point before moving on. Used to tutor a group or two and regularly came to labs to help out anyone having trouble. No, it wasn't some random grad student: it was a real professor, who is currently head of the department.

All our teachers are like that. Maybe not with the rockets, but there's just no reason why really smart people can't be really good teachers. Our teachers are very accomplished in their various fields - they just also clearly do a bit of professional development to become good teachers. (They even supervise undergraduate research projects in physics teaching so that they can really have an idea of how to improve their specific courses.)

Re:another good idea.

[carsurf]

How much is food and how much is school. Give me a break. the obvious is live first then get educated. Very elitist. Why doesn't everyone have a good job and a good education in the world. Woooy

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that the average US citizen pays nearly 50% of his yearly earnings to government through the existing web of federal, state, and local taxes and fees? Do you realize that in the absence of coercive taxing, the rightful owner of those earnings would be able to decide for himself where to direct his wealth?

It's just a bit more complex than "poor people can't afford education", son.

Re:another good idea.

[QMO]

Here is an example of a weakness of this kind of communication.

I can't tell if the parent is clueless or sarcastic.

(At least we know that one (or more) of the moderators is clueless.)

Re:another good idea.

[pzs]

That's a bit harsh. Surely you must know people who are perfectly bright but have not done well because they have not had the right guidance. This is especially true in post-graduate work, where a poor supervisor can destroy the career of a promising grad-student by (in my experience) not giving them the supervision they need.

Yes, good students will sometimes overcome this, but that is surely not an excuse to tolerate poor teaching or poor supervision.

Peter

Re:another good idea.

[syukton]

The same is not true of univeristies. That is, we're very far from the situation where opening another univeristy will so crowd the market for higher education that the value of an education will decline due to the presence of more of them.

So you're saying that good, quality instructors and professors that can engage and entertain their students' minds, these kinds of people, they just grow on trees? There's like...a surplus of 'em? I ask you this, because without those people, any new schools built will be of a diminished quality. Perhaps some teachers will venture from an older university to the new ones, but then you've reduced the average quality of education for a group of institutions (both old and new) instead of just making the new ones worse-off than the existing ones. Additionally, if we are to believe that cheating is so rampant in China, imagine how many of the so-called "teachers" out there are actually frauds--unfit to teach even elementary school.

I think that you may want to reconsider your position.

Re:another good idea.

[Kismet]

Thanks for the reference. Gatto is indeed one of my primary sources. Others include Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes and Oliver DeMille.

Re:another good idea.

[virg_mattes]

> Well, not exactly. Think about it. There was a time in our nation's history where a high-school education was above average. Then, as more people began earning a high-school education, it became the standard, rather than the exception. Now, a four-year degree from college is the norm. How many *good* jobs are available with only a high-school diploma on your resume?

This is a very good point, but it fails relevance. Sure, this is true of the U.S., but the discussion focuses on China, and China hasn't gotten to that part of the curve.

Virg

Re:another good idea.

[trupoet]

LOL yah I had some interesting "english speaking" professors in college as well

Re:another good idea.

[swelke]

I had a Canadian physics prof with terrible handwriting. Fortunately the math was readable, but any words he wrote just looked like wierd scribbles. I could only take notes by listening to what he said when he wrote the words.

Then one day, a classmate pointed out that most of the words he writes looks like the phrase "wet fart". I haven't been able to keep a straight face for a whole class since.

Re:another good idea.

[aminorex]

Opening more universities would be very much like printing more money, or more specifically, like pumping more oil:
The relative value of the education held by each individual would decrease, but the economic value to society as a
whole would skyrocket. A rising tide lifts all boats. The interest of vested individuals is in keeping everyone
else down. The interest of society as a whole, as well as the interest of the majority of people, is in a rising tide.

Re:another good idea.

[entropy123]

Harsh? Maybe. But the statement reflects my personal experience...and life is not always pretty.

In my life there have been times I've not done well because I lacked the good guidance. I went to a public school with (in hindsight) excellent teaching but no resources to mentor ambitous but socially immature students (like me). For a long time I blamed my school, but after some further reflection, I now realize that no one wants to mentor socially immature people, unless the person happens to be a parent and maybe not even then. At a private school (like the grad school I attended) more of the students enter in at least survivable social health and these survival qualities tend to rub off on students who need more than a little care. In any institution the qualities of isolation, unrealistic goals, and social immaturity are characteristic of the unsuccessful, yet otherwise intelligent and ambitious, person.

We all need help. Unfortunately there are some who are too far gone to be helped by anyone. And they need the most help...

Re:another good idea.

[smokeslikeapoet]

Yo! I'm from Memphis, too. The state of public education here is a microcosm of how really broken a socialized education system is. The problem is made worse by the nationalization of the educational system. Income is collected at a national level, by highly paid bureaucrats, where it sits in the treasury. Then that money is argued and lobbied over by other highly paid bureaucrats. Then it is disproportionally distributed to the states where it is again argued and lobbied over so it can be disproportionally redistributed to the municipalities. Where it is again, you guessed it, handled by more bureaucrats and politicians. The whole system is highly inefficient and in effective in handling funding for the schools.

There is another problem with the collectivist education on a federal level. Washington has no idea how to educate the children of Memphis. Memphians don't need the same information that is needed by Seattlites. It is much more important for Memphians to understand the history and technology of agriculture. While children of the northwest would be better suited to learn how a fish hatchery works. This kind of information just can't be funded or disseminated at a federal level.

Re:another good idea.

[zCyl]

Are you aware that the average US citizen pays nearly 50% of his yearly earnings to government through the existing web of federal, state, and local taxes and fees? Do you realize that in the absence of coercive taxing, the rightful owner of those earnings would be able to decide for himself where to direct his wealth?

And if you give back 100% of the taxes normally paid by someone working TWO full time minimum wage jobs, how many school tuitions do you think that would cover?

The phrase you slipped in there was "rightful owner", but the consequence of this is creating a society where opportunity for each person is based on the wealth of each person's parents, and not based on the merits of that person. This is quite counter to the goals of a strong society and strong economy, because it prematurely truncates the potential of a good portion of the population.

Re:another good idea.

[zCyl]

You should move "The Students" to the "who loses" category. What do you do when the vouchers no longer match the tuition costs? Do you think the government will just continue raising the voucher amount? If you think that, then perhaps you can explain why the grants given for college never match the tuition levels of college. Clearly we have a voucher-based system going on for higher education, but it's not meeting the tuition levels.

With public education, the government is forced to meet the numbers on the school budget. With a voucher based system, the government can cut corners by putting more of the burden on the people, and then the children of poor people get screwed.

So prove to me that we have a government with the mindset to fully fund private education at the college level, and THEN we can think about converting the primary and secondary education over to a similar system. Until then, it's all just hot air.

Re:another good idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

>When nano-tech and robo-tech are ready for prime time, you just might see "self-healing" roofs, pipes, roads, planes, trains, and automobiles.

Yeah, and when flying cars are ready for prime-time, we'll never be stuck in traffic again.

Lay off the Star Trek, pick up some research papers, and find out where we *really* are in nanotechnology and robotics. "Self-healing", my ass.

Re:another good idea.

[smokeslikeapoet]

With a voucher based system, the government can cut corners by putting more of the burden on the people, and then the children of poor people get screwed.

I'm not a voucher advocate, in fact, I'd prefer the complete elimination of the government rationing of education (government funding). But you're mistaken in your assumption that the government puts the burden on the people to fund education with a voucher system. The burden IS ALREADY on the people. Who do you think funds government in the US? Removing government or public funding of education doesn't increase a "burden." It does however increase individual responsibility. Ultimately people are responsible for their own and their children's education anyway.

Re:another good idea.

[smokeslikeapoet]

I pay about US$4k a year for the privilege, supplied by a government interest free loan.

You're interest charges are not free. They are paid for by the taxpayers of the United States Government. You will never receive anything free from a government that you and others pay taxes to fund.

Re:another good idea.

[donscarletti]

Close, but not quite.

Substitute "United States Government" with "Commonwealth of Australia" and you might be right. Anyway, it isn't strictly interest free, it is tied to the CPI to compensate for inflation. But since when have Americans had public loans or more than one good public university in one city anyway? I think I'm missing something here. Besides, Australian public universities pretty much pay for themselves, where do you think these chineese people go when they can't get a place in a good domestic school but still have $100 000 to blow on a degree? My education's price is regulated by the government, but it isn't subsidised by them, the chineese do that.

Re:another good idea.

[zCyl]

Removing government or public funding of education doesn't increase a "burden." It does however increase individual responsibility

That's like saying that if 6 people are carrying a heavy crate, and 5 of them let go, it doesn't increase the burden, it just increases individual responsibility. The result is you crush the one person remaining because it's too heavy to carry alone.

The economic power of a society as a whole is affected significantly by the education of its members. Creating a financially difficult situation for some members of society to get an education devalues the economy as a result, because you lose the productivity that would be generated by that child.

Re:another good idea.

[smokeslikeapoet]

If six people are carrying a crate and five people decided to drop the crate and they let the sixth know that they are about to drop the crate and that person still holds on to the crate and gets crushed, then that person is DUMB. Natural selection really sucks if you're not the fittest.

Re:another good idea.

[nasor]

No, you actually posted figures that refute your own position.

China has a population of China is 1.3 billion. If 16% of the population get tertiary education, this means that there are over 200 million people with have tertiary education. The U.S. has a population of 300 million. If 83% of people in the US get tertialy education, it means that there are about 250 million people in the US with a tertiary education. So yes, there are about 25% more people with tertiary education in the US than in China.

But here's the thing: China has a GDP of 1.5 trillion, while the U.S. has a GDP of 11.7 trillion. You have roughly as many educated people in China as in the US, but in China they are competing for jobs in an economy that's only 13% the size of the US.

Re:another good idea.

[iminplaya]

"Self-healing", my ass.

Maybe your ass could use a little self healing :-) However you are quite free to deny the possibilities if you wish. That would definitely be your perrogative. The rest of us will keep on trying to make it all happen. And of course we eventually will. But like our illustrious leader, I refuse to lay out a timetable. That would just give the enemy an advantage.

Re:another good idea.

[zCyl]

If six people are carrying a crate and five people decided to drop the crate and they let the sixth know that they are about to drop the crate and that person still holds on to the crate and gets crushed, then that person is DUMB.

So what you're saying is that if society is paying for primary and secondary education, then announces it will stop paying for it, and poor people try to send their kids to school anyway, then those poor people are dumb? Great reasoning there, nice to see we've regressed backward a few hundred years.

Re:another good idea.

[1u3hr]

" If 16% of the population get tertiary education"

It's 16% of those eligible (in 2002). Not of the entire population. And if you go back a few years, it's much lower.

"an economy that's only 13% the size of the US"

Salaries are much lower; thus number of jobs/dollar higher.

And I return to my personal observation: this is not true of any office I've been to.

I have an easy solution

[GeorgeMonroy]

Just raise the price of tuition and that should limit the amount of people who apply. :)

Re:I have an easy solution

[CogDissident]

They do try to at least "pretend" to be actually a communist nation, where people are entitled to the same service. Its not true of course, but they at least give a feeble effort to look like they do.

Re:I have an easy solution

[kibbylow]

There is no tuition in China. It's paid for by the government.

Re:I have an easy solution

[phillips321]

Then students who are financially held back will be prevented from studying. Exams are the best form of entry into any university. This allows you to know which candidates are trying their hardest/most intelligent.

If your going to say something stupid atleast try to make it moderately funny.........

Re:I have an easy solution

[TangoCharlie]

That's funny (not ha ha funny), because in the UK, the government has raised tuition fees in order to increase the number of students going to University.

The "Hitch-Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy" explanation of the logic follows something like this:

Universities are strapped for cash and can't accept any more students. So to increase the number of students, Universities require more funding. As the tax-payer is reluctant to subsidise rich kids getting Media Studies degress, the burden for paying for all these extra students must be carried by the students themselves. Hence, Universities may charge huge fees. Ah, but you say, "What about all the poor people who want to go to University to get degrees so that they can become teachers?". Well, the solution there is to provide cost effective loans, which only need to be paid back, if the student starts employement with a job which pays more £15000 p.a. Ah, but you say, "But teachers earn more than £15000 p.a.!" Good point. We'll drop teachers' pay to less than £15000 so that they don't have to pay thier loans back! It's a Win-win situation.

Student numbers have gone up a little, and then down a little. Oh, well.

Stangely, the National debt continues to go up. After-all what's a £4000 credit-card bill next to a £20000 student loan? Peanuts!

I'm just glad I did my studies when there weren't any fees (or rather they were paid for me).

P.S. Please exscuse my Grammar. I did a Chemistry degree rather than media studies.

Re:I have an easy solution

[tehcyder]

I did a Chemistry degree rather than media studies

It's OK, you're among friends here, just let it all out.

Re:I have an easy solution

[KDR_11k]

Shit, we've had govt-paid University access in Germany without pretending to be communist. I'm sure that's common among (the richer) EU nations.

Re:I have an easy solution

[KDR_11k]

That's funny (not ha ha funny), because in the UK, the government has raised tuition fees in order to increase the number of students going to University.

Same in Germany but the difference is that the money the Unis could make from tuition fees gets cut from their budget so they end up with the same amount of money or less.

Re:I have an easy solution

[Bastard of Subhumani]

the National debt continues to go up. After-all what's a £4000 credit-card bill [...] Please exscuse my Grammar. I did a Chemistry degree rather than media studies.

Well I can see it wasn't economics, since you don't seem to understand the difference betwen national debt (what the country as a whole owes) with the indebdetness of individual people.

Re:I have an easy solution

[HeroreV]

Full payment from the government?! And you aren't overrun by immigrants?! How is this possible?!

Re:I have an easy solution

[HeroreV]

... loans, which only need to be paid back, if the student starts employement with a job which pays more £15000 p.a. Ah, but you say, "But teachers earn more than £15000 p.a.!" Good point. We'll drop teachers' pay to less than £15000 so that they don't have to pay thier loans back!

Now that is ha ha funny. What a dumbass government. (Not that the USA's is any better.)

Re:I have an easy solution

[KDR_11k]

You're making the assumption that Germany isn't overrun by immigrants. I think other countries avoid that with stricter immigration policies.

Ninjas...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe their goal is to make them cheat. The students don't realize it, but they're actually taking a NINJA EXAM. /naruto

Re:Ninjas...

[HeroreV]

No, fraid not. I turned in a blank answer sheet and the just shooed me out the door.

Perhaps an easier way would be to go overseas...

[Silas Palmer-Cannon]

We get hundreds of Chinese international students a year here in Australia... we would welcome many more! Its gotta be easier than surgery!

Maybe it's to the top ones

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they cheat to get into the top universities and not any old uni. First post?

Re:Maybe it's to the top ones

[Anonymous Coward]

First post?

Not. Even. Close.

It's funny, laugh?

[1u3hr]

students are required surgery to recover from their cheating attempts.

I suppose we could laugh at the grammar, if not the idea.

Re:It's funny, laugh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the comma splice: If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?

They are required surgery?

[melcrose]

Good thing they aren't required to learn english.

Re:They are required surgery?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, no, it makes perfect sense: some applicants need surgery after their cheating attempts, and the surgical procedures are called students.

Either that, or it's just further proof that the /. editors should be renamed "approvers", since they don't actually do any editting of submissions.

Preferable method?

[Artie Dent]

What's the obsession with earphones with cheating? Wouldn't it be easier (and less dangerous) to cheat using writing?

Re:Preferable method?

[daranz]

I suppose it's easier to conceal cheating attempts involving headphones. With wrtitng, you have to actually take something out and read it - if someone is observing you closely, they can notice you looking like you're reading something you shouldn't be reading. With headphones, you do not have to make any highly visible movements to retrieve information (provided the headphones are concealed in the first place).

Also, storing a lot of information in a small package is easier with audio players... You don't wanna cheat from a huge book under your desk.

Re:Preferable method?

[System.exit(true)]

Wouldn't it be easier to...i dunno...study? When the work required to cheat is harder then the test then I see a problem. Besides, it's natural selection. Let the dumb b******** kill themselves.

Re:Preferable method?

[tomhudson]

The methods include microscopic earphones and wireless device

The article makes this sound like something new ... but people were doing this more than 30 years ago in high school ... we had one guy who took the finals with a walkie-talky stripped out of its case, battery pack taped to one leg, transceiver to the other, switch in one shirt cuff, earpiece in the other, and wires connecting it all ... so he could get the answers from another student.

Of course, anyone desperate enough to do that is also dumb enough to believe you when you transmit the wrong answers ;-) (in other words, I was tired of him sitting behind or beside me, always trying to copy my answers, and then ME being accused of copying HIS answers)

Re:Preferable method?

[Zaplocked]

Did you just self-censor "bastard"?

Re:Preferable method?

[Digital Vomit]

The article makes this sound like something new ... but people were doing this more than 30 years ago in high school ... we had one guy who took the finals with a walkie-talky stripped out of its case, battery pack taped to one leg, transceiver to the other, switch in one shirt cuff, earpiece in the other, and wires connecting it all ...

That little boy, whom nobody loved, grew up to be...MacGuyver.

And now you know...the rest of the story.

Re:Preferable method?

[tomhudson]

hat little boy, whom nobody loved, grew up to be...MacGuyver.

And now you know...the rest of the story.

Well, actually, he ended up in an institution for the criminally insane ... but that's another story.

Just goes to show - instant karma's gonna get you!

More schools?

[InfinityWpi]

What's the point of opening more schools if people have to cheat to get accepted? That's the wrong answer; the reason there's a test isn't to find the best people, it's to find the qualified people. Some people just don't deserve better schooling.

Re:More schools?

[jonin]

"What's the point of opening more schools if people have to cheat to get accepted? That's the wrong answer; the reason there's a test isn't to find the best people, it's to find the qualified people. Some people just don't deserve better schooling."

Because if there are so few schools that the only way to get accepted is to have a passing score of 95% or better, it is no longer about qualified or not.

Although I don't agree with their cheating to get accepted, I do think opening more schools would decrease the problem and maybe even make a little money in the process.

It is not like other countries (especially the U.S.) where if you have a pulse you can get accepted because there are so many schools.

Re:More schools?

[AviLazar]

Some people just don't deserve better schooling

Yes, we want people to stay less knowledgable, because we know society is better off having more dumb people.

Re:More schools?

[rovingeyes]

I do think opening more schools would decrease the problem...

Yes, sounds like a simple idea. But there is a lot more required for a school to start. First of all you need quality teachers or in case of universities - professors. Then there is the issue of facilities - all require money. You can always say that opening more schools now can alleviate the shortage of teachers down the road, but what about now? If you have crappy or insufficient amount of professors, you are going to produce crappy graduates. And again there is the issue of paying your professors. If a person has PhD, s/he can get paid 10 times more if they teach in US or other industrialized nations. And in fact if you are that qualified, no country will say no to that brain power, especially US. Besides, in countries like China and India the competition is not just to get in to university but a particular field in the university for e.g IT related or medicine.

Finally, I think that there should be some competition. So the number of schools should be less (not too less as is case in developing countries) as far I am concerned, so that we can keep the bar high enough.

Re:More schools?

[Jerim]

You don't think everyone who wants a higher education should be allowed to have one? That seems very elitist. I guess next, we will be deciding who gets to eat steak and who only gets bread and water.

The thing that makes the US great is that we give education to all who seek it. Education is not reserved for a select few, which would immediately breed a caste of the "chosen." Even if a person is not mentally worthy of a higher education, I say the fact that they want one is proof enough of their worthiness.

I partially understand what you are saying, and yes, there should be a seperation between the average, and the higher than average. The smartest people get to go to Harvard, Yale and MIT. The average get to chose from any number of local universities or community colleges. But everyone should get an opportunity to learn. It is a basic fundamental of democracy and helps bridge the gap between races, classes, genders and religions.

In China, they seem to be saying that if you can't get into Harvard, Yale or MIT, then you get no education what so ever. That is just simply wrong.

Re:More schools?

[XMilkProject]

It is not like other countries (especially the U.S.) where if you have a pulse you can get accepted because there are so many schools.

And the US is a perfect example of why they will not open more schools. In the US most new college graduates are serving pancakes at IHOP or selling t-shirts at The Gap. We try to force everyone to be 'better' by going to college when in reality these 'better' people are sitting without jobs while illegal immigrants take the work our non-graduates used to do.

Everyone is not smart. Everyone is not useful. When will people realize that it is neither practical or productive to try to make everyone equal.

And btw, the cheating does not bother me. It is still a competition of wit, just perhaps a different type than the test had originally intended.

Re:More schools?

[dwandy]

Yes, we want people to stay less knowledgable, because we know society is better off having more dumb people.

So many answers ...

• People are dumb ... and giving everyone a piece of paper doesn't change that
• People have all the resources of the library, the 'net, etc and still don't bother to educate themselves. A formal education is merely proof that you've paid for and passed some standard-level examinations. MIT has their courses on-line for free, and plenty (all?) others will tell you what books you will read in getting your degree. It's plenty easy to educate yourself if you've a mind to
• Someone still has to dig ditches, and for this very little (no?!) education is necessary, why waste resources giving an education to someone who won't ever use it?
• Fabricating more people educated in a specific discipline than can be employed doesn't increase the demand for that skillset: it does however diminish the return that any member of the group can expect. So resources are spent and there is no return

I'm not against education. One of the very few things I like about the IT industry is that it changes constantly, and you are basically required to continually educate yourself to stay current. (Unfortunately this doesn't quite kick out all the people that it should - PHBs can still keep people they like over people that can perform...)
At the same time, however, I wish I was an electrician or plumber or brick-layer. I'd be making more money, be self-employed more easily and with more stability. But when I was in high-school it was "go to university and get a desk job, or you are a loser. Loser. Loser." ... damn shame too, 'cause we need trades-people. And physical labour can't be outsourced in quite the same way that (it seems) all IT stuff is headed.

But what do they want to major in?

[Dekortage]

If it's law enforcement or electrical engineering, they're not off to a good start.

Re:But what do they want to major in?

[gEvil (beta)]

Whatya mean? If it's law enforcement, they're off to the best start possible. This situation is about as real-world as it gets.

Re:But what do they want to major in?

[vertinox]

If it's law enforcement or electrical engineering, they're not off to a good start.

Oh really? Apparently, that didn't stop these guys from wiring my basement when they built my house.

Re:But what do they want to major in?

[ragnathor]

I think they're up one for medical school with that post-exam surgery practice.

Universities for the cheaters?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean open universities just for those who need to cheat to get it? Can they continue to cheat on their exams while attending classes?

Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[eldavojohn]

If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?

I certainly hope you are joking about that last statement.

I should start by saying I am an American and therefore have probably been exposed to much propaganda against the Chinese government. Despite this, I have tried to educate myself on the current state of China & would like to point out an RSC article that talks about the history of higher education in China. Here's an excerpt from it:

A brief history of higher education reform in China

1949

China's education system was based on the Russian model. Universities and colleges were divided to form specialist institutes and many universities were moved into rural areas to even out provision. These institutes were controlled by central government which also controlled the distribution of graduate students.

1966-1976

All formal education in China was stopped during the Cultural Revolution. During the later years, people entered university as students only by a process of recommendation. Many subjects were discontinued.

1977

The education system was restructured to give the system that operates today. The national university entrance exam was reintroduced and a comprehensive range of subjects became available with unified curricula for university degree courses.

1986

The government introduced the structural reform of higher education. Many institutes merged to form more comprehensive units. Mergers of centrally controlled institutions led to 72 'national' higher education institutes (HEIs). Mergers of locally controlled institutions led to 257 new HEIs.

1999

Tuition fees introduced for all university students. Fees are in the range Yuan 3000-6000 (£200-400), depending on the subject studied.

2001

Following China's entry into the World Trade Organization, new types of higher education establishments were introduced. These included independently funded universities and colleges, independent university-affiliated colleges for specialist subjects; and cooperation colleges that use foreign investment or foreign universities to set up an affiliated college or international university.

Wikipedia offers a much longer explanation including the criteria by which you were eligible for aid:

• * top students encouraged to attain all-around excellence;
• * students specializing in education, agriculture, forestry, sports, and marine navigation; and
• * students willing to work in poor, remote, and border regions or under harsh conditions, such as in mining and engineering.

The most important change is the one from 1999 where tuition fees were introduced. It is my understanding (though I could be wrong) that money is often tight and your standard laborer in China makes roughly $50-$100 USD per month. Can you expect them to afford tuition rates of £200-400? Not really.

I guess it would require a miraculous grant to get a higher education in China and I'm certain that those are a limited number that is quite small compared to a population of one billion. Even then, the best place to find secondary education is abroad as most of the world's leading universities are in the United States.

This isn't how a Communist country is supposed to be run. There isn't supposed to be any "tuition fees" for education. There isn't supposed to be competition dividing people into two classes (one worthy of secondary education, one not). In a perfect Communist society, I was born to do something and as long as I work hard and do it, I get the exact same education you get. I ha

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Arthur B.]

that money is often tight and your standard laborer in China makes roughly $50-$100 USD per month. Can you expect them to afford tuition rates of £200-400? Not really.

Hum, tuitions fee in the states are generally much more than 4 months of salary.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

It is my understanding (though I could be wrong) that money is often tight and your standard laborer in China makes roughly $50-$100 USD per month. Can you expect them to afford tuition rates of £200-400? Not really.

Your standard American "laborer" makes $2,000-$3,000 a month. Tuition rates at high-end universities here are $20,000-$40,000. Assuming that cost of living scales, seems like we're a lot worse off in terms of tuition costs. Yet it seems that cheating in the US is a lot lower. I don't know about China, but in Russia (which is similar to it in a lot of respects) cheating is an integral part of the culture: if you don't let your friend copy off your exam/homework/whatever, you're a bad friend. So I don't think poverty is a good explanation for cheating.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

Dollars are not the same as pounds. Notice the different symbol? Back to school for you, I guess.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[MyLongNickName]

Tuition rates at high-end universities here are $20,000-$40,000

Thanks for comparing apples and oranges. You can get a college education many levels above the typical Chinese college for about 1/4 of the low-end price. And our government will subsidize the loan to the extent that it effectively halves the price. Then there is outright financial grants for lower income families. These do not get repaid.

If you come from a poverty level income family, you can get a decent college education for free, or close to free. Especially if you are a "minority". Of course, if we keep spending 300 billion a year on interest payments and $500 billion on our war machine, this may not last much longer.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[arivanov]

Welcome to the real world. Congratulations.

The truth about ex-soc countries education is that it has been always a subject to vicious selection for any of the places that were moderately worth it. Ratios of 500:1 at Moscow state were quite common for some science majors and thousands to 1 were normal for humanities because these offered a route into the state administration. And you do not want to even have an idea about the selection ratio at whatever the name of the institute was that specialised in economics.

Other ex-soc countries were not far behind. My wife's class in biotech at Sofia State had a selection ratio in the 250:1+ and my own chemistry class at Sofia state had a selection ration of 35:1. That is once again with a limit of 2 maximum applications within a year. That is after graduating from high schools which themselves had a selection ratio of 30:1 in her case and 200:1 in my case. Once again with similar application limits and specialisation at that time. By the way this was the norm, not a deviation across the ex-soviet block.

In addition to that the exams were per-university (not countrywide like in the west) with a limit on how many universities you can apply to (used to be 2 in most countries). So this ratio of 500:1 or higher was after the voluntary selection performed by people estimating their chances and sending applications only to 2 universities. So the overall selection ratio was actually much much higher.

I know that I am going to evoke some morbid egalitarian screams from the Slashdot community, but I do not see anything wrong in this. Good education implies selection.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[martijnd]

Interesting to see how it went in Taiwan which is a little further down the line. Entry into the top universities was for decades highly competative (and still is for the top places). You had to cram yourself to death to enter. The top schools are public , and government funded. (The top one, TaiDa, is about half way down the world top-200)

However, as the main industrial tycoons were reaching retirement age a decade ago or so, they wanted to do something about their legacy. So many private universities opened dedicated to these people's father's and mothers. Brand new facilities and pretty well endowned. At the same time the government invested money in upgrading the existing technical college's to full university status. Teachers were required to obtain PhD's to retain their positions.

So suddenly there is a glut of universities -- obviously there is also plenty of complaints about lower standards. But it is now possible for each student who has the intention and will to actually enter university. This is also brings another benefit -- with a college degree further studies abroad are hard. With a university degree from any of these schools its usually not too hard to enter into an American, Australian, Canadian or UK post-graduate programme. One result of this is a large number of world-travelled bilingual English/Chinese speakers, many of whom work for the endless trading companies in Taiwan.

Considering how many efforts any Chinese family will put into educating their next generation -- I am pretty sure things will go similary in China.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Red Flayer]

"In a perfect Communist society, I was born to do something and as long as I work hard and do it, I get the exact same education you get.

You've got it wrong there. If what you were born to do doesn't require higher education, then you should waste state resources by getting higher education. Education is not a reward, it's a means to an end -- in the true Communist state, a way of creating workers to satisfy needs of the people that can only be done by those with higher education.

So how does one identify who should be assigned these higher-education-requiring jobs? That's what the testing is all about. The idea is that the tests are fair as can be, since everyone is on equal footing when faced with a written examination.

There isn't supposed to be competition dividing people into two classes (one worthy of secondary education, one not)

In this case, you're a person who exemplifies why the system doesn't work -- you ascribe different values to the roles that workers take based upon their education. The janitor should be as highly esteemed as the doctor, provided they both do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

I think you're missing the biggest issue here -- China is no longer a Communist state, if it ever was one. Capitalism is taking over, with the State bing the largest source of capital. This makes it more of a fascist system (though the word has become 'dirty' from its association with certain European governments of the 20th century).

As to tuition:

The most important change is the one from 1999 where tuition fees were introduced. It is my understanding (though I could be wrong) that money is often tight and your standard laborer in China makes roughly $50-$100 USD per month. Can you expect them to afford tuition rates of £200-400? Not really.

First off, you're using two different currencies there. Second, compare that to US tuition. Say, for China:' $75 US per month = $900/yr. Even converting GBP to USD, tuition of $680/yr. So you've a ratio of 1.32 median income to tuition in China, using your figures (source?).

In the US, the median income is just under 44,400 for a family of four, while the same year, the average total cost of college was 11,354. So the ratio is 3.91. However, consider that the median US family has 2 kids -- and your ratio is now 1.96. Now, also consider the fact that US citizens pay for a lot of services that Chinese citizens do not (either because the services are not available, or because the Chinese government pays). Finally, consider the fact that a college education in China (due to the selectivity) is the equivalent of a top-notch education in the US, where you can expect the costs of a year of top-notch college to be in excess of $30,000. In this light, the US ratio would be 1.48, which is remarkable close to the Chinese ratio.

The difference-make here might be scholarships and grants, and I don't know if the equivalent exists in China. But the culture of sacrifice for one's child means that most parents whose child is accepted to university in China can, and do, afford to send the child -- whereas in the US, kids go to state schools even when they qualify for better education, simply because it is more easily afforded by the parents.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[simon_hibbs2]

>This isn't how a Communist country is supposed to be run.

Ah, but it's communism 'with chinese characteristics'. In other words their philosophy is for the Chinese government to run the country according to the principles of the government of China.

>standard laborer in China makes roughly $50-$100 USD per month. Can you expect
>them to afford tuition rates of £200-400? Not really.

Chinese families are perfectly willing to spend as much as 50% of their household income on their children's education, living at subsistence level in order to invest in their family's future. Their expectations and willingness to make sacrifices exceed what most westerners would consider credible. It's a different world.

>All you're going to do is create more places that people can't afford to get into.

The fact that there is huge competition to get into higher education in China shows that grants and scholarships, while of course good ideas in principle, are not actualy required in order to simply boost attendance. For many Chinese, access to higher education for their children is the only way they can hope for a better future, and they will do whatever is necessery to get that chance.

Simon

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Corbets]

This isn't how a Communist country is supposed to be run

If at this point you still needed another example that Communism doesn't work in the real world... maybe I'll cough up the money for you to attend one of those institutions of higher learning. ;-)

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Tweekster]

Not to mention those are not the people having problems getting into school, but rather China's epxanding middle class.

What is it with people, they always have this desire to relate everything to the poorest of the poor and not the rest of the population.

"well this group makes a nickle a year and eats dirt, they cant afford that..." when obviously that group has nothing to do with the problem being discussed.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[rmstar]

I agree with you that selection is necessary. But I don't know if setting the threshold that tight is a good idea. in a 200:1 ratio the last 10 or so may as well drop coins or use dice. It may be rather wasteful, as a a lot of good people are left out. Wether selection is good or not also depends on the criteria. If age, for instance, is a strong criterium, people lose for completely random reasons (accidents, illnesses) that have nothing to do with actual ability. And some win because they are pushed by mentors, even if they are actually mediocre, and end up fulfilling criteria.

Selection by arbitrary and unjust criteria is the part that sucks most in science.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[dfenstrate]

If you don't actually believe communism is viable, then nevermind what follows....

This isn't how a Communist country is supposed to be run. There isn't supposed to be any "tuition fees" for education. There isn't supposed to be competition dividing people into two classes (one worthy of secondary education, one not). In a perfect Communist society, I was born to do something and as long as I work hard and do it, I get the exact same education you get. I haven't seen one good thing coming from China's "Communist" party. It seems the only parts of Communism that China kept are the parts that favor the government!

You seem to be speaking as if such as a 'perfect communist society' or anything close to it is possible.

Over 100 million people dead in the last century due to communist governments, and the fact that only misery can be found where communism is even close to properly implemented, tells us all quote well that COMMUNISM IS A FAILED IDEOLOGY.

Just to be clear, history has show us quite well that IT CANNOT WORK.

I don't even know why communism is even seriously debated as a possible form of government. History has shown us otherwise quite clearly.

Btw, China is communist in name only nowadays.

Communes can function perfectly fine, as small, relatively isolated self-selected and enforced societies. Anything tried on a nationwide scale- we've seen the results of that time and time again, and it's not good.

Expected response from communists:

The right people haven't been in charge yet!

Yeah, sure, keep thinking that's the only problem.

BTW, i am perfectly aware of the flaws of capitilism, but that's not really the subject of debate right now.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Kadin2048]

This isn't how a Communist country is supposed to be run.

Well, that's kinda the problem with Communist countries. That is how they are run. Since the system doesn't really work, instead you just keep your society working as best you can using whatever alternative means you can throw together. In China, they seem to be using a combination of oppression and massive exploitation of their natural resources, in an effort to keep things together long enough to transition to a sustainable economy and government.

You can't have a chicken in every pot when there aren't enough chickens to go around. History has taught us that an elite group of individuals is no better in the long run at distributing resources across a society than everyone just trying to grab whatever they can for themselves based on their ability to do so is, and usually they can be a lot worse.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Alioth]

China isn't a communist regime: it's a capitalist dictatorship.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Larus]

Since we're talking history, China probably has the longest history in testing systems, starting as early as 6th Century Tang Dynasty. There's a seriously ingrained belief that high achievement on test leads to successful positions in court, and for mroe than a thousand years it was true. Education was thus over-emphasized, to the detriment of many other venues for success in the society, which further reinforces the importance of surviving these tests. Cram schools are the norm in any Chinese community, even in US.

When the average level of cramming rises, the system cannot but raise the test standards to separate the qualified from the dredge. At a certain point the rat race becomes absurd - test designers produce pointless questions that reward route memorization and repeated practice. Test takers find more efficient ways to win the race.

Bribery was the norm as early as Tang Dynasty, and students who pass the royal exams by tradition sent 'gifts' to the test administrators. Guangxi was also prevalent - a referral's introduction to the exam committee before the test helps, since the probability increases that a test is graded more carefully. But nothing is easier than cheating. Checking for cheating was the norm in almost every government testing facility in history - certain dynasties went as far as allowing no outer garments when testing. When you present a lucrative opportunity in a feudal world, people respond to the incentive.

So fast forward a thousand years. The mentality that good grades lead to good life doesn't change. Having a college diploma, no matter how useless, is better than the hardworking guy next door without a degree. With the boom in China and the foreign investors looking for highly skilled knowledge workers, this will only exacerbate the cheating phenomenon.

Cum grano salis.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Tezkah]

So a terrible president got elected, does it therefore follow that democracy is a failure? how many people have died at the hands of "democratic governments" over the thousands of years since democracy became a popular choice? Is that really a fault of the ideal of "democracy"?

Or consider the Holocaust, wasn't Hitler both democratically elected to office (before using those powers to make himself a dictator), and a diligent anti-communist? How could one with such a good foundation end up with genocide?

Or the 21st Century Iraq War, I mean your country was founded on the CONSTITUTION, how many lives is that founding document considered responsible for now?

A lot of Americans are taught in school that Communism is somehow inherently evil (Reagan and his "evil empire", etc. It is happening with "terrorism" today, to keep the people in line, fighting shadows instead of holding their government accountable).

However, like everything, politics is not a black and white, left to right, ridged continuum. One can choose one direction for social issues and another for economic, and change based on the situation. Corruption and greed in government (or among the powerful in the market, if you are considering a purely capitalist system) - rather than lofty ideals, such as equality for mankind - cause hardship and suffering among the people under this system. Because Chinese government says they are communist means as much as the US President providing lip-service to the constitution. The NSA spying on you isn't the fault of the founding fathers, just like Stalin murdering his enemies isn't due to Communism.

Nevertheless, make sure you continue to squawk the party line (you are free to choose between these two identical but opposite ideals!), and also buy consumer goods! You guys should really change your national bird from the eagle to the Consumerist Parrot. Seems to sadly be where we are heading.

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely - Lord Acton

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[mikapc]

"whereas in the US, kids go to state schools even when they qualify for better education, simply because it is more easily afforded by the parents." I think it's a mistake to imply that state schools are as a rule lower in quality then private universities. There are many state schools that have programs that are rated number 1 in the nation over private schools like Harvard and Yale.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[RESPAWN]

Actually, I was going to point out that the right leaders haven't been found yet, BUT I was also going to mention that they never will be found. The truth is, we're all human and 9 time out of 10, those that rise to a leadership role do so because they desire a leadership role. Along with this desire for a leadership role is a desire for power, and that is all to easy to exploit in a communist society where the government retains control over all of the necessary resources with little to no checks and balances by the general populace. As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It has been shown time and again that communism merely ends up resulting in a society with a powerful, rich, governmental aristocracy and a poor, underpriveliged labor class. This eventually leads to an uninspired and unmotivated underclass (the labor class) performing little to no work, which generally translates in to the ruling class "inspiring" the underclass with threats of death and/or retaliation. Individuals in the underclass have no means by which to be rewarded for a job well done - that would go against the principles of "everybody equal", so negative reforcement has to be used instead. (Stalin killed millions upon millions of his own citizens to enforce his rule.) The society eventually reaches a point where it just can't sustain itself and collapses upon itself.

Communism is great in theory , but next to impossible to implement in practice. What communism fails to take in to consideration is the human factor. IMHO, the only reason it appears to work in smaller societies is due to the fact that everybody knows everybody else and can actually see the effects of their labor on the others in their society - they actually care about doing a good job.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[BCGlorfindel]

This makes it more of a fascist system (though the word has become 'dirty' from its association with certain European governments of the 20th century).

Mussolini wrote "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism". He is to Fascism as Karl Marx is to communism. He also led the first of the fascist European government of the 20th century that made the word 'dirty' in your words. Fascism is a dirty word not because of the Governments who've abused it, but for the governments and people who founded it. There's a big difference there and your trying to imply that fascism has somehow gotten a bad rap. One could as easily say the word 'nazi' has become 'dirty' from its association with a certain European government of the 20th century. Fascism as defined by the dictionary or layed out by Mussolini fully deserves to be considered a 'dirty' word. To use it any other connotation is to missuse it.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be speaking as if such as a 'perfect communist society' or anything close to it is possible.

Just to be clear, history has show us quite well that IT CANNOT WORK.

Sure it can, just not with anything close to humans. ;)

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[TigerNut]

I think it was Karl Marx who 'staged' the development of "true Communism" such that there would be a revolution against the ruling elite by the noble workers, followed by a period of 'socialism' where the government ran everything, and THEN somehow "communism" was attainable. The fiddly bit is that no country has actually made it past socialism. The USSR came the closest to calling a spade a spade, by not having "democratic" or "people's" or any such adjective in their country's name.

This isn't how a Communist country is supposed to be run. There isn't supposed to be any "tuition fees" for education. There isn't supposed to be competition dividing people into two classes (one worthy of secondary education, one not). In a perfect Communist society, I was born to do something and as long as I work hard and do it, I get the exact same education you get. I haven't seen one good thing coming from China's "Communist" party. It seems the only parts of Communism that China kept are the parts that favor the government!

Welcome to the real world... In a Socialist society, government decides what you're going to be, and any amount of "hard" work (i.e. harder than your neighbor) is actively suppressed because it will be made out to look like you're trying to curry favor with your boss. Think of it as a really bit institutionalized trade union.

It's been a little overtaken by events, but the book about Viktor Belenko's defection in a MIG-25 and his subsequent amazement at society in mid-70's USA contained the quote by Viktor that the USA had actually achieved true Communism, since anyone could do or be anything they wanted... even do nothing at all, and they'd still get supported (albeit only a little) by the government.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Red Flayer]

Sure, but a small percentage of students are enrolled in those programs. Unfortunately, a BA in English from Yale means a lot more than a BA in English from $[STATE U], despite the fact that the State programs are typically harder, from everything I've heard.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Benjamin Shniper]

If you took all the crazy twentieth century mistakes, and laid them next to communism, you would see that communism not only tops the list of crazy mistakes, it surpasses all it's brother ideas put together in terms of bad ideas.

It's not that communism itself is stupid, which it is. It is that it sounds intelligent and intellectual. It can make even a half-hearted student into a great communist philosopher with a couple of easy to digest papers. In other words, it was alluring as an idea, easy to understand, quick to learn, and popular to research. It was easy to grasp, yet seemed intellectually satisfying. That it was incorrect was discoverable immediately, but that it still seemed worthy of study was undeniable.

Even today backyard communist theorists demand "further research." As if the clinical trials leaving behind millions dead were so close to being successful for perfecting mankind that we need to do that again. Throw your brothers on the hot stove again, it didn't hurt US. It just killed the subsistance farmers.

Imagine if communism was a drug that claimed to cure cancer. Or a model prison designed to cure criminals. Would we still be sending people to a communist establishment with a track record of a hundred million deaths for treatment?

-Ben

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[PiMuNu]

The article talks about a 4:1 entry ratio (10 m applicants for 2.5 m places). This is pretty typical here in the UK. Is this response from /. massive prejudice against china? Or have I missed something?

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[treeves]

In a perfect Communist society, I was born to do something and. . .

A-ha, there's the problem: there never was and never will be a perfect Communist society. Human nature doesn't allow it. People always want to be rewarded for their efforts and not see their labor go to support someone who does nothing when he could. When that happens, the motivation to work vanishes.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

DENNIS
Oh, very nice. King, eh! I expect you've got a palace and fine clothes and courtiers and plenty of food. And how d'you get that? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our society! If there's EVER going to be any progress ...
..
DENNIS
You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship, A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes ...

OLD WOMAN
There you are, bringing class into it again ...

DENNIS
That's what it's all about ... If only -
...
DENNIS Ah! NOW ... we see the violence inherent in the system.
Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help, help, I'm being repressed!

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[OldManAndTheC]

This eventually leads to an uninspired and unmotivated underclass

The same thing happens in other social systems. If there is no way to get ahead, you just do what is necessary to get along. It doesn't matter whether you are rolling cigars for Fidel, or stitching shirts for Wal-Mart.

Your criticisms of communism could just as easily apply to any authoritarian governmental system. Whether you call it Fascism, Communism, Monarchy, or Plutocracy doesn't really matter. When power is concentrated in the hands of a few, the few end up enriching themselves at the expense of the many. If they are unlucky, the many are occasionally rounded up and put to death (Stalin's purges, Nazi genocide, etc.)

The trick is to limit the power of the central government, something we have done in the U.S. with some degree of success. When that happens, rich folks fight each other for the right to exploit the rest of us, which is a better situation than if they combine forces to run (and ruin) everything.

The idea underlying the economic aspect of communism, whether you call it socialism, or "communitarianism", or just "sharing", works well in many facets of society, especially at the local level. We don't think twice about pooling the resources of society to do those things that work better that way, like running police departments, fire departments, or building infrastructure, etc. For those areas where it is less clear that it works well, like education and health care, we battle constantly to work out what is the best approach. And for areas where private citizens risking their capital produce the best results, we have a free enterprise system.

All governmental systems suffer from the negative aspects of human nature. Communism is particularly bad because it so completely centralizes power and decision-making, but other systems share its drawbacks to the extent that they do the same thing.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[BalkanBoy]

Communes can function perfectly fine, as small, relatively isolated self-selected and enforced societies. Anything tried on a nationwide scale- we've seen the results of that time and time again, and it's not good.

Riggghhht - like communal marriage between two people in the United States where we have 4 million divorces each year (overall rate of > 50% of marriages break up in less than 7 years). Communism sure does work in small(er) settings :).

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

Riggghhht - like communal marriage between two people in the United States where we have 4 million divorces each year (overall rate of > 50% of marriages break up in less than 7 years). Communism sure does work in small(er) settings :).

Well, hey, it's still a better success rate than communist governments! :P

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[dfenstrate]

So a terrible president got elected, does it therefore follow that democracy is a failure? how many people have died at the hands of "democratic governments" over the thousands of years since democracy became a popular choice? Is that really a fault of the ideal of "democracy"?

Don't make an absurd argument and expect me to research your answers for you. There's 100 million people dead at communisms feet since Marx and Engels came to the scene a little over a century ago, and true believers like you can still be found.

The conversation isn't about capitilism, it's about communism. I have no interest in discussing any of the numerous flaws in western societies. You will not put me on the defensive, because my point is that communism leads to misery and murder. You cannot prove otherwise and weakly seek to engage in some sort of relative debate of governments, when I hold the debate is well settled.

Don't give me crap about any party line or the brainwashing of Americans about communism. The mountains of corpses from every attempt at a communist society speaks volumes about communism, more than any jingonistic American textbook from the past 60 years possibly could.

Your precious but unworkable ideals are not worth the lives of even one more person, nor even a papercut on him. The lives of the citizens of any nation are not your playthings for yet another murderous social expirement.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

A few points.
First, communism has never been implimented, anywhere. It's always been a variation of socialism.

Second, communism and socialism are economic systems, not forms of government.
Contrary to popular belief, a socialist economic system can, and is implimented, with success, in democratic societies (The Scandinavian states, and Canada, for example, all run heavily socialist, socio/capitalist systems. within their democratic societies.)

The misconception is often stemmed from the fact that totalitarian states (CCCP, Cuba, N. Korea, Vietnam, China, etc) all ran/run despotist governments, with a variation of socialism as an economic system. This leads to people using totalitarianism and communism interchangibly, and thus sounding like uneducated asshats.

Bottom line is, you are most certainly wrong. history does not show that socialism isafailed ideology. Rather, it shows that if implimented properly, that is to say, within a democratic society, infused into pseudo-capitalism, it works, and it works very, very well, as opposed to when it is implimented within totalitarian systems, it tendsto fail miserably.

It's an economic system that glorifies the working class, it should be rather obvious that such a system cannot possibly work in a system where the working class is oppressed.

"The right people haven't been in charge yet!"

You know, I've never actually heard that argument used as anything other than a mock argumemt, as it is in this case.

Though there's some truth to it, unless you're willing to argue that Stalin wasn't a magalomaniacal, blood-thirsty madman. However it is also false, since, once again, sucessful socialist economic systems are in place, around the world, so obviously, someone, somewhere was done something right.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Red Flayer]

You mistake YOUR inferences for what I was implying. Your misconceptions lead you astray, here.

A 'dirty' word is one that is not acceptable in polite society, even when its use is otherwise appropriate. My point was that China is largely and seemingly a fascist state, but that few people who discuss the topic would refer to China as fascist. Fascist should not be a dirty word... using the term and discussing it is important to ensure we don't experience it again.

To put it another way, 'ass' is a dirty word, but 'posterior' is not. We avoid saying 'ass', yet they both mean the same thing in a biological sense. This is what I mean by 'dirty' word -- it doesn't change the connotations or the meaning, but rather, people's willingness to use the word.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Shajenko42]

History has taught us that an elite group of individuals is no better in the long run at distributing resources across a society than everyone just trying to grab whatever they can for themselves based on their ability to do so is, and usually they can be a lot worse.

Which is why we have anti-trust laws.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Chuns]

Communism only fails because human nature is in conflict with it. It is a perfect form of government for perfect people. Too bad there are none around. Capitalism thrives because people are greedy, ambitious, proud, or all of the above.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Cheapy]

There have been no communist countries.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

The information from rsc.org is wrong. The tuition was not introduced at 1999 but 1989. I know this because that's the year I started college at China.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Tezkah]

There's 100 million people dead at communisms feet since Marx and Engels came to the scene a little over a century ago, and true believers like you can still be found.

Ad hominem. Nice, trying to pin all these statistics of death that you pulled out of your ass personally on a fellow slashdot poster. I myself am not a communist, but it is absurd to treat it like heretical doctrine and you're the Catholic Church. Like I iterated in my first post, that would be akin to ascribing a death toll for "democracy", an ideal does not kill people. People do, and corrupt governments are made of people.

The conversation isn't about capitilism

Of course it isn't, if it were you'd have a much harder time spelling the subject. How many "anti-communist Yay America!" karma trolls have you posted?

Heres one from another thread, this time civil rights:

That being said, the leakers comprimise anti-terror operations for the reasons I've stated in this sub thread, and should be found out and shut down. Seeing who the reporters (who broke the story) talked to is a perfectly reasonable investigative method.

Combine that with this:

Don't give me crap about any party line or the brainwashing of Americans about communism. The mountains of corpses from every attempt at a communist society speaks volumes about communism, more than any jingonistic American textbook from the past 60 years possibly could

Your precious but unworkable ideals are not worth the lives of even one more person, nor even a papercut on him. The lives of the citizens of any nation are not your playthings for yet another murderous social expirement.

First of all, what? My playthings? Again, I am a person who posts on slashdot like you. I'm not some sort of murderous god that you need to worship! You better worship though, or you'll burn soon (ooh, am I a communist, a terrorist, or just another preacher?). Plus murderous as an adjective? That's like saying that "oh, my date wasn't so bad, he just walked kind of murderously", and I don't see how you end up with murderous as an adjective for a political theory.

Anyways, to your apparent True American Pride(TM): So who cares about civil rights, or about torturing human beings for abstract concepts, right? (Terrorism is a political tactic at most, anti-terror is just something to make the scared people follow you.) but decry the basic ideal of equality for all to be "murderous" is astounding. Double Plus un-good, has your country always been at war with terror? Its the new communism, after all. Oh, but I'm sure torture is less harmful to humans than a paper cut, those things hurt! Remember dear readers, do not believe "books" or "news", don't research for yourself. Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Oh... brave new world! Brave brave new world that has such people in it! I believe they call them hypocrites.

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[dfenstrate]

Nice, trying to pin all these statistics of death that you pulled out of your ass personally on a fellow slashdot poster.

More on this later.

I myself am not a communist, but it is absurd to treat it like heretical doctrine and you're the Catholic Church.

You seem to defend it as if you take it rather personally

Like I iterated in my first post, that would be akin to ascribing a death toll for "democracy", an ideal does not kill people. People do, and corrupt governments are made of people.

But you see, certain ideals lend themselves much more easily to tyranny and murder, and communism is a fantastic example of that. The thing is, for communism to work on a national scale, you can't have anyone 'opt out'- that is decide "screw communism, I own my property and the results of my efforts, and I will sell either for the most anyone will give me."

Those kinds of people are a huge obstacle to a communist nation- they'll pay good people more than communist government enterprises would provide, and they will benefit themselves first before their fellow man. (Note that this is a good thing- no poor person has ever given you a job, have they?)

On the other hand, the most productive of a nations people are often those who are self-interested, so it wouldn't do to have them leave- then you'd have a country run top to bottom by those whose organization and production skills are of lesser quality, to put it in the kindest terms.

So what do you do with dissenters? Murder them, or put them in gulags where death would almost be preferable.
Furthermore, communist goverments have shown that central planning is a failure as well- this killed millions more due to starvation.

Such as:

Pol Pot

Out of a population of approximately 8 million people, Pol Pot's regime killed one-quarter. The Khmer Rouge targeted Buddhist monks, Western-educated intellectuals, people who appeared to be intelligent (for example, individuals with glasses), the crippled and lame, and ethnic minorities like ethnic Laotians and Vietnamese. They were thrown into the infamous S-21 camp for interrogation.....Property became communal, and education was dispensed at communal schools. Pol Pot's regime was extremely harsh on political dissent and opposition. Torture was widespread. In some instances, throats were slit as prisoners were tied to metal bed frames....The casualty list from the civil war, Pol Pot's consolidation of power, and the later intervention by Vietnam is disputed. Credible Western and Eastern sources [1] put the death toll of the Khmer Rouge at 1.6 million. A specific source, such as a figure of three million deaths between 1975 and 1979, was given by the People's Republic of Kampuchea. Fr Ponchaud suggested 2.3 million--although this includes hundreds of thousands who died prior to the CPK takeover; the Yale Cambodian Genocide Project[2] estimates 1.7 million; Amnesty International estimated 1.4 million; and the United States Department of State, 1.2 million. Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot, who could be expected to give underestimations, cited figures of 1 million and 800,000, respectively. The CIA estimated that there were 50,000 to 100,000 executions.

The more you know....

Joseph Stalin

Early researchers of the number killed by Stalin's regime were forced to rely largely upon anecdotal evidence, and their estimates range as high as 60 million.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, hard evidence from the Soviet archives finally became available, and many of the earlier, higher estimates became more difficult to sustain. For example, the archives record that about 800,000 prisoners were executed (for either political or criminal offences) under Stalin's regime, while another 1.7 million died of privation in the Gulags and some 352,000 perished durin

Re:Chinese Education Reforms & Conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you're not arguing that the ideal of communism killed these people. If so, we should outlaw those thoughts!

I think you still misunderstand the parent post. Oh well, cite your statistics about how Stalin was reading instructions PRINTED OUT BY MARX HIMSELF in order to kill his political enemies. In essence, in trying to blame an ideology for actions, you are transferring blame from Mao, Stalin, etc, to the ideal they all paid lip service to. Good job! The real enemy is THOUGHTS and WORDS, not actions, right Mr Patriot? If we let people even read or THINK about these sort of things, people will spontaneously die in the streets! This is why we must not allow any "communist" doctrines like "universal education" to be entrenched in AMERICA. That would be tyranny! Nay, let us blindly hate the enemy that we are told is evil.

I'd ask you to open your eyes and think for yourself, but hey, thats not for everyone. Blind loyalty is a good trait too.

A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[macklin01]

This LA Times article from the weekend has a more in-depth look at the grueling process of Chinese university entrance exams, and shows a bit more of the motivation to go to such lengths to cheat.

For example:

hinese college admissions officers don't look at your high school grades, personal interviews, recommendations or essays in making their decisions. They don't make allowances if you don't test well. They won't even cut you slack if your mother died the day before. Everything, countless years of sacrifice and hard work, boils down to this one test. Those who perform miserably have to wait another year to take the exam.

Not a great system from any point of view. Encourages cheating. Discourages creativity, not particularly fair to the students .... -- Paul

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[Alicat1194]

don't look at your high school grades, personal interviews, recommendations or essays in making their decisions.

We have that in Western Australia, and it works fine. Basically, you do a set of exams, the scores from which are used to calculate your 'tertiary entrance score' (TES). The students with the highest scores get accepted to Uni, those with lower scores either try again, or go on to do something else. (There are alternative methods of entry (mature age tests, grants, etc), but they're only used by a relatively small percentage of students)

It helps to get rid of a lot of bias in who gets in and who doesn't (even if it does make for a few months of exam-study hell).

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[frantzdb]

And for the universities, it probably doesn't predict performance at the university and beyond as well as other metrics might.

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[lumierang]

As a Chinese who have gone through the Chinese university entrance exams, I have to say while it is certainly not a great system(And quite painful to undertake for even once),it may be the only feisible system for now from a Chinese point of view.Given the number of students waiting to enter college each year ( 8 million in 2006), guarantee the fairness of grading the exam alone is a enormous task, the American system of reviewing simply cannot not work. While it may encourage cheating and discourage creativity , it may be more fair to the students than what will be if Chinese universities copy the American system, since the Chinese educational system is now among the less corrupted systems in China .What is most unfair is not the exam but the disctrict discrimination between major cities (Beijing,Shanghai) and else of China.Since the major universities are concentrated in Beijing ond Shanghai,students in these cities have a much greater chance of entering universities than a student from other district which have far more population than Beijing but only about the same or less number of enrollment .

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[slashdotmsiriv]

I had to go through the same system in Greece. I agree that it is not a good system at all although i was among the lucky ones. Some countries however do not have the option of assigning university acceptance to possibly corrupted university commitees. From what I know, neither Greeks or Chinese (and many many others) place trust on the acceptance commitees for deciding their kids future based on subjective criteria like high school grades, voluntary work etc.

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[Tom]

Not a great system from any point of view.

But is it so much worse than the "there are two ways into Harvard: Being a genius or being rich" system?

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[eklipsse]

The system does not encourage cheating. The "one test" admission is giving a fair chance to all high school graduates regardless of their past "performance". The tests are specialized based on the direction of study ( math/physics/chemistry for engineering and so on). They are testing your (basic) skill level in the field you want to pursue.

I got my BS degree back home in Romania, and at the time, there were 9 competing candidates for each spot.
Did any cheaters get in? Maybe. but the great majority of people being admitted were a fit for the field of study.

I have seen more cheating during my MS in Computer Science here in US, then I have seen back then. "Individual" projects solved by groups of people of the same ethnicity, students knowing the test subject before the exam because the TA was from the same country and so on.

Point is, the "one test" admission system is fair and efficient. No "politically correctness", no "affirmative action", no BS. Your gender, race, religion and sexual preferences are irrelevant.
You know your stuff, you get in, you don't, tough luck. Study more and try again or reconsider your options.

<jk>
And I wouldn't say it "Discourages creativity" as some of the cheaters get rather creative in their attempt. =)
</jk>

Fact of the matter is that no system is good enough to keep the cheaters out. But you do not change a system that works perfect in getting the best people on top <insert dirty thought here> most of the time because a few people cheat.

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[qwix]

You are oversimplifying complex things. In Romania, they used to have this exact system (admission exams). They now switched to a HS grade system for admission, and most universities do not have an exam any more. They also normalized the grading system in High Schools. The result is a far worse system in which good High Schools do not give lower grades any more in order to not lower their students' chances of getting into college, and consequently the students are more superficial, because they can easily get a high grade. In an exam-based system you do have problematic elements, the outliers, but overall the system tends to work fairly well. The new system suffers from systemic problems that will only be visible after a few generations, when it's too late to change things. In short it builds generations of superficial students for which "legal cheating" is a ongoing life exercise. Take a look at education in the US for a good example.

Re:A more in-depth story on entrance exams ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't even cut you slack if your mother died the day before.

Well at least it doesn't encourage you to kill your mom.

Hahaha it's funny!

[stratjakt]

Heh heh, that country is so overpopulated and in such economic crisis that kids are literally dying to get into university for a chance to better themselves!!!

OMFGROFOLOLOL HILARIOUS

HAHA..

Ok, ok.. I got another good one..

There's a huge AIDS epidemic in Africa, right.. SO like, these poor rural folks dont understand how it's spread, and when they get it, they can't afford any sort of treatment so they just die..

HAHAHAHHAH omg my sides are splitting

With this much "ingenuity"...

[GillBates0]

...they might as well swap their old brain with a newer smarter one. They wouldn't need to cheat then.

not sure if more universities is the answer...

[cheesegunner]

"while an electronic device connected to headphones and strapped to a third student's body exploded, leaving a bleeding hole in his abdomen." Sounds to me like they need better high-school physics classes.

Re:not sure if more universities is the answer...

[GundamFan]

Or, for that matter, electronics. ...I wouldn't even know how to intentoanly make a tape player/radio into a bomb let alone do it accidentaly.

Re:not sure if more universities is the answer...

[operagost]

I'm sure a faulty battery or capacitor was involved.

Re:not sure if more universities is the answer...

[marciot]

Or, for that matter, electronics. ...I wouldn't even know how to intentoanly make a tape player/radio into a bomb let alone do it accidentaly.

Maybe it was some sort of hi-tech device with a Lithium Ion battery (like an IPod) and when they dissembled it they shorted the leads of the battery or damaged the protection circuit?

-- Marcio

Encouragement

[Billosaur]

You hear that America! Now China is about to outdo is in another category: cheating! Are we going to stand for this?!?

Precisely why do we care? Admittedly, if China's colleges and universities get filled with these industrious but otherwise dim individuals, we won't have to worry about China being a technological force to be reckoned with.

Re:Encouragement

[hal2814]

Relax, the Chinese have nothing on Emmit Fitzhume and Austin Millbarge.

More schools

[JimBobJoe]

why don't they just open more schools?

(Stereotype alert)

It's my understanding that Asians are very meritocratically oriented, and one of the results is that they must know how people rank. Even if there were more schools to accept all the potential students, people would still be racking their brains because exams would be designed to order 9 million people from the top person to Mr. 9 million.

Their fascination with meritocracy is not necessarily a bad thing. Thomas Friedman mentioned in The world is flat that the Chinese insist on promoting people who know what they're talking about in government. With a meritocratically oriented civil service that runs all the way to the top, the leaders of Chinese government tend to be engineers and scientists, whereas we in the democratic USA are stuck with lawyers.

Re:More schools

[TheBogie]

Thomas Friedman mentioned in The world is flat that the Chinese insist on promoting people who know what they're talking about in government. With a meritocratically oriented civil service that runs all the way to the top, the leaders of Chinese government tend to be engineers and scientists, whereas we in the democratic USA are stuck with lawyers.

They need to get some economists and historians in their government. Then they would realize that communism doesn't work.

Re:More schools

[Fex303]

With a meritocratically oriented civil service that runs all the way to the top, the leaders of Chinese government tend to be engineers and scientists, whereas we in the democratic USA are stuck with lawyers.

And in China, do they have all the lawyers design bridges and research physics?

Lawyers making laws are not the problem with the US (or other democracies). Idiots pandering to the lowest common denominator and big business seems to be. Not that China's exactly a model of enlightened government...

Re:More schools

[Otter]

I don't think you need to invoke anything specifc about Asians -- you can't "just open" a new Princeton or Oxford any more than you can do it for Fudan or Keio.

Re:More schools

[be-fan]

They seem to have realized that, which is why they are rapidly deregulating their markets.

Nothing happens overnight, of course.

Re:More schools

[prefect42]

Having just been to Beijing and Moscow, I'd say it certainly feels like China has deregulated a lot more than Russia. Talking to a Chinese friend from home I learnt that economic reform has been going on for a lot longer in China than Russia, despite Russia 'turning away' from Communism. But in the same breath I note that a local commented that in China it's a communist country for the ruling elite, but not the general population. But that's the joy of implementation vs specification.

Re:More schools

[plutonium83]

Seriously, how can you get away with saying something like this. Try talking to a 17 year old American applying to college, now make it so they can only take their SAT's ONCE, then lower the available colleges and acceptance rates, you'd see the same thing in America. "Oh, but it must be because they are Chinese!" I'm surpised someone can get a +4 by making broad generalizations like this. If parent was talking about Linux, the post would be a troll!

Re:More schools

[MightyYar]

An elected representative doesn't need to be a lawyer to write good laws - he or she just needs to hire a lawyer. One problem with this is that the "farm system" for national politicians in the US is local politicians, and they are necessarily lawyers because they don't get much in the way of funding for staff.

My feeling is that there is nothing wrong with lawyers being politicians per se, but they shouldn't make up almost the entire legislature! If the entire legislature were made up of engineers or doctors, I'd say the same thing... it's just that variety is good, and there is no variety in US politics.

Re:More schools

[MightyYar]

I don't think that there's anything wrong with making some broad cultural observations in the context of a discussion like this. Of course you can't say, "He's Chinese, therefore he needs to know his rank." But you can say, "In general, Chinese people rely heavily on ranking systems." This is no worse than saying "Most Americans seem to not favor the war in Iraq." It's true and he did not approach it in an offensive way.

As someone who works in Asia regularly, I'd say it's also largely accurate. Things like job title are far more important than they are here. You can't just ask a peer to do something, you need to channel the request through their superior... There's nothing wrong with this - it's just different than in the West, and it can be frustrating until you figure out what is going on. Some Westerners cannot ever wrap their brains around it, and so call the Chinese stupid or incompitent - when usually it is just a cultural difference that they don't understand.

The sub-culture that you point out in the US - that is, the small percentage of kids that enter Ivy League schools - behave in the same way. Many of these kids get frustrated when they enter the American workforce and find that hierarchal, rank-based culture missing. We get a lot of Ivy League educated engineers at work, and while most are excellent engineers, some have actually done things like cry when a (lower-ranked!) technician was assigned to train them. It is not uncommon to hear words like "pion" come from their mouths. They would probably do well in Southeast Asia :) My wife is Ivy League, so don't think I'm saying I don't like them!

Re:More schools

[mrchaotica]

Lawyers making laws are not the problem with the US (or other democracies).

You're right. It's actually the mere existence of lawyers that's the problem, because the core philosophy of democracy is that the laws should be simple enough for all citizens to understand, without specialized training (i.e. only high-school Civics class).

Our country would be a lot better off if every lawyer immediately keeled over and died.

Re:More schools

[posdnous]

Chinese Universities ARE MOST definitely not a meritocracy.

In fact it is probably the most unfair admissions process out of all the countries I have ever seen.

The system is heavily slanted towards major cities such as beijing and shanghai. Each university has a quota system for students from each of the countries provinces. So in US terms, it would be like Harvard having a quota for high school students from each state, so if Harvard takes in 1000 students each year, it would allocate 10 students to texas, 10 students to rhode island, 20 students to california, etc....

Now the problem is that the Major cities in China like beijing and shanghai hold most of the universities, and most of the Top universities in China, such as Peking university, Tsinghua University, FuDan university, etc... And each of those universities allocate a HUGE number of positions to students from it's local municipality.

What this means in reality is that Beijing with a population of 18 million people will end up with like 100,000 university spots per year, and a poor, rural province like AnHui with 50 million people will end up with 5,000 university spots. This is reflected in the entrance marks too.

A university in china does not just have ONE entrance mark, it has multiple entrance marks, one for each province which it accepts students from. This means that it will have a low entrance mark for places like beijing which it allocates the most quota to, and an extremely high entrance mark for places which it has a low quota for, like the previously mentioned anhui province.

In education terms this means that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, not a MERITOCRACY at all.

Re:More schools

[kaybee]

At least in the US, we have a history of capitalism... i.e. supply/demand. If more schools are demanded, they will be created by private parties. In China my understanding is that most, if not all, education is done by the government, which is not traditionally as reactive to supply as the free market can be.

Re:More schools

[Pendersempai]

With a meritocratically oriented civil service that runs all the way to the top, the leaders of Chinese government tend to be engineers and scientists, whereas we in the democratic USA are stuck with lawyers.

You know, this is not exactly an endorsement of engineers and scientists.

Re:More schools

[Anonymous Coward]

With all due respect to Mr.Friedman he's a bad example as his writing, verbage and in depth look at the cruel realities of the world he's promoting fall very much short of the rosy picture he'd have you believe.

On the other hand what you're argue for-a highly controlled infrastructure, government sponsored and subsidized education (way beyoned lipservice) and an environment where people get away from lawyers has emense benifits.

Above all-these anecdotes are meant to be amusing-laugh

Re:More schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Let's strive for an even MORE overcrowded Beijing and even MORE drained rural China! This might surprise you, but not all countries are as uniformly developed as the US, so the government needs to find a workaround.

Re:More schools

[Spatula Sam]

So in US terms, it would be like Harvard having a quota for high school students from each state

Or Harvard having a quota for high school students from different races... or a quota for the children of alumni, donors, or well-connected people.

I'm sure glad that Harvard doesn't do that.

Re:More schools

[FurryFeet]

It is not uncommon to hear words like "pion" come from their mouths.

Do they spend a lot of time talking about particle physics?

Re:More schools

[MightyYar]

The engineers? Not so much, unless they have a PhD. Now the few physicists that I work with... look out! Those are some scary lunch table conversations. But Physicists tend to be quite egalitarian in my experience.

Re:More schools

[MightyYar]

Whoooosh! Over my head - I didn't even catch my spelling error or your reference to it until after I submitted my reply! Of course I meant "peon", not "pion". That changes the tone of my post completely...

Maybe, just maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps these students aren't smart enough to do university. Therefore, opening a place for them will be wasteful.

Cheap batteries?

[strazzere]

FTFA: while an electronic device connected to headphones and strapped to a third student's body exploded I wonder if they used the fake batteries that are made in china that explode in our cell phones.... Ironic?

Why not just open more schools?

[Distinguished Hero]

If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

Maybe because in the real world resources are finite? Yes, in a free market situation, where the price that people were willing to pay would be higher than the marginal cost of production, more would be sold, and high profit margins would encourage even more people to enter the market, satisfying even more demand; however, education is (probably) highly subsidized, and as such, every additional student or school opened costs even more money. There is also the matter of very good or even decent teachers being a finite resources. Add in the matter of prestige (everyone wants to get placed in a top school), and the fact that it doesn't make much sense to graduate a lot more people than the demand for jobs (unless you want to depress wages by increasing unemployment or think that these people will be entrepreneurs who will in the future generate even more jobs), and the fact that graduating more sub-par students in addition to the best of the best is not really necessary or all that beneficial and you will come to realize that the decision is rather rational.

Re:Why not just open more schools?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the fact that graduating more sub-par students in addition to the best of the best is not really necessary or all that beneficial and you will come to realize that the decision is rather rational.

Actually, there is no way to know if the decision was rational or not, because of the socialist calculation problem.

Re:Why not just open more schools?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because in the real world resources are finite? Yes, in a free market situation, where the price that people were willing to pay would be higher than the marginal cost of production, more would be sold, and high profit margins would encourage even more people to enter the market, satisfying even more demand; however, education is (probably) highly subsidized, and as such, every additional student or school opened costs even more money. There is also the matter of very good or even decent teachers being a finite resources.

Written like a true layman.

not good enough

[Unsus]

Those who (physically) hurt themselves cheating are obvious not qualified for uni anyway.

Re:not good enough

[canning]

Good point. Those caught cheating however will likely do more to themselves than perferate an eardrum.

Black Thursday=Exam Day

[Blorgo]

If you are from a poor Chinese family, this is the only chance you will have to get into get into a university, with the govt. paying most or all of the costs. It is a way out of poverty for a whole family; the pressures are enormous, and there are many suicides of students who failed to get high enough scores on the entrance exam (held just once per year, typically on a Thursday). So, anything goes. If you can't afford to pay a tutor, or are not quite smart enough in the first place, and don't have a Party member for a family friend to pull some strings, you are doomed to work in an IPod factory or even a rice paddy for the rest of your life. So, you do whatever it takes.

In the west, we have lots of opportunities and second chances, and China is doing better these days, but has much govt. control still. It's a developing country, with a huge gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.

I personally hope the Chinese govt. can keep things from boiling over at some point. People (over 1 Gig of people there) want more than the Govt. can supply, and it's a balancing act. Most of the top govt. officials are engineers, which (if you know engineers) is both good and bad.

Re:Black Thursday=Exam Day

[Anonymous Coward]

... People (over 1 Gig of people there) want more than the Govt. can supply, and it's a balancing act....

Really? Is there a torrent?

Re:Black Thursday=Exam Day

[posdnous]

If you are a poor chinese family, you CANNOT Afford to go to university.

The government in china does not pay for higher education, every single university in china charges the SAME tuition fee for All students, that is 10000RMB, or round about $1250USD.

For an average family in china, this means if you want to send your child to university for 4 years, pretty much spending your entire life savings. Most families are quite glad to do so, becaue of the attitude of chinese towards education.

For the poor family, their child cannot afford to go to university no matter how good their marks are.

Re:Black Thursday=Exam Day

[king-manic]

If you are from a poor Chinese family, this is the only chance you will have to get into get into a university, with the govt. paying most or all of the costs. It is a way out of poverty for a whole family; the pressures are enormous, and there are many suicides of students who failed to get high enough scores on the entrance exam (held just once per year, typically on a Thursday). So, anything goes. If you can't afford to pay a tutor, or are not quite smart enough in the first place, and don't have a Party member for a family friend to pull some strings, you are doomed to work in an IPod factory or even a rice paddy for the rest of your life. So, you do whatever it takes.

In the west, we have lots of opportunities and second chances, and China is doing better these days, but has much govt. control still. It's a developing country, with a huge gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.

I personally hope the Chinese govt. can keep things from boiling over at some point. People (over 1 Gig of people there) want more than the Govt. can supply, and it's a balancing act. Most of the top govt. officials are engineers, which (if you know engineers) is both good and bad.

This is true in general of all countries and all education systems. Success anf progression requires some amount of money. My degree cost me 35,000 CND. A pitance compared to a yale or harvard degree which is more rpestigious.

You got modded down, but

[nathan s]

I respect your point here. The summary seems a bit flippant and this is not really funny at all.

Re:Socialism

[The_DOD_player]

Trust me.. there is nothing socialistic about the current chinese society, least of all their health care.

a few answers to these questions

[superwiz]

First, education in a top school is VERY different from education in a recently opened school with no reputation. I know because I teach in a public university. Our classes are dumbed down because the students won't get it otherwise. Most of the classes that I took in junior and senior level in my undergrad can never be taught here.

Second, education is only a small part of the value of university. Creating life-long contacts with people who will be in your field and those who are already successful in your field is almost as (if not a bigger) part.

Third, Ph.D. is awarded for discovering something new in a field. Try discovering something new in Math... And without a Ph.D., you can't teach in a university. This limits the number of university teachers in technical disciplines.

And lastly, since I am compareing China to my American experience, they can't "just" open a university. It takes more than a guy with money willing to build a building. A university degree there is an official governtment document. So all programs must come with official government approval and certification.

Re:a few answers to these questions

[frederec]

Third, Ph.D. is awarded for discovering something new in a field. Try discovering something new in Math... And without a Ph.D., you can't teach in a university. This limits the number of university teachers in technical disciplines.

Speaking as someone who is a month away from getting a PhD in math, it's not THAT hard to discover something new in math. Just look at all the math journals, or any technical journals, for that matter. There is pleny to research and discover. It's just little of it filters down to common knowledge.

Like most fields, there are more PhDs who graduate than there are jobs for them. I'm not trying to argue that opening new schools is trivial. I am saying that when new schools appear, there are more likely than not PhDs who would be more happy to apply their training to something relevant to their field.

Re:a few answers to these questions

[Anonymous Coward]

And without a Ph.D., you can't teach in a university. This limits the number of university teachers in technical disciplines.

You may be interested to know that, at least in the U.S., every university faculty opening has hundreds of applicants, even temporary visiting professorships at no-name colleges in the middle of nowhere. It's not uncommon for a job seeker to apply to every position in the country, in their desperation to get a job. Underproduction of Ph.D.'s who want to go into academia is not a problem, even in technical fields.

Re:a few answers to these questions

[nuggz]

Third, Ph.D. is awarded for discovering something new in a field. Try discovering something new in Math... And without a Ph.D., you can't teach in a university.

Name a single solved field, I don't think you can.
Every field has constant research and new ideas, even then there is always a new way to apply existing techniques.

Re:a few answers to these questions

[Anonymous Coward]

In China a movie ticket is an official government document. That's what happens when the government runs everything. But it also dilutes the value of "official" because there's no distinction between that and everyday documents.

Or are you suggesting that somehow the bureaucracy of accreditation in China vastly exceeds the bureaucracy of the same process here? I know it's "privately funded" in the US, but since a huge proportion of the accredited schools are public institutions, and since the basis for a lot of government funding is accreditation, I'm having trouble understanding why the differences are so important.

Re:a few answers to these questions

[mrchaotica]

First, education in a top school is VERY different from education in a recently opened school with no reputation. I know because I teach in a public university. Our classes are dumbed down because the students won't get it otherwise. Most of the classes that I took in junior and senior level in my undergrad can never be taught here.

"Public" does not imply "dumbed down," you know. What you probably mean to say is "community college" or "regional college," because there exist research universities like Georgia Tech or UC/Berkeley or whatever that are the equal of top-tier private universities. In addition, not all private colleges are top-tier; there are plenty of regional private colleges that are most likely just as "dumbed down" as their public equivalents.

Re:a few answers to these questions

[drew]

And without a Ph.D., you can't teach in a university

excuse me? since when?

i'm sure a lot of my former professor's would have been quite shocked to learn that they aren't eligible to teach in a university, as would my father.

Riots

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not always getting into any school but top schools. Last week there were riots over what school name was going on some graduates diplomas in China. I think I say it on cnn.

The big problem with competition.

[damburger]

For years its been quite stylish to voice an ideology of bringing competition into all aspects of life. This situation demonstrates the horrible flaw in the idea.

The question you've got to ask yourself is what about a person is actually being measured by the competative system? In educational systems like this one, what is being measured is the ability to pass a test. Cheaters score very highly on this scale, so you end up distilling the most ruthless cheaters from society.

Don't get too comfortable mocking China for this though - most western countries include extensive testing in their high school education systems, in the pursuit of the almight 'competativeness', and this leads to the same kind of thing.

Re:The big problem with competition.

[erwejo]

The problem is a bit more subtle that just competition. The competition for a limited number of spaces leads to what is known as a positional externality. This is a dangerous consequence where it does not matter how well I do, I just have to be better than someone else (or billions of other). We are seeing this academic arms race happening all over the place, even in the US. So what do we do? We recognized it for what it is. This is a place for some truly incredible individuals, but it is not a judgement of the quality of an individual. By placing so much value on a result that is nearly unobtainable is likely to cause suffering in the many people that by the nature of the positional externality - cannot succeed regardless of ability.

Re:The big problem with competition.

[saider]

Here in the States, the tests are used to determine if a student is qualified or not (insert testing debate here). Most public universities have their criteria and have to accept anyone who meets it. So if 75 out of 100 people meet or exceed the requirements, then those that passed all get to attend the school. They might have trouble registering for classes because of overcrowding, but they are still "in".

This is in contrast to 100 people competing for 10 seats. Even if 75 meet or exceed the requirements, only 10 will be seated. This model is similiar to private schools, with "ability to pay tuition" added as a criteria. If they consistently get a surplus of otherwise qualified applicants, they know that they can raise tuition.

Re:The big problem with competition.

[Anonymous Coward]

A+

Thanks for posting that. I was about to write the same thing until I saw you already did it.

When I hear "competition is always good for the consumer", I wonder who the consumers are.
In my opinion it's usually the greediest.

In Socialist China...

[andphi]

...The tests cheat on you!

Sorry, I couldn't resist....

Don't try at home??

[ronanbear]

Well it would be a total waste of time if you're at home :p

why don't they just open more schools?

[dindi]

Because some cultures beleive, that you should only go to higher school if you can perform there.
Your society needs farmes, car repairmen, plumbers and people who clean the streets

HNow in other societies, you can "buy" into college, college that most people can actually finish, then you end up with a bunch of kids with a degree, who are othervise barely suitable for a simple administration job at the local fastfood restaurant, or price/wal/whatever-mart.

I personally grew up at a place, where even getting into highschool (4 yrs after 8yrs primary) was just impossible for some, because they weren't able to perform well enough to get admission..... university exams were kind of a bloodsport back then :)

Is that right? If you allow specialization, and have a good selection of importance choices between subjects: yes ...
In my time, my college points included literature and history, even though I was about to go to an IT school.....
Also in college we wasted a lot of time learning useless stuff because of the lack of specialization, and while I somewhat agree that a universal knowledge should be taught in schools (high, and some uni/college besides the obvious primary), in many times that amount of universal trash should be better considered.

Re:why don't they just open more schools?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have to object to this. I agree that only the qualified should be allowed into higher education - i.e., we are not dumbing down our material and standards to make more people fit - your examples demonstrate a type of elitism that I do not enjoy.

Farmers, car repairmen, and plumbers require education also. You make it seem as if these are the uber-low-end jobs that any twit with half a brain can do, but there's a reason I need my mechanic, my plumber, and the many farmers that provide what I eat everyday. I consider myself a decent handyman, but if you told me to evaluate and install all the piping in a new house, I wouldn't know where to even start.

Your attitude is rather disturbing, and laughable if you think managing a McDonalds or a Wal-Mart is "simple". Step into a McDonalds manager's shoes for a few days, it's tougher than you might imagine. Oh wait, I forgot, just because they didn't go Ivy League or have a $60K degree means their job MUST be easier than yours, oops!

I'm pretty sick of this attitude that somehow a university education makes you better than the rest, and anyone who didn't go to a prestigious institution is somehow "lower" and their jobs are merely to serve and toil at your feet. There is a fairly hefty amount of education involved in all the trades.

FYI, I'm an engineer from one of the more prestigious tech schools in Canada, I fought my way through the exams and high entrance requirements to get where I am, but that doesn't give me the justification to disrespect college grads or people without a degree. We all do what we do. ... And about universal knowledge, this is the one thing that hurts techies in education more than anything else. By and large the CompSci and IT types that I meet complain incessantly about being forced to take electives in fields other than computers. What is with this? What happened to being well-rounded... or having interests in subjects other than your job for that matter? A system that allows people to specialize too deeply risks creating a culture where people know NOTHING except what they were specialized to do. Hell, at work I deal with engineers every day who can barely string two coherent sentences together, I *wish* somebody had made them sit through a few English classes during school!

Re:why don't they just open more schools?

[dindi]

Take it easy man! Seriously.

No one said anything bad about car repairmen or the people who clean our streets. I fought my way thru the stupid system as well. and yes sometimes I am happy they made me sit thru those boring history, music or whatever else classes. Sometimes not.

All I said, that it is a far more fair system than some others, where you pay a bunchload of money, get in without an exam, finish a school and come out as dumb as you went in, than being not happy in a job that you are overqualified for.

I don't know about MC donald's managers in general, I only knew one, who happened to be some self-titled software guru and somehow ended up in managing position where I happened to apply .... He became my boss, and I quit after a month of suffering his incompetency, intolerant unfriendly asshole attitude, and constant lies. The kind of attitude you see in US teen movies, where the local fastfood boss thinks he is the king, and the best thing that can happen to its surrounding. So yes I might have a prejudgement issue with MC bosses and no I never eat in one, ever (not bc that, but I am too healthy for that stuff).

And thanks, there is no money I would step into a MCD manager's shoes, I'd better live in a tent and herd sheep in the mountains. It's the smell maybe? :)

So then again, I know very noble people who are otherwise very simple people. Without a degree, doing a good job, here and there.
So be upset if you wish, all I said, that not everyone has to go to college and university, and simpler jobs that need no higher education should be filled too with people who do not belong to higher schools.

And that might offend you again, but I know that in some countries you come out of highschool with more knowledge than some others' colleges, and no, I am not getting into mentioning countries, and that might also change from school to school. Besides that might really offend some people which is not the aim of my post at all.

I did not mean to offend anyone, I know car repairmen, that have university degrees, and know a shrink that is a taxi driver as a side-job (or hobby - I never got that clear)

The Chinese, like Americans, are self-defeating.

[Futurepower(R)]

"... why don't they just open more schools?"

It's easy to understand that an American would have a lack of appreciation of Chinese culture. Chinese culture often insists on being self-defeating.

The U.S. culture is extremely self-defeating, too, of course. What purpose is there in taking over from Saddam Hussein in killing Iraqis (other than to make those with weapons and oil investments rich)? The U.S. has a higher percentage of its people in prison than any nation in the history of the world. The U.S. has invaded 24 countries since the end of the Second World War.

But the Chinese culture is even more self-defeating than that. There is a movie made in Hong Kong in which self-defeat is the theme. I don't remember the title. A family sacrificed to send their boy to university, when he didn't want to study, and their daughter was an excellent student.

--
U.S. Taxpayer Karma: If you contribute money to kill people, expect your own quality of life to diminish.

sign of progress

[Nowhere.Men]

Before they were stupidly studying very hard to be able recite their lesson at the exams.

Now they have to be ingenous and imaginative to be able to cheat and not get caught.

World beware, the new China is coming.

Re:sign of progress

[archen]

I don't think anyone cited this as being a detractor. Japan is also well known for their memorization education system. Most people referr to India when saying "unimaginative". The Chinese were always crafty, they're just patient in they way things are set up. The new China is already here, it's just positioning itself. Those who don't see it are only wearing blinders.

Re:sign of progress

[__aabwba5127]

You have a valid point here. What many posters fail to do is look at this from a historical perspective. Back in the empire times, access to the vast bureaucracy of the empire was allowed or denied by test scores. Many public positions were awarded by your test results solely or partially. Some parts of their university system have to be looked at from that lens.

MOD PARENT UP.

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 correct.

Encouragements are not necessary

[doudou42]

You hear that America! Now China is about to outdo is in another category: cheating! Are we going to stand for this?!?

Don't be affraid, China has still a long long way to go : They still can't afford all the drugs american students are using (last week article)

One word:

[Anonymous Coward]

Status. The status of the schools mean everything in places like China, Korea, and Japan. That is why they don't open new schools. Asian cultures tend to be OBSESSED with status. I know Chinese friends who refuse to wear anything but Kalvin Klein jeans even if they didn't look good on them because Kalvin Klein(I think that is spelled right) is associated with STATUS! There are currently riots going on in China because they are changing the name of the college on degrees being printed next year(the students in question are going to an associated university but were told that a more prestigious university would grant the diplomas). In Japan, it doesn't matter if you did jack shit in college, if you are a University of Tokyo or University of Kyoto student, companys will fight eachother to get at you, even above more qualified candidates who went to lesser known schools but who actually did useful and interesting things in college. Obviously this isn't univerisal, but it seems while status is still important in the west, very few people will hire you simply because you went to say Johns Hopkins(though of course it doesn't hurt)

You win!

[Anonymous Coward]

You win the "Worst Analogy On Slashdot" award for Tuesday, June 20, 2006, 7am to 8am PST.

I don't see much difference with France...

[gedeco]

In France you have to pass a bachelors exam before you might go to university.
The bachelors exam is the final high school exam.

For the french speaking among us
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalaur%C3%A9at_(Fr ance)

Other countrys have such obligations too.
In my time I had to pass a qualification test, before being able to get to technical college.

Cheating? Yes this is a common among students. Nothing new.
Using new technology? In my time they where using a TI 59 programmable calculator to cheat.

The only difference: The article make it looks like those Chinese are more desperate.
Or is it the aim of the article to sell some sensation? Like some tabloïds?

If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Opportunist]

You only have one shot. How far would you go?

Imagine this: Studying is your ONLY chance to get a well paying job. There is no such thing as having THE killer idea, gathering some venture vultures and getting rich that way, you study, or you're assembling Furbys for the rest of your life.

And you only have ONE shot. ONE try. ONE single chance to prove that you're "worth" it. It's not like "write to a billion colleges and even if MIT rejects you, the university of Wallawalla will accept you". Studying abroad is also not necessarily an option.

You have to succeed. If it costs your life.

How far would you go? Personally, I'd sacrifice a virgin should I find one, just for the odd chance that this might appease some kind of deity I don't believe in.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd sacrifice a virgin should I find one...

I don't think you have to look far. This is Slashdot...

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[FoogyFoo]

You only have one shot. How far would you go?

You could prepare for the test by studying...

Seriously, the amount of time, thought, and effort that goes into cheating is enormous. If they focused instead on actually learning things, the tests wouldn't be so scary, and they'd actually earn their place in a university.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[codemaster2b]

There's no diety that exists that can be appeased no matter what you do, if you don't believe in him.

Of course, satan would, even if you don't believe in him.

To answer the question, I have no earthly idea. I can't fathom it in the slightest.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Opportunist]

Most certainly. Alas, as with many things, the usual approach does not always look like the most appealing.

Also, don't forget that there are subjects that people simply don't understand, and others are easier for them to do. For me, I would certainly have cheated with elaborate electronic devices in BA, since electronic devices make more sense to me than shareholder values.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[clambake]

Personally, I'd sacrifice a virgin should I find one

That was ironic... becuase if you are female in china, you have TWO shots... the entrance exams... OR sacrificing your virginity to somone else who passes (i.e. get yourself and M.R.S. degree).

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[ohearn]

Well they could make SURE they only have one shot and just execute anyone caught cheating. (OK end of sarcasm) Yes these people want something better, most people do. That is just part of human nature. When all else fails there are always universities in other countries willing to accept international students by the barrel. Yes, that costs money, and if the families had that much money to begin with they could probably bribe the kid's way into a school.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Opportunist]

Yeah, but ya know, for the sacrifice to actually count, you REALLY have to cut someone's heart out. Not only virtually.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Anonymous Coward]

And you only have ONE shot. ONE try. ONE single chance to prove that you're "worth" it. It's not like "write to a billion colleges and even if MIT rejects you, the university of Wallawalla will accept you". Studying abroad is also not necessarily an option.

Actually, Walla Walla College isn't too bad. Or Whitman College if that's what you were referring to. Certainly not up to the levels of MIT, but still respectable.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[khallow]

Seriously, the amount of time, thought, and effort that goes into cheating is enormous. If they focused instead on actually learning things, the tests wouldn't be so scary, and they'd actually earn their place in a university.

Hmmm, looks like one in four makes it. That's pretty bad odds especially if you already know that doing your best won't place you in the upper 25%.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Opportunist]

Note to self: When inventing some place to refer to as bad, make sure it doesn't really exist.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Maxo-Texas]

And one in four make it with rampant cheating.

So that means that to pass cheating becomes mandatory.

It's like Baseball in the united states lately.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I'd sacrifice a virgin should I find one, just for the odd chance that this might appease some kind of deity I don't believe in.

It's a simple matter of numbers, my friend.

Here on /., we sacrifice you.

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Anonymous Coward]

> Note to self: When inventing some place to refer to as bad, make sure it doesn't really exist.

So... what about hell? :-)

Re:If you got only one chance, you do what you can

[Opportunist]

That's not my invention. I certainly wouldn't dare to infringe on a copyright of a company with more funds than God himself.

Or actually, with his funds.

Yet another good idea...

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Bring one or two of them here and maybe we can perfect a way to cheat Las Vegas.

It isn't like we have Peter, Frank, Sammy, Dean to ask anymore. You could ask Joey though.

A culture of cheating?

[ThePyro]

My wife spent two years teaching English in China. The way she described her experiences, it sounded as if cheating were an accepted norm. Some teachers, rather than ask their students to refrain from cheating, instead ask them to not make it so obvious that the teacher loses face. It's just a given that many of them will cheat. And some of my wife's students explained to her that it's quite an insult to refuse another student's request to help him or her cheat; it could ruin an otherwise lengthy friendship.

Granted, though, this was not at a top university. It was a smaller, almost trade-school atmosphere.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[wiiz3rd]

And by the same logic, your wife thinks that those Chinese whoe came here to study are also cheaters because they are from a culture of cheating? Total BS! Your wife is a narrow minded person. There is cheating everywhere even here in the US.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some cheating/dishonesty is cultural. In some countries (e.g. India, Russia), it's normal to try to cheat the system. A Indian colleage at work (born in India, but been in the US for 10+ years) who recently did a 2 month stint there at our Indian development center, cam back saying how glad he was to be back - that he's now been Americanized too much to be able to stand the systemic dishonesty there (lying on resumes, in interviews, etc).

Re:A culture of cheating?

[AK Marc]

It's just a given that many of them will cheat.

I'm in a two part class in China. The first half was in May, and I'll be back in October. We had tests throughout the class, and all the Chinese students cheated. All of them. We were split up in tables of 6 students each (about one American per table) and the Americans are the only ones that didn't cheat. Of course, out of politeness, I did keep my answer sheet open in a manner that they could easily look on it to see what I got and I waited until at least one of them coppied my answers before I turned in my test, but I didn't use theirs for my benefit. It was expected that we cheat, and some of the Americans were explicitly invited to cheat by the classmates when it was noticed that we weren't cheating. I pre-empted that by telling my table that I did not wish to cheat. They weren't offended and did honor my request by not pressing the issue. These were all professionals in a masters level class.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[dinsdale3]

Unfortunately, there does appear to be a cultural acceptance of cheating amongst the Chinese (at least by students). I ran into this during graduate school in the US. A large percentage of the students in my year were Chinese. For one class, we were given an individual, take-home, closed-book exam and a lot of us were working on it in the departmental library. A couple of the American students, myself included, observed two tables of Chinese students who were clearly discussing answers and referencing text books.

One other American student and myself went to complain to the department and were basically told: China has different views on cheating than we do, we are aware of the problem, and we grade on two separate curves based on this.

This seriously pissed me off and struck me as unfair not only to myself, but to any Chinese student who was honest enough to not cheat.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[Dread_ed]

I think I witnessed an importation of this cultural idea when I was in highschool.

We had a group of about 40 mostly Asian students that we called the "Xerox club." They would all get together in the morning before school in the cafeteria with the other studens. While everyone else was studying, eating, or trying to catch one last wink before school these guys and girls were copying their homework. Usually only 1 or 2 people would do the assignment and then they would pass it around for the others to copy. Once you finished copying you handed it to someone else so that everyone culd finish before the bell. It was pretty stealthy because while some were copying other people were taking and having a good time like normal, but all the students in the higher level classes knew what they were doing. Most of us had participated at one time or another as well. As long as you were cool with them they didn't mind you getting in on the action.

There were 2 funny results. First, every once in awhile people would grab the wrong assignment and turn it in. Sometimes it went unnoticed but other times they had to explain why they had someone elses homeowrk. Easy enough, we were studying together, etc. What was better is that one of my friends showed me that the teacher had graded his calculus homework and not even noticed that it wasn't his. He laughed and said something about "All Asians must look the same" to the teacher.

Second, copying doesn't teach well. Many of those students were in AP classes and after a few weeks of taking the copying shortcut they were behind on the book knowledge. They were pretty desperate come test time and many of them cheated. I saw furtive coded hand signals, almost microscopically written notes in the side of a pencil, ye olde graphing calculator with memory trick (that was new in my day), and even the long-sleeves-in-summer-with-stuff-written-on-your- arm method.

What surprised me the most was that the people who cheated could rely on the students that knew the answers (the ones they ultimately copied off of) to help them cheat on the tests too.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[Shajenko42]

For one class, we were given an individual, take-home, closed-book exam

Methinks the professor was a tad... naive.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[dinsdale3]

Perhaps. But, this was a graduate-level class designed for PhD students, not freshman biology. There is a different level of responsibility and maturity expected from students at this level, and in most other instances it was warranted.

Re:A culture of cheating?

[bronney]

Ah so that's why we got the fake Gucci bags. I live in Hong Kong and well I guess the Brits did a good job for us cuz when I grew up, cheating is regarded as incompetence, bad, shameful, ugly, and ghey. But from your experience I guess I understand why I feel threaten every time I go to China (HK is part of China now btw).

atleast in my day a-level exams were much the same

[Anonymous Coward]

in the uk.(although allowances were made in certain circumstances) you entrance to university relies solely on the results of a number of exams taken over the course of a couple of days.

I have no idea how the system works now with as and a2 levels but i for one found the exams to be a fair way to judge how much someone has taken out of their a-level studies, and how much they would be taking with them to university.

Testing through out the course, on the fly, using modules and course work to me does nothing but artificially raise pass rates and produce students who are unable to take a long term approach to their study methods. exams reward and produce students who when the chips are down deliver the goods.

As for building more universities, surely this isnt the answer, university education shouldn't be for EVERYONE, it should be selective, based on talent. Otherwise you end up with the absurd situation in the uk, where desperately overcrowded and underfunded universities are offering 'degrees' in 'David Beckham' studies

It is not about student's value

[doudou42]

There are 10 millions student and 2,5 millions places.
It is not about students value but about the system.

What if in a generation there is 5 millions student who really deserve better schooling ?
The will be left aside because there aren't enough places.

Compare with the US...
How many students are rejected, not because they aren't good enough but because the is no place to go ? 75% ? I really doubt it.

Re:Perhaps an easier way would be to go overseas..

[Anonymous Coward]

We also charge them thousands of Australian dollars. The Chinese kids whose families can afford to send them to Australia for three years are probably not the ones mutilating themselves to get into college.

because !

[garaged]

the same reason for every other country (usa included) applies !

The goberment is good enough for not caring about the citizens that put them in charge

plain simple

Experience with cheating in China

[Therlin]

My previous employer taught American courses in China through Chinese universities. Cheating was a huge problem.

Tests were done online. Students used all sorts of IM software to message each other. They used cell phones to text friends outside of the room with the books. IMs were blocked. Cell phones confiscated on the way into the rooms. They still found ways to cheat.

Some instructors stopped testing online and moved to paper tests. Students would pay the university's copy center to get copies of the exam.

For Internet tests, some instructors now only ask questions that do not require the use of the keyboard. The keyboards are placed on top of the monitors before the tests begin so that students cannot send any messages to anyone.

Plagarism? Standard everyday occurance.

Then students get caught and told that they are going to fail the course. Then they cry and ask for another chance because they don't want to go back home and not have a future. When given that chance, they are often caught again in the future.

Re:Experience with cheating in China

[Srin Tuar]

Sounds like incompetence.

Its very easy to rig up a computer so that it can only be used for test-taking, and has
no ability to send IM's or otherwise help the test-taker cheat.

If you allow a student access to a general purpose computer with network access of any kind,
then you are basically allowing them full access to all information on the internet. (for many
things, this degrades the test into a test of their search skills)

For some subjects, there is nothing wrong with that type of "cheating": if you can find the answer than you
can do the job. (in the real world you'll have a desktop and google available to you, so have at it)
That does not apply to all subjects however.

Another way to discourage cheating is to have the students compete against one another.
(the downside is that curves punish the brightest and reward mediocrity in many cases)
I wouldnt advise curves, standards should be objective.

Yet another way is to make each student take a unique test: Even simple shuffling the order of the
questions around, while making sure that the test-taker cannot view more than one question at a time
and cannot backtrack, effectively squelches many forms of synchronized or low-bandwidth cheating.

More subtle techniques involve giving similar questions that have slight differences, so that cheaters
who assume two questions are the same without looking too closely will be misled to choose the wrong answer.
Another technique is to "camouflage" questions by changing trivial details such as proper nouns/advectives/contants
and other details that do not affect the answer to the question.

In reality, a minimal effort should be able to prevent 99% of cheating attempts, and this should not be a big problem.
Lack of effort on part of the test administrators, or simple lack of confidience are to blame when cheating is high.

In any case, you cannot blame the students: they need to score high compared to their peers, or it will have a negative
impact on their lives. If they don't take advantage of every tool at their disposal, then they will do poorly.

Re:Experience with cheating in China

[Therlin]

A lot of it was incompetence by the instructors in China. It took us forever to get them to activate the "randomize" option in the tests. Others just didn't want to have to write more questions so that each student would get a test largely different from the people next to him or her.

I also suggested software that locks down the computer and just gives you a very stripped down browser (SecureExam, Lock Down Browser, etc, etc) and this was always dismissed as "too expensive."

I got out of there. Dealing with China and all of their problems and issues became a huge headache when you have to make 2 different cultures happy, the American employer and the demanding, and largely incompetent and non-caring, Chinese client.

Didn't like

[Anonymous Coward]

When the story reads, "If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?" it made me think the poster needs some help regarding perspective and who is who.

Marie Antoinette

[Anonymous Coward]

With schools you can open as many as you want but without professors it's just going to be babysitting for college students.

Babysitting is fine. What are the students going to be doing there except sitting around eating cake anyway?

Re:Marie Antoinette

[Compulsion]

I don't know what they'll be doing IN college. But once they're OUT they will spend all their otherwise-productive hours browsing /.

Re:Marie Antoinette

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

Silly you

The chinese can't browse /.

Re:Marie Antoinette

[nelsonal]

Read the whole comment this one deserves most of the mod points on this threadlet. Well played.

This might be a somewhat cynical view but

[milamber3]

I think that the government would be against opening more schools. It seems that the more educated a society as a whole becomes, the more political opposition to oppression there would be. I met quite a few graduate students from China when I was in school and I will always remember something this one TA told my EE2 lab. He said that almost no one in the higher education system supported communism. They all had to take classes and tests on the subject and that was the only area where everyone was completelty disinterested and large scale cheating was completely overlooked. I'm not saying that everyone who goes on to university will automatically fight the government but I think there is a history of more education leading to that sort of thing.

Re:This might be a somewhat cynical view but

[HungWeiLo]

Interesting point.

But who made up the Red Guard cadres who persecuted the "cultural elite" during the Cultural Revolution? Those same "educated" people in universities and high schools.

In 21st Century China, just swap out Mao ideology with material success.

Re:This might be a somewhat cynical view but

[milamber3]

Exactly!

"In 21st Century China, just swap out Mao ideology with material success."

"material success" would indicate movement toward some type of capitalistic system. I'm not trying to argue what system is or isn't better, that didn't seem to be the point of the article. I was just making the point that the current regime might not want to build more universities for fear of speeding up the growth of opposition to communism.

Re:This might be a somewhat cynical view but

[dosguru]

If you give enough people the ability to gain economic freedom, then a few years down the road they might demand political freedom as well.

Remember...

[Anonymous Coward]

In China, even of you are one-in-a-million there are 1306 people exactly like you.

More about Chinese self-defeat:

[Futurepower(R)]

There are elements in China that are planning war against Taiwan! There are people in China who want China to administer the Taiwan government, too, when they are not successful administering their own country. That's another example of Chinese self-defeat.

From the Taipei Times: Read about China's "Taiwan Complex". "Symptoms include an irrational, even schizophrenic, approach to relations with Taiwan."

"They also threaten Taiwan with missiles deployed directly opposite the island -- 784 according to the latest count -- but appear bewildered when polls show that the Taiwanese believe the regime in Beijing is unfriendly toward them."

Yeah, just open a few more schools

[Anonymous Coward]

obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

Look up Coloado Institute of Technology. It just folded recently after only 6 or 7 years. The region needs and wants a school like that (CU, CSU, DU, NMSU are all great school, don't get me wrong) but it takes 10s if not 100s of billions of dollars to get a Stanford, MIT, Caltech, CMU type school rolling and years to do it. You don't just stamp them out.

Secondly, the Chinese are the product of Maoism. To get my anti-pink jab in, they don't actually believe in competition. In their world competition is with two competitors and one winner and one loser. When 100million students apply to their best school and 5000 make the cut, they are "winners." Who is better? A Harvard grad or a Caltech grad or an MIT grad or a CMU grad? For some reason they need that simple structure. Personally, I think it's kind of an extreme anti-communistic backlash, they are almost making sure than in the post-communist world they will have one of the worst caste systems around. They also really want a handbook for success, do this, do that, go to this school, get a PhD from America, become rich....

more importantly

[Anonymous Coward]

"the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

The more obvious question would be, "Why do socialists still believe socialism can work?
Perhaps if china could find more capitolist "subversives" to hold in political prisons while finding matching organ recipients are found, they could afford more schools.

Of course, the problem being technology. You can't stop the free flow of information, even under a totalitarian regime. Not to mention everyone knows that commies are dummies and capitalists beat them up for thier (free) lunch money.

-JNY

In Tomorrow's News...

[czehp]

Yahoo! News Turns Over Chinese Exam Cheaters

Hey, why not? They've done it before.
</sarcasm>

MOD PARENT UP, he's wiser than he realizes

[Mewtwo]

There are certain walks of life where this should be true. If a student in, say, a business school that produces several CEOs can't manage to cheat successfully while being watched, they'll never make it when they need to do the unethical things that need done in the real world.

from the smart-people-bad-government dept.

[rob1980]

If you're losing headphones into your ear because you need to cheat to pass a test, you are not smart.

Education is dangerous

[Rhys]

Teaching people advanced technical skills... to solve problems and think for themselves... If you are the last large communist state in the world after the rest have gone belly-up, do you really want to churn out more people like the folks who caused you trouble back in 1989 in Tiananmen Square? Your economy needs them, but if you create them, can you control them?

Re:Education is dangerous

[Jester998]

Education is dangerous... Teaching people advanced technical skills... to solve problems and think for themselves...

I believe you made a minor typo there... I believe it should be "to solve problems by rote and do exactly what the prof expects".

Re:Education is dangerous

[fishbowl]

>Teaching people advanced technical skills... to solve problems and think for themselves...

Actually, Chinese students tend to have a very serious problem when they go to European or American schools. Their entire educational experience has been resolutely one-way. They do *not* speak in class, they are certainly not encouraged to engage in independent critical thinking or to take creative approaches to solving problems. They tend to be very, very good at rote memorization. They tend to struggle horribly in course formats where the student is expected to take the reins and be creative and responsible for his or her education. The idea of speaking up and challenging a professor is, pretty much, culturally unthinkable. In a course where this is expected, Chinese students in particular have a problem.

I have seen the phenomeon and discussed it at length with Chinese students, Chinese professors and postdocs, and American professors. It's a significant problem that has to be specifically addressed.

The problem goes the other way as well. It is very difficult for a Chinese student who has come to the US, to return to China. The educational format is so fundamentally different that Cinese students typically find themselves unable to compete in China. It is not because they are less intelligent or more poorly educated, but because the whole theory of education is executed differently.

There are lots of Chinese slashdotters who could express these ideas more clearly than I could.

Pivotal exams is norm across Asia.

[Tungbo]

I don't know about the cheating part.
But look in Japan, Taiwan, Singaport, Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia...

There is intense competition in all these places in order to enter a
decent college. Consequently, the students go to cram schools and
devote most of their high school years in preparing for the exams.

This gives a good grounding in the basics and select people who tests well.
It doe NOT mean that they can be good researchers, enterpreneurs,
corporate workers or teachers. The US system probalby is better preparation
in those areas. OTOH, I don't think the US schools' low expectation in sciense,
history/cultural studies, and math is very smart either.

Easy question

[stinky wizzleteats]

If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?

Because students have proven to be troublesome in the past.

It's the system, man

[Anonymous Coward]

China doesn't need to open any more schools. There are plenty. I wouldn't be surprised if Beijing alone has more colleges than the entire state of Texas, and I say this as one who lives there. Even the locals aren't sure how many schools there are in Beijing, because there are so many colleges here that it's almost impossible to keep track. I can think of 9 famous ones right off the top of my head, and that's only scratching the surface.

However, I also understand why so many people cheat on their exams. It's all about the money, and not necessarily just scholarships. The tuition structure for Chinese universities is exactly opposite that in the United States.

This is how Chinese high school seniors and their parents have explained it to me:

In the USA, we consider our private schools, our Yales and our Harvards, to be the "best." They're priced accordingly. State schools are considerably cheaper and, agree or disagree, considered by most to be "worse" than private institutions.

The Chinese think this is bizarre. The "best" two schools in China, Beijing University for Liberal Arts and Qinghua University for Science and Engineering, are both operated by the government. Tuition at these schools is mind-bendingly low. A couple thousand US dollars per year. Practically free, by Western standards, and literally free if you qualify for aid.

There are also 2nd and 3rd tier government schools, and as the school is ranked progressively worse, the tuition rises progressively higher. At the bottom of the barrel are private schools, which charge tuition equal to or higher than (in US dollars, they tell me!) Harvard or Yale.

Weird, right? The reason, however, is both simple and time-tested: corruption. Everybody wants a college degree, because that's how you find a good job. At the highest quality universities, there's no wiggle room: you either performed well on your college entrance exam, or you didn't. As you move down through the levels, though, the opportunities for "using the back door," or buying your way in, become greater and greater. Thus, private schools exist for the sole purpose of letting rich parents buy their idiot kid a degree certificate.

So. If a kid isn't bright, and his parents aren't loaded, he'll do whatever he has to on the one test that will define the rest of his life. I don't know how many of you know Chinese people, or how they interact with their families. Let me just tell you: if a Chinese kid blows it on the big day, his mother will never, ever, ever shut up about it. Until the very day she dies.

Re:It's the system, man

[blzabub]

I think the parent post gets to the heart of the issue. I asked the exact question when I visited Shanghai about a month ago: "Why don't they just open more schools?" And I got pretty much the answer that the parent posted. There are already enough schools, people just want to go to the best schools because by nature they are competitive and the Chinese government and culture re-inforces competitive activity. China a socialist country that doesn't believe in competition? This is not 1975 anymore, China is basically a capitalist society with extensive central government regulation. Americans may not recognize this as their own brand of laissez-faire capitalism, but I assure you, down on the streets, China is capitalism in its most raw and nasty form. The government safety net is gone. There are over a billion people. Some of those people will starve, some will not have good living conditions, working conditions, nutrition, health care, opportunities for their child. A clear path to success is through education, thus the insane competition and cheating.

Re:It's the system, man

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. how do you live with yourself under the haze of these stereotypes?

chinese mothers are the same as indian mothers, are the same as mexican mothers, are the same as white and black mothers in affluent communities with excellent education. there is no difference between any of them; they are identical in that they just want the best for their children, within a realistic realm of opportunity. im pretty sure alaskan mothers dont care about college, they just want their kids to be strong enough to survive, build igloos, hunt, and fish. same goes with the chinese. but although it's definitely possible to survive day to day by working at a factory, that's not optimal survival in China..going to university is.

Re:It's the system, man

[Jasin Natael]

If a Chinese kid blows it on the big day, his mother will never, ever, ever shut up about it. Until the very day she dies.

Totally true, and thus the rash of suicides that inevitably follows each Black Thursday. Many people would like to attribute it to simple shame or despair, but really it's still about cheating. See, if you score poorly, you can 'cheat' by committing suicide, and thereby avoid a lifetime of nagging and degradation.

Re:It's the system, man

[dhardisty]

"chinese mothers are the same as indian mothers, are the same as mexican mothers, are the same as white and black mothers in affluent communities with excellent education"

I'm sorry man, that's complete bullshit. Wake up. People in different culturals and social classes are, well, different. Have you ever spent time in a foreign country? I believe in treating everyone equally, but differences are important too -- a world were all mothers were the same and had exactly the same goals would be pretty boring.

Because everybody wants to go to "Harvard"

[idangazit]

The "meritocracy" post above rings true, as a (very crass) generalization I have found chinese academics to be very numbers oriented; when competing with 2 billion or so peers you must really stand out in order to, erm, stand out.

Case in point: check out CNN's interesting article about student riots when a smaller college affiliated with a prestigious university announced that it would no longer be providing diplomas from the presigious uni:

With so much on the line, wouldn't YOU do anything to get ahead? If the alternative was returning to the farmlands and no future? The system rewards smart people who know their stuff or smart hackers who can cheat well enough to escape detection, both of which are different flavors of intelligence.

Detecting cheaters...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they could use metal detectors to combat this...

In America, schools use metal detectors to find guns. In China, schools use metal detectors to find cheaters. In Soviet Russia, something something something vodka.

Publicly funded problems

[dada21]

Education in China is primarily publicly funded -- just like in the US. In the US we have similar problems: cartels of licensed industries (Engineers, Architects, Doctors, Dentists, Teachers, anything licensed) control the number of slots of available future workers. More workers in a given licensed industry means more competition which means lower prices ("wages") for that cartelized industry.

The AMA in America has lobbied Congress to reduce the number of medical students. The long term effect? Higher medical prices.

State licensing is the reason why China doesn't allow more schools to be opened. It is also the reason why the U.S. has such huge subsidies for college (easy State loans, etc) and why many licensed jobs bring in so much money even though they may not necessarily be more difficult than lower paying unlicensed jobs.

Re:Publicly funded problems

[Mad Dog Manley]

In the US we have similar problems: cartels of licensed industries (Engineers, Architects, Doctors, Dentists, Teachers, anything licensed)

In Canada, entrance to any Medical profession and Teachers programs is rationed as it is in the US. However, for engineers, this is not the case. It is not at all difficult to get accepted to an engineering program - attrition is accomplished through failure by poor students or a low work ethic in a very demanding program.

As opposed to becoming a doctor or a lawyer. All you really have to do is be accepted, and then you're set for life.

"...why don't they just open more schools?"

[iminplaya]

Silly goose. Because ignorance is strength. Whenever there is trouble, what's the first place the government shuts down? The universities of course.

Interesting Question

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . why don't they just open more schools?

Truly spoken like someone who has never visited or lived in China. If you had asked questions like that on vacation in China, everyone would laugh at you.

Some are more equal than others

[Shivetya]

works well no matter what government type you have.

I figure it this way, if the words Democratic, Peoples, or Republic, are in the name of your country you are further away from what those words mean than countries that don't use the words.

Re:Some are more equal than others

[the web]

That's funny, my Grandfather used to say... "If someone says 'I'm not a liar' then chances are good they're lying about something."

He would have liked the internet.

"Good" commies (china) "Bad" commies (Venezuela)

[Anonymous Coward]

Good commies restrict higher education. Bad commies open schools and use oil revenues to
send people to school who never had a chance in a formerly restricted society.

That is why we must kill those bad commies (venezuela) and help the good commies (china).

More Colleges = Fewer Laborers

[bloobamator]

China's economy is propped up by their infinite supply of brutally cheap labor. If they were to open more colleges and allow more people to earn college degrees, then their cheap labor supply would become finite. A certain while after the labor pool becomes finite, its cheapness starts to evaporate. Eventually they would be forced to compete economically on a level playing field with the rest of the world, and they know they cannot do that. At least not yet.

Long term, China knows it must catch up with the west technologically, and soon, before the west's technological lead becomes insurmountable. In order to catch up, China is going to need a lot more science and engineering universities, with a lot of money pouring into them. It will be very interesting to watch how China addresses this dilemma.

Re:More Colleges = Fewer Laborers

[amonlee]

...If they were to open more colleges and allow more people to earn college degrees, then their cheap labor supply would become finite..

I have different opion about. You may not know what actually happening in China. Those persons even with PhD degree are cheap labor now.

Ever heard of the law of supply and demand

[wiiz3rd]

You can't eliminate cheating by opening more schools. I'm sure they are opening more schools all the time. They do it because of supply and demand.

I'd imagine the real reason is along the lines of

[xenocide2]

There's probably something to di with the Chinese administration's longstanding conflict with acadameia. The Tiananmen Square incident, as much as they've done to conceal it, still echoes in the minds of those old enough to have the skills and knowledge nessecary to become a professor. An old neighbor of mine was a professor from China (Mathematics, I think); he came over about five years after Tiananmen, which is probably close to how long it takes to officially immigrate to the States once the paperwork has been started.

holes in your torso = flunked

[jjustus]

From the article:
"...an electronic device connected to headphones and strapped to a third student's body exploded, leaving a bleeding hole in his abdomen..."
Maybe he was applying to an EE program to become a designer of portable electronics. If that's the case, I think it's good that he failed his entrance examination.

It DOES devalue education

[Moraelin]

Unlike the USA, most of the world doesn't see colleges as just some business, and the more you can serve, the merrier.

Especially in the Soviet block -- which I assume to be the model that China copied -- education was free at all levels (and if you were really good, they actually paid you to study there), _but_ you had to prove that you have the brains and the will to learn. I.e., you couldn't just have daddy save up a few tens of grand and buy you a place at a college. You had to go through exams and prove that you've learned and can apply the maths/physics/biology/whatever that you've learned in high school.

(And let me also say that high-school classes included stuff that was well in the realm of colleges in the USA. E.g., quantum physics.)

The same applied between semesters _and_ at the end. To stay in college you had to prove that you have a damn good grasp of everything they taught you in that year.

This wasn't just to save state money, but also to _guarantee_ a certain high level of intelligence, competence and ability to learn, if you had a college diploma.

So what these students are doing with their cheating is go though university _without_ proving that. E.g., to end up with a diploma that says "electrical engineer" without having the knowledge, intelligence or will to learn.

And letting them just do that does devalue what that diploma means for everyone else. It's like saying, "ah, let's let every dog owner just buy a bogus pedigree certifficate for their mut, if they want one that much." Well, yes, it may sound like a supply-and-demand kind of solution, but that devalues it for those whose diploma_isn't_ a bogus bought piece of paper.

Re:another good idea. - SOLUTION

[Goblez]

Send back all the TA's that think they know everything, but you can't understand word One. It might not wholly benefit the Chinese economy, but it'll help clear up the US Educational system!

More schools on the way

[Pampusik]

China is building over 100 new universities, each of them looking to eclipse Harvard...

It's time for the US and others to wake up...

http://www.educationfutures.com/2006/06/12/inside- higher-ed-time-for-us-to-wake-up/

Re:More schools on the way

[bokane]

With all due respect to China's better academic institutions - I took undergraduate classical literature classes at Beijing University for a year - I wouldn't hold my breath. There are a lot of issues - liberal arts funding, lack of truly anonymous peer review, independent tenure hearings, and a general lack of actual intellectual freedom, for starters - that will have to be resolved before Chinese universities can even begin to aspire to the level of a second-tier American university.

Re:More schools on the way

[amonlee]

the news may give some thinkings to US people. To chinese, building hundreds of new schools is just a joke. You may not believe that over millions teens could not get basic education in China due to lack of primary schools something. The much bigger joke is that lots of primary schools in the proverty areas are funded by "Hope project " not goverment. According the www.oecf.org, just $40 can cover a whole year education expense for a school boy/girl. What a shame, the goverment just escape from its responisbility.

broad generalizations and mediocrity

[JimBobJoe]

I'm surpised someone can get a +4 by making broad generalizations like this.

You're telling me. Nothing frustrates me more about the slashdot system than the fact that clever and innovative posts that I've made get no moderation up or down because they're too far into/embedded in the thread, whereas a rather average post gets +3 (I've got karma to automatically get +2) because it was made almost immediately after the story was posted.

There is a place for fairer moderation of the thread by randomizing the order of the parent threads.

If parent was talking about Linux, the post would be a troll!

Since I was the parent, and I feel that other posts to you have defended me better than I could defend myself (particularly because I considered the post a rather average regurgitation of a book of the moment/stereotype--which you will note I did warn about) I'm simply going to respond by giggling.

*giggles*

SKOOL

[mb12036]

"If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

Lots of skools in the U.S. Have you seen the quality of the students they're producing these days? Gotta keep giving them passing grades so they keep writing checks for tuition - even if they graduate in worse shape than they were when they started. What's worse than a moron? An moron empowered by a diploma.

Re:SKOOL

[Anonymous Coward]

> Lots of skools in the U.S. Have you seen the quality of the students they're producing these days? Gotta keep giving them passing grades so they keep writing checks for tuition - even if they graduate in worse shape than they were when they started. What's worse than a moron? An moron empowered by a diploma.

With your masterful grasp of the English language you have proved your point admirably.

Well done. Please pick up your diploma on the way out.

There are positions available

[edremy]

Well, that depends. Tenure track slots, certainly, you get dozens to hundreds of applicants for every one. But for adjunct positions, especially at lower ranked schools/community colleges, especially in the sciences? Not so much.

I'm teaching general chemistry at the local CC this summer as a second job. They were desperate for someone, anyone to take the class- the pay is low enough and the class schedule brutal enough (6-10PM, four nights a week) that only idiots like me who like teaching would be willing to take it.

This is the crux of the problem

[smithfarm]

In the USA it's easy to say "Just open more universities" because the USA is a rich nation and the university students cover a significant portion of each university's operating costs by paying tuition (with the possible exception of California). In many other countries, however, the education system is part of the government and there is no tuition, even at university.

This leads directly to the situation described in the article. Supply of universities is low, the cost to students is zero, so there is cutthroat competition to get into the most attractive institutions. The motivation to cheat at the entrance exams is high.

Since universities are expensive to run (and not getting any cheaper), and every university is exclusively government-funded, the Education Ministry (or equivalent) has to compete with other ministries for its slice of the budget pie. Out of whatever it gets, it has to run all the schools in the country, from kindergarten up to post-graduate.

It's easy to see that there won't be much money left to establish new institutions, much less to fund their ongoing operation. So, what it comes down to is, either live with the status quo or start charging tuition. Unfortunately, "tuition-free university" is something of a political sacred cow in many countries.

Re:This is the crux of the problem

[sethstorm]

Unfortunately, "tuition-free university" is something of a political sacred cow in many countries.

Rightfully so, as it's not the problem but a decent part of a merit blind, fully open access solution.

Chances and Cheating

[Magnusite]

Those who perform miserably have to wait another year ot take the exam.

Not unlike the GRE Subject examination for Computer Science in the U.S.?
And by the way, it looks as though the cheating has been going on for a while now...

Re:Chances and Cheating

[EvanED]

Way to see the tree but miss the forest. While if you do poorly on the GREs you have to wait another year (not totally true; they're given at least twice a year), the situation is very different from what it sounds like there.

That paragraph says that the admission system there relies essentially exclusively on that test. ("Chinese college admissions officers don't look at your high school grades, personal interviews, recommendations or essays in making their decisions.") This is a VERY different situation than the GREs here. While they are a factor, ask almost any admissions officer and they'll say that it plays a relatively minor role. A perfect score doesn't get you admitted, and a low score doesn't necessarily get you disqualified. This is even more true amongst the "better" universities, as they are often looking for undergraduate research experience. Carnegie-Mellon doesn't even look at your GRE score even if you send it to them.

As far as undergraduate goes, it's not like the SAT either. Go around $BIG_NAME_UNIVERSITY and you'll find people who have low scores, and conversely it's not hard to find people with 1600s who were rejected from $BIG_NAME_UNIVERSITY. (At least, not much harder than finding the people with the 1600s in the first place.)

doh!

[Tom]

the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?

The obvious answer would be, that they value quality over quantity.

why don't they just open more schools?

[mlk]

why don't they just open more schools?

Cash?

It's the Free Market!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's free market, desperation drives up prices and margins!

Likewise the students are taking a calculated risk by cheating! It's the free market! There's no ethics it's all risk vs reward!

Is there even need for more graduates?

[Iloinen Lohikrme]

A few days ago I remember reading an article from a magazine (Helsingin Sanomat, if I remember corretly), where an expert on China, said that about 1/3 of graduating students wont find jobs, and academic unemployment is a growing issue. Also in the same article he said that many universities make up or fix their graduate employment statistics to lure better students. So fixing the problem of students cheating by opening up more schools, isn't the answer.

Re:Is there even need for more graduates?

[king-manic]

Finding a good job is hard, jobs are plrentiful there. A lot of them suck however and involve a lot of menial labour and unpaid overtime.

Downside of free higher education

[AtlanticCarbon]

In my experience, countries with free (or very cheap) higher education impose a lot of barriers on entrance and graduation. They do this because the state can't afford to educate everyone at a higher level. While my preference is a mixed contribution system like US public/state schools, at least in privitized systems you can get an education if you're willing to take the risk (debt).
I wonder what the actual cost per student is in China and what percentage of an average yearly income it represents.

I wish in more countries (including the US) there were cheaper options to pursue education via self-study. I've attended universities with pools, fancy fitness centers and well-known research professors (for whatever they're worth to students) but I've learned most when simply reading books I've chosen on my own. I'd like a more fleshed out CLEP-like system where you study on your own and then pay for a test that will measure your knowledge of the subject. I recognize self-study doesn't work at all levels, but one should be able to learn on one's own by the the time they graduate from high school.

stupid idiots....

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe they are all stupid idiots who cant even do math

maybe they are not a nation of jeniouses but now they are just starting to get caught more thus having to come up with better ways to cheet

j/k

Under communism

[Karem Lore]

"If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

Under communism, you don't want that many acedemia because you want to have manual workers. If you educate everybody you risk losing control and democracy taking hold. Although this hasn't happened in Cuba, this is the reason why there is only limited places in University in communist states.

Cuba is slightly different as it is a semi-marxist state. They encourage you to go to university if you are clever enough. However, it is also easier to control people because what Cuba was under American rule was worse (read much worse) than under Castro...well, until recently anyway. Things are getting worse again FOR THE PEOPLE...

more schools

[siguva]

"If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?" "The world needs ditch diggers too" -Judge Smails.

Obvious solution - Imitate the US

[Anonymous Coward]

"the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

No, the obvious question would be Why don't they charge higher tuitions, thereby cutting out a certain percentage of the applicants who can't afford it. That's what they do over here isn't it?

Re:Obvious solution - Imitate the US

[Fantastic Lad]

No, the obvious question would be Why don't they charge higher tuitions, thereby cutting out a certain percentage of the applicants who can't afford it. That's what they do over here isn't it?

Ah yes. The woefully inadequate "Natural Selection" concept forced into yet another ill-suited context designed to reward the already rich, (no matter how un-deserving and mentally insufficient they are), and punishes the already enslaved, (no matter how powerful their minds might be). Not that it matters. State-sanctioned education in either nation is perhaps more properly spelled, "S-O-C-I-A-L C-O-N-D-I-T-I-O-N-I-N-G". --Best taken in very light doses or avoided altogether.

Long live Western Philosophy. I give it another seven or eight years before total collapse. Tops.

-FL

Re:Obvious solution - Imitate the US

[aeoo]

Well said.

I'm not sure how long it will take for Western Philosophy to collapse though. It might get marginalized enough to simply be irrelevant in day to day life.

Education: Benefits and Risks

[Spy der Mann]

If someone can mod parent down, please do, because the parent poster doesn't know sh** about Economy.

Public investment in Education will provide in the short term social movility, and in the long term, more production. This will result in a greater Product per Capita, and if the investment in education remains, it becomes a virtuous circle. Of course, where will you get teachers? By teaching them. Education breeds Education. It's not wasted like money.

Developed countries invest AT LEAST 8% of the Gross Domestic Product in Education, while the developing countries don't. The Singapore Minister said yesterday: "A sound and robust education system plays an important role in Singapore's economic development... In fact, the education sector has been the second largest recipient of government funding for many years, averaging 5 percent of Singapore's GDP (gross domestic product) annually".

More and better education always results in the benefit of the country, so your comparison of building more schools with printing money is at least ridiculous.

The real problem with Education is that some governments DON'T WANT IT. Why? Because the corrupted leaders and dictators know that an educated country is not easy to manipulate. It's much cheaper for the people in power to invest a couple million dollars in buying the people with free food, and to keep the rest for themselves. Don't forget that the people who protested in the Tiananmen Square in China were STUDENTS. Education is a very dangerous weapon against dictatorships.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Response from someone who knows what Communism is:

[Eli Gottlieb]

"People have still been in charge!" It's not Communism if you have a government.

Obviously...

[rufu]

By having a highly competitive entry process they end up with students who are either smart enough to pass the entry exams on their own or smart enough to cheat and get away with it.

real sharp

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?

dont ask stupid questions, corbett. if you had any clue as to how many chinese people there are on this planet (myself included), you would know that the schools in China, or any highly populated country (Japan, India) will FOREVER be that competitive, purely because of population. lets say you open 20 more universities (the costs and labor would be astronomical), each accommodating 15000 people. that's still ONLY 300,000 kids- a miniscule Chinese number. and dont be so naive to not suspect the same types of cheating in the U.S. i know of a few people i went to high school with who copied homework for four years, paid nerds to take their standardized tests, or put dictionaries and encyclopedias on their TI-89s. in my experience, these kinds of people tend to drop out of college within 2 years, because they can't change their dirty ways. most of the time theyre rich already, and that's why they don't care- they just go off and run the family business.

here's a real obvious question, for me: were you really stupid enough to jump to the conclusion that more schools = less cheaters?

you can open a million institutions but there will still be cheaters. in fact, there will probably be more cheaters. no matter though; it always catches up to them in the end.

Slightly OT, but...

[Nutria]

the rest of us should get fast-food and unskilled-labor jobs instead of slacking off.

• The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
  
• The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
  
• The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
  
• The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Re:Slightly OT, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The CS Grad says "Can I build a web based interface for it?"
The Management Grad says "Can we have a meeting and discuss it?
The Law grad says "My Client already has a patent for it. give me $$$"
The MSCD says "Can I build an Active X Control for it?"
The Certified hacker says "Please do!"

Re:Slightly OT, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the Liberal Arts degree ask, "Do you want me to use a rubber," because they actually get laid once in a while.

Re:Slightly OT, but...

[Gentlewhisper]

>>Actually, the Liberal Arts degree ask, "Do you want me to use a rubber," because they actually get laid once in a while.

Considering the others can actually afford to pay for Rent-A-Vagina services I consider that a fair trade off.

Re:Slightly OT, but...

[HeroreV]

The CS Grad says "Can I build a web based interface for it?"

This Cunt Sucking graduate you speak of seems very strange.

I heard toilet additives are bad to the bowl.

[FatSean]

But it might just have been a plumber spreading FUD.

Re:I heard toilet additives are bad to the bowl.

[Y0tsuya]

No it's correct. But it's not the bowl, rather the rubber flapper keeping the water in the bowl until needed. Seems those chlorine tabs harden it or something. Good thing rubber flaps are easy to replace by anyone who knows which end of the screwdriver to hold.

WWSD?

[finiteSet]

Whenever I am faced with a complicated moral dilemma such as this, I turn to a higher authority and pose myself the question: "What would Starbucks do?"

You know the answer as well as I do: they'd open the f*cking universities.

Only one discoverable solution - Democracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that you cannot understand the Chinese TA's English, but their ability to solve the problem themself. Why is that?

Chinese college students in America are the worst cheaters. Period. That's a blanket generalization, but well founded in factual evidence at every Engineering class I took. In my Calculus III class, two Chinese students went so far as to sit next to eachother at a final exam and switch papers when the prof had his back turned while updating the time remaining at the chalkboard. That prof was my friend, and I promplty notified him about it over a beer at a local bar across the street afterwards. In all my Electrical Engineering classes, and I mean all, I was approached by many Asians (of various descent) to copy my homework and/or get old test papers from prior classes not currently enrolled in. In my Computer Science classes, it was pretty much a combination of the prior two. Yeah, I was pissed. I busted my ass learning this stuff 10 years ago, and they had the nerve to ask me for help?

That was over 10 years ago, so I can only imagine it getting worse. Also, I remember some such SAT or GRE controversy a few years back when it was uncovered that Asian countries were selling those admission tests (which were verbatim and not practice sheets). In my Computer Science graduate studies, it showed too. Not cheating, since there's really no such thing at that level, but their comprehension. It caught up to them. I saw them struggle and had several long discussions with profs about it. Profs aren't naive either. Most of them know.

Either way, it's a sad reality, but nonetheless, a market truth - do whatever it takes to compete and get ahead. I think it's ingrained in their culture. I'm going back to Shanghai this October on a business trip, and every time I do, I feel a little smug and wear a smile on my face as I stare down at my college ring while walking off the plane. It can be done the old fashioned way. It's unfortunate some countries don't place such a high standard on pride and individual growth. It's more like a communal fire ant mound intent on protecting the hive. Their competitive future is secure and their mound well weathered to temper any world storm. I grant them that. What I pity is their individual sense of pride and accomplishment. Yes, blanket generalisms, I know. But very true, and most likely, an ideological truth of a communist hive competing in a global market.

Sorry Mises worshippers, elitism does not work.

[sethstorm]

Somehow it never stopped Ireland (admittedly a much smaller country) from just extending public funding up to college level. Ironically it even helps them to remove at least one barrier of scarcity.

Stupid moron

[FungosBauux]

"If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

You moron. Go live in the real world to get sense what it is.

Short term issue...

[alexhmit01]

Unfortunately, America is still suffering a bizarrely warped market by the baby boomers. They were a massive generation, promoting growth, which is a good thing... however when they were coming of age, the US went to war, instituted a draft, and granted exemption for education. As a result, people would hide in universities to avoid service.

As a result, we have a GLUT of PhDs in a similar age range that are hanging around until retirement. In addition, that same generation didn't produce a larger follow-on generation, so we have a decrease in NEED for educators (there also isn't a draft that requires people to hide in the Academy, which lowers demand further).

But that same Glut of Professors have protected themselves from the market with tenure and other policies. When the boomers retire en masse, we are going to have massive ripple effects... The Boomer generation climbed the ladder, pulled it up behind them, and are looking at the smaller generation after them wondering why they won't take care of them the way they took care of their parents...

Re:Short term issue...

[alita69]

--"The Boomer generation climbed the ladder, pulled it up behind them, and are looking at the smaller generation after them wondering why they won't take care of them the way they took care of their parents..." Probably because they still haven't paid off the loan they took from us to take care of their parents...

People with degrees can _create_ whole industries.

[moultano]

I don't know to what extent this is possible in the current Chinese economy, but normally self-motivated people with degrees can create opportunity for themselves by starting new companies. Educating more people can only raise the wealth of a nation because educated people can be more productive, regardless of what the current economy has ready for them when they first graduate.

Pass 'Em Through An EMP Generator

[Anonymous Coward]

At short range an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) of sufficient strength and length could heat up and damage any electronic devices.

Warn the students what wil happen, allow them to discard any electronics and pass them through the EMP unit.

The ones' whose brains explode are the cheaters!-))

Only in some imaginary world

[blueZ3]

was there ever some "guarantee" that people in schools in the USSR were bright. Take off those rose colored glasses (once you do, you can see the 50 million people "Uncle Joe" killed) and you'll realize that children of high government officials, party members, and celebrities were regularly given spots a top-notch Soviet schools. Money might not have played as big a role as it does in the US, but a parent's political connection is no better arbiter of scholastic success than their financial success.

Put your little red book down and come back to reality.

Re:Only in some imaginary world

[iamnotaclown]

Put your little red book down and come back to reality.

What's your point? George W. Bush jumped the queue to get into Yale. A completely private system is no better than a completely socialist system in this respect. The only difference is the currency used as a pay-off. In the USSR it was influence and power. In the USA it's money and power.

Re:Only in some imaginary world

[HeroreV]

But if the better schools get more money then all the schools will try harder to become as good as possible and blah blah blah, you should know the rest.

Re:another good idea. - SOLUTION

[HardCase]

I spent five years getting my EE degree and never saw a TA. Every class was taught by a "real" professor. I guess I was lucky - I always thought that it was the norm, until I graduated and started hearing horror stories from other engineers.

I check with our interns every summer and they still don't use TA's at my university's EE school. Still lucky, I guess, although I have to think that a TA might have been better than the professor who taught device physics. Oh, and any of the math professors. But I digress...

-h-

I disagree

[Loundry]

If you print more dollars, all dollars become worthless. Education increases in value as more people have it.

1. If you print more dollars, it is NOT true that all dollars become "worthless". Rather, the dollars become worth less. If you printed infinite dollars, then, yes, they would all become worthless.

2. Education only has value in the sense that having an education will allow you to obtain a job that pays you enough money to have the kind of lifestyle you want. You can major in Italian if you want to. What kind of job will that get you? Wouldn't it make more sense to choose a major which would put you in a high-demand field? But if millions of people suddenly have degrees in that high-demand field, that increases the supply and would make it no longer "high-demand" (because the need would be filled).

You can, alternatively, argue that "education increases in value" in ways that DON'T pay a wage, but that merely feels good / feels right. It doesn't put food on the table.

The difference between a 1600 and a 1500, in their minds, was going to mean the difference between MIT and a serving fries at Micky D's.

I see that's a sad statement to make. What's wrong with working at McDonald's? It may very well be beneath your intellect, but isn't it more appropriate that people who are living on welfare or living due to theft and fraud (there is some overlap between those two groups) deserve scorn rather than those who are working? I have always maintained that there is no shame in an honest day's work.

You can, alternatively, argue that all "wage labor" is evil, and McDonald's is, therefore, ultra evil because it is so large and successful. But then you and I would be so divergent in values that we're likely to demonize and dehumanize each other at the expense of any sort of meaningful discussion.

Re:I disagree

[Watson Ladd]

Moron. Sorry, but you cannot survive without commiting a crime with a minimum wage job or going on some sort of charity. Why don't you try working at minimum wage and surviving on it. I got -7 dollars a month when I did a simulation.

Bullshit

[Moraelin]

A more appropriate Heinline quote (paraphrased from memory):
"The society that values the artist over the plumber merely because art is more noble, has neither good art nor good plumbing."

Except in this case they merely make sure that someone flashing their college engineering diploma at a job interview, has actually earned that diploma, and not just had someone else write their exams for them. (Even via a micro-radio in the ear.)

And no, it's not elitism against the plumbers or anything else. If a plumber has some professional credentials (certified to work on a certain kind of pipes or whatever), then I hope to God that those aren't just a bogus piece of paper either. If that guy works on a high pressure steam pipe or on a gas pipe, for example, I certainly hope he won't cause some problem waiting to happen.

Ditto for anything else:

- if they're a truck driver, then I certainly hope that they've earned that class of driver's license the old fashioned way, and not with a radio in the ear and someone telling them which boxes to tick. When that big truck comes into an intersection, I _don't_ want to discover that the guy doesn't actually know who has the priority there.

- if they're they're an auto mechanic, I sure hope to heck and back that they learned something about engines, and someone actually tested that knowledge. _Their_ knowledge, not that of whoever is at the other end of the radio-in-the-ear cheat.

- if they're an electrician, I sure hope they've been trained and tested too. For the obvious reasons.

Etc.

So, yes, any job that requires some training and some skills, no matter how lowly, I fail to see a reason to devalue it by selling a diploma to any cheater who wants one. If there's something as lowly as being certified to dig a hole with a shovel, then, yes, whoever has that certification has something to be proud of. It seems to me like starting to just hand that certifficate to anyone who wants one is devaluing and disrespectful to those who actually have the skills and passion for that profession.

And if anything, it's that kind of giving anyone a diploma just because they want one, that's the way to end up with neither good art, nor good plumbing, nor good engineering.

Except they weren't that many

[Moraelin]

The fact that something isn't perfect doesn't mean you might as well do a complete crap work instead. Yes, a small minority were relatives of party officials. That too did devalue the diploma. But that doesn't mean that then you might as well go ahead and just hand diplomas at a street corner to anyone who wants one. Adding even more untrained idiots with diplomas (e.g., the batch with radios in the ear) doesn't do much more than devalue that even more.

2.9 Million spots?

[Spintronic]

The article states there were only 2.9 million vacancies for a country of 1.3 billion people. That's crazy! This is after 10 minutes of googling: In the US it's estimated that there are over 15 million people in US schools (National Center for Education Studies - http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/2005063.pdf -pdf, see page 27). If 1/4 of those are freshmen spots that would be about 3.75 million or so spots a year - for a country of almost 300 million. You can do the rest of the math, but maybe the answer is yes - maybe they should build one or two more universities.

Re:Perhaps an easier way would be to go overseas..

[SillyNickName4me]

The Chinese kids whose families can afford to send them to Australia for three years are probably not the ones mutilating themselves to get into college.

Rather, they more likely then not are. Those who can get there without cheating don't need their parents to pay for staying overseas either because their study and stay abroad would be funded by their own government.

Tho not from China, but in the area where I live there are quite a few students from places like Vietnam and Cuba, who are on a grant from their own government, their job already waiting for the moment they finish.

obvious answer

[tfcdesign]

It cost money! I am surprised how socialists never understand that. Besides, competing for a spot in school results in students trying harder, accelling. Look at American scools. Not only is there no real competition, but we force students to attend and the result is 2-3 generations of stundents and parents who have no value of education and are scoring the worst scores ever. Our teachers have become babysiters, exclusively.

Re:Obvious answer

[amonlee]

You are right

" If there are that many people that desperate to

[kokojie]

" If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?" During the Jin Dynasty, there was a famine, thousands died of starvation. When local officials reported the shortage of grain to the emperor, the emperor replied "why don't they just eat meat?". There are no money and no professors to open more schools! To achieve the same level of education opportunities as the US, China will need to open 5 times more schools than the US, now consider the fact that China is 30 times poorer than the US on a per capita basis, it's not that simple to provide for 1,500,000,000 people

Cheat examples please!

[ShecoDu]

I read the article and came here looking for more examples and preferably, links to sites about it. I want to join the high tech cheating guild.

duh

[halfelven]

If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?

You obviously never lived under a communist regime. :-P

Wrong answers

[AviLazar]

So many answers ...

I didn't say give everyone a piece of paper - i contested your argument that some people don't deserve more education.
School resources are completely different from self-learning resources ala library. Formal education is also someone teaching you in a learning environment with other people.
Just because someone has to dig ditches does not mean they have to be dumb. It also does not mean they are not allowed to learn.
Fabricating? Pfft. Increasing the amount of knowledge people have increased the amount of positive input they can put into your society.

Actually, from your statements above you are against education for many people who don't meet your requirements. You are an elitist snob "unfortunately this doesn't quite kick out..."

If you wish to perform manual labor jobs then do so.

Unfortunately for you, your teachers sucked. When I went to my inner city highschool my teachers said that I have many options and I should seek the one that best suits me. They tried guiding me. I, luckily, realized that I would not perform well in a manual labor profession so I went to college.

Physical labor can and has been outsourced and if you don't believe me check the label on your clothes. The physical labor that cannot be outsourced is the ones requiring manufacture here (like construction of roads/buildings).

But I will stand by my argument...everyone - from the garbage man, to the short order cook, to the computer techy, to the worlds leading brain surgeon should ALL have the option of learning more - and to do it for free! Our schools should be free, and impressive. They should be built like forces. Our defense budget should be our school budget. Instead of having crap teachers who are doing this as their "fall-back" jobs, it should be done by teachers who are begging to get in because the work environment is healthy and the pay is in the six figure range.

I do see a difference with France...

[doudou42]

This problem is not like the baccalaureat but more like the medical school where there are a lot of people wanting to attend but only limited places and a limited number of tries.

During the baccalaureat, cheating is not so common and severly condemned.
Moreover, you can try to have it at any moment (every years, retired people, soccer mom and so on try to pass it and sometimes have it).

I think in any country, there is some kind of tests and exams and this kind of system is not debated here.
The problem with China is that, in order to go on, you have a "one chance try" and the selection is very hard (4 student for 1 place). The students have so much pressure that they feel in need to risk their health in order to cheat. I think it is sad but it is the result of an Excellence Culture.

Just take a look at japanese school system. Normality (i.e. you can't double a year their) and excellence (you have to attend lessons outside in order to be the best) is at such a point that a lot of students commit suicide in front of a fail.

Any human society should consider failure as a mean of progress and not condemn it.
There isn't just one way right...

I just say remember this article when you all ..

[RembrandtX]

when you all go off about how americans are under educated, please remember how many chineese engineering students coudn't even pass their entrance exams, and had to cheat to get into school.

h1b my ass

Re:More schools? NOPE!

[AustinTSmith]

The problem is not schools.

It's their myopic abitiuos government, they don't set a good example for the population. Take for example their leading wireless provider. The chinese stole the technology from American wireless companies, grew to a billion dollars in size, and is now competing directly with them.

In fact, every product that's sold in China from a foreign source need's to go through a rigourous inspection program whereby government sponsored scientists reverse engineer every piece of technology. They even go so far as to request the blue prints and building instructions!

It's a severe problem. China has no intellectual property enforcements nor do they ever innovate; this is why it's so cheap to buy from china, because their products do not bear the incremental cost of technology and IP.

Their government is doing nothing to stop this. And the US government's work along these lines is embarassing at best.

Which is why their students are cheating on their tests. They figure if their future employers are copying off the business plans and product designs of the Americans, then why can't they?

Marx

[fmoliveira]

Marx plan was: 1. Revolution 2. Socialism 3. ??? 4. True communism We are still trying to figure what the step 3 was.

Re:Marx

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

collect underpants

...Economic reason

[reanjr]

They don't open more schools because it makes eceonomic sense to have a large lower class who can labor and a small, highly intelligent (as they are weeding out so many, one assumes it's only the cream of the crop) upper class for the thinking jobs.

This is the principle the modern American school system is based on. Read up on Rockefeller's contributions to American education. In short, he help get the schools designed to spit out uneducated factory workers and only allow the most intelligent or motivated to aspire to something greater.

The solution is capitalism

[Millenniumman]

If there are many people willing to go to dangerous extremes to get into college, then they will certainly be willing to pay. If China was open to private schooling, then there wouldn't be the leaders saying "We will have this many universities", there would be universities opening everywhere to meet the demands of the students. And they would be competing, so it would probably end up being cheaper, and certainly more effective.

Quantity != Quality

[jackpan]

"If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?" Quantity isn't equivalent to Quality.

Oh, Look! ANOTHER story about China.

[Fantastic Lad]

Gee. Our media-owning overlords aren't planning a war even a little bit, are they?

Only chumps swallow this horse-manure. Newspapers don't always lie, but any truth they disseminate is designed to create trust.

From the Protocols of Zion: (Read the wikipedia for the history of this anti-semitic hoax. The Machiavellian logic, however, within the 'Protocols' is airtight and clearly in full effect in our world, being used by those who DO manage our economy, social mechanics and of course, the media).

PROTOCOL No. 12

1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various ways, is defined by us as follows -

2. Freedom is the right to do what which the law allows. This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.

3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? The produce of publicity, which nowadays is a source of heavy expense owing to the necessity of censoring it, will be turned by us into a very lucrative source of income to our State: we shall lay on it a special stamp tax and require deposits of caution-money before permitting the establishment of any organ of the press or of printing offices; these will then have to guarantee our government against any kind of attack on the part of the press. For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy. Such measures as stamp tax, deposit of caution-money and fines secured by these deposits, will bring in a huge income to the government. It is true that party organs might not spare money for the sake of publicity, but these we shall shut up at the second attack upon us. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification. I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER.
WE CONTROL THE PRESS

4. NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.

5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the GOY communities to such an extent the they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses; if already now there is not a single State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance into what GOY stupidity calls State secrets: what will our positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king of all the world ....

6. Let us turn again to the FUTURE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With such measures THE INSTRUMENT OF THOUGHT WILL

The facts..

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Every single chinese parent want their child get at least a bachelor degree, phd if possible.
2. There are tons of univerisies in China now, most major cities has at least 30-40 universities.
3. It's so damn easy to get into univerisity in china now, even you are 70% idiot.

Why no more schools?

[someone1234]

Maybe no more schools are needed for people working and dying in mines or assembly lines?

Obligatory Simpsons Reference

[floppy ears]

Burns: "I've always felt that there's far too much hysteria these days about so-called cheating. If you can take advantage of a situation in some way, it's your duty as an American to do it. Why should the race always be to the swift or the jumble to the quick-witted? Should they be allowed to win merely because of the gifts God gave them? Well, I say cheating is the gift man gives himself!"

Some ppl cheat...

[1ooser]

and some have their family pay a lot of money to University so that you could get in and then graduate with a C. Of course after that they get to run several companies into the ground and be elected a president of United States of America. --

The College Situation in China

[Cleetus Freem]

25 years ago if you wanted to attend college in China you needed to score high on the entrance exam. Even then only about 4 or 5 in 100 were successful. The percentage of high quality schools to lower quality schools was relatively high.

Today there are MANY more lower and mid-level quality schools (like where there used to be 3 or 4 schools in a large city there are now 20 or 30) and out of 100 students desiring to attend college, probably 70 or 80 will qualify. If you have enough money, and many Chinese today have enough, you can get in somewhere for sure or you can attend school overseas. The gist of it, if you want to go to college you can (of course that has to be qualified by the sad fact that if you are one of the 800 million or so peasants who don't have much money you must rely on your test scores alone. You can still go, you just have to do OK on the exam).

One part of the real issue is that the best schools (Beijing University, aka Bei Da, for example) are still very difficult to qualify for. Not too dissimilar from Harvard or Oxford or some such institution. The other, perhaps more important, part of the real issue is that failing to attend college is a sure ticket to poverty while making it into a top school is like winning the lottery... i.e. you are set. Given the radical disparity of income levels in China (think, 80% live like poor Appalachians in a tar paper shack while a tiny minority command more money than the robber barons of old and even the moderately wealthy may make enough in one year to equal the lifetime savings of a poor farmer, of which there are many) and the fact that wealthier city dwellers have access to much better education, healthcare, food, general infrastructure and luxuries than poorer rural residents, it is not surprising that pressure to make it into the better schools is high.

You also have to consider that fact that doing well on the "Big Exam" has been a potent force for status and prestige in China for many hundreds of years. Before modern times it was the Imperial Exam that everyone wanted to excel in. People would live and die by their scores on that exam and it's influence on the lives of those who succeeded and those who failed is legendary. The college entrance exam is the "Big Exam" of today and, while not as huge a deal (and not as exclusive) as the old Imperial Exam it is nonetheless something that those eager to go to college place a tremendous amount of focus on.

Last, there is nothing in the U.S. that really compares, in regards to significance, the power of China's entrance exam. Not the SAT/ACT or even the GRE and it's various forms. This makes it difficult for most Americans to relate to the real power of this exam.

Let's not fix the system

[sowth]

Your post seems a little silly from where I'm sitting.

SUMMARY: It is okay for companies to only consider hiring people by how much "education" they've had, not by what they know how to do. If someone was stupid enough to waste 4 years of their life on nothing, then they must be worth hiring. The public schools are crap and a waste of time. Solution: everyone should spend more time in school. Don't solve the problem, just create more of it! Only about 73,933,533 Americans have a 4 year degree, not very many. Not enough to flood the market. America is not creating a workforce for the global market. Everyone must get educashon by community college. Sitting in class while the instructor explains basic algebra very important--especially for those who have been programming computers since they were ten and want to learn about...hmm...maybe WHAT THE CLASS IS SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING!?!

I would say everyone should get at least a third grade education, but it should only take three years.

I think America can't compete in the global workforce because everyone is against automation ("It'll take everyone's job!" but nobody wants to do those jobs) and they expect to be paid millions like a rock star (and more than anyone else) even if they are just doing some simple crap job. That is the problem. If everything is run by middlemen and con artists, it won't work. They do this to get out of the crap jobs because they "deserve better", yet if someone does the real work they tear the person down.

Re:Response from someone who knows what Communism

[yndrd1984]

Then replace "communism leads to bad things" with "attempts to forcably create a communist society lead to bad things".

Well I guess the question I'd ask

[Sycraft-fu]

Is if this ultra-hard nosed approach found in some of teh eastren bloc countries is the right way to do it, why are there so many great minds produced in Western European and American universities? Why do so many of the best and brightest from other countries come to study there?

The answer is that this idea that being super elitest, super competitive and making test scores reign supreme does not foster free thinking and that's really the thing of value that can come out of a higher education. Memorizing tons of facts and formulas really isn't that useful. My computer can do that, and far better than you can. What's useful is the ability to take knowledge like that and apply it to the real world in new and novel ways, to develop new tools to attack problems, and so on.

Perhaps American universities are too lax on admissions, but over all it seems to work pretty well. We seem to be able to produce lots of bright people and have no lack of applicants from other countries that want to come study here.

Something I do notice is that many people who come from these ultra-competitive environments to do grad work cannot think indedpendantly to nearly any degree. If you ask them a question in terms of formulas you they know, they'll solve it in a flash. If you ask them the very same question in terms of real world interactions, they stare blankly. They've basically been trained to be little hard working computers. They study like mad and such, but all their knowledge is fragile, as it exists only in theories, not in applications.

Richard Feynman talks about this phenomena at some length in his biography and it's a worthwhile read.

Re:Well I guess the question I'd ask

[Shajenko42]

They've basically been trained to be little hard working computers.

In many countries, people are actually cheaper than computers.

Re:Well I guess the question I'd ask

[arivanov]

why are there so many great minds produced in Western European and American universities

That depends on the scientific discipline. Just ask anyone involved with the theory behind technology about Russians and math. Or Russians and physics for that matter. That was the case least from the time when I was in an University which was pre-1995 and in many areas is still the case now.

As far as test scores reigning supreme with all due respect you are slightly misguided.

I have studied in both an American and an Eastern European University so I can tell you that based on first hand experience.

In an Eastern European University the test scores reign supreme at admission. After that studying in the university itself is relatively mellow and serene. You get two a test session at the end of a semester (for some subjects even at the end of a year) with a whole month for study and review so you can actually assimilate the material before the exam. There are very few ongoing tests and virtually zero graded homework in most courses.

American Universities are completely different to this. The one I was I had to run through a non-stop weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and semestrial test meatgrinder. An average of 4-6 tests per subject per semester. Every single one of them counted towards your grade and there was no way to relax for even a bit and assimilate what you are studying. That was topped by a 7 days exam session with one day of review time. Essentially you were being converted into an curriculum compliant automaton with virtually zero capability to stand back from the problem and say "Stop, WTF am I doing, there got to be a different way to solve this".

So based on first hand experience with both systems, it is America which is obsessed with scores and tests (at least up to BSc level), not Eastern Europe. As far as the results of this I have enough idea of math and physics to beg to differ from your opinion.

I got into MIT with 1480

[peter303]

At that time that SAT score was 98 percential and the admit rate was 25%. I think now the average score in in the 1500s and 12% admit rate.

Re:I got into MIT with 1480

[Savantissimo]

1480 has always been >99.9% in the overall population. The difference lately has mostly been in making the verbal SAT less accurate at measuring intelect by eliminating analogies and putting in more "reading comprehension" questions that do not really have clear, uniquely correct answers. (I got a 760V in 1988 and hated the new verbal section when I took a practice test while applying to tutor last year. New score:680) Less accurate tests lessen the politically incorrect score differences between the sexes and races. Less accurate tests also let the dimwitted head of the College Board, ex WV gov. Gaston Caperton, get back at those who are smarter than he. Also, a useless machine-scored essay has been added which primarily tests handwriting speed. The math test has been affected less, but the objective quality of the test takers has been slowly rising due to increasing non-verbal intelligence (Flynn effect). (I got 780M on the new test vs. 700 in 1988, but I've been doing a lot of math since I was a HS sophomore.) Both math and verbal sections of the test now have less "top" and are thus less useful for distinguishing abilities in the sort of students who have the ability needed at MIT.

As far as MIT goes, in 2004 the 25th percentile scores were 680V 730M and the 75th percentile 760V 800M. The composite and 50th percentile scores cannot be determined, but are certainly well over 1500.

Re:I got into MIT with 1480

[Anonymous Coward]

What always irritated me about SAT exams (as well as IQ exams) is that they require a very high vocabulary. You can't answer the question A is to B, as C is to ___ if you don't know what the words B and C mean.

A non-lethal method

[dushkin]

You can print stuff on a piece of aluminum foil, mirrored, and tatoo that on your . You can get a lot of information down like that.

Answer was Scarcity

[dwandy]

I didn't say give everyone a piece of paper - i contested your argument that some people don't deserve more education.

just a nit: your original response was not to me. However, that aside, it's not a question as to whether or not everyone deserves an education. First off: no one 'deserves' anything. Period. You're free to work for what you want, and an education is one of them. My position wasn't to dissallow the ditch-digger from educating him/herself, but rather that a formal education costs tax money (especially if you want it to be free!) In (all?) industrialised countries, there's already some taxes kicked in for an education, even if it's just a tax write-off. And this money is wasted if it's spent on someone who won't use it.
There are also a limited number of qualified teachers and instructors. (no matter what you pay!) This translates into a maximum number of students ...
So what we are really getting at is scarcity. Giving everyone a piece of paper is not a very efficient use of resources. So again, nothing is stopping people from learning on their own: Today information is pretty much freely available, and if the ditch-digger wants to spend the time learnin' stuff then You Go Girl! I'm not only NOT opposed to this, I think more people should be spending time learning instead of being a couch potato, and I did say this.

Just because someone has to dig ditches does not mean they have to be dumb.

Well, education and intelligence are not the same thing. When I say people are dumb it's not because they havn't the education, it's that they couldn't understand it even if it were explained to them. And while this was just fine for the last million years when the ideas 'fire' and 'wheel' were pretty cutting edge that's no longer true. Today you need to understand the collective works of the brightest minds in recorded history. Just what kind of percentage of the population can understand how a processor works? Hell, most people don't understand how a car works, and that's a 100+ year old mechanical device that can be dissasembled and the parts and assembly reviewed...

Actually, from your statements above you are against education for many people who don't meet your requirements. You are an elitist snob

Again, INFORMATION is freely available: a formal education costs money, and in the real world we deal with scarce resources and we should try and maximise our usage of these resources. If that means that not everyone gets a formal education, well, that's called reality. I didn't get to be a pro-baseball player since I was not granted those skills. Tough for me: I won't get paid millions, but other will.
So, if by 'elitist' you meant 'realist' than yes, we need to cut a line somewhere for the formal education, and that by definition means that we exclude those that don't meet the requirements.

But I will stand by my argument...everyone - from the garbage man, to the short order cook, to the computer techy, to the worlds leading brain surgeon should ALL have the option of learning more - and to do it for free!

Nothing I said contradicts this. Where (perhaps) we differ in opinion is the a free formal education. Do I think we could spend more? Sure. But there's already a ton of financial aid and loans available. While I'm sure there are plenty of anecdotal examples to contradict this, I would suggest that for the most part, the people that should be getting a university degree in North America are in fact getting one, along with (if anything) a pile of people that shouldn't. (and by that I mean that they either lack the mental capacity to complete, but get it by cheating/purchasing/whatever, or I mean that they will never see a return on it). At the same time, the bulk of the population shows a complete lack of interest in learning. I'd say at this time there's plenty of available education, and making more available won't help...

They HAVE opened more schools

[MisterE]

In the last eight years China has quadrupled the number of universities they have. They see the dominance of the west in the higher education arena as a strategic (economic) threat and are trying hard to compete. Too bad that here in the USA we don't see the poor performance of our government-run K-12 educational system as a strategic weakness.

Becareful of who you cheat from

[bmalia]

Since the competition is sto stiff, the smart ones would provide incorrect answers to the cheaters.

Re: the difference between a 1600 and a 1500

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent wrote:

... the people that would already have scored better than 90% of their peers. The difference between a 1600 and a 1500, in their minds ...

Granted, the parent may have intended "people capable of getting a 1500" when he used the word peers, but on casual reading it implies that >90 percentile students would get at least a 1500.

From collegeboard.com:

In 1995 the SAT I verbal and math means were set at 500 (with a standard deviation of 110), restoring the distribution of scores to the center of the College Board 200-to-800 scale.
...
... scores must differ by 60 points (40 x 1.5) in order to indicate true differences of ability.

Based on the information I've quoted from collegeboard.com, the 90 percentile mark is about 1280, while 1500 is at or above the 98th percentile, and a 1600 is above the 99.7th percentile. Anyway, I guess the point is that scores over 1500 are quite rare, even amongst people who prepare for the test.

p.s. I find it amusing that a score of 1550 would neither be considered different from a 1500 nor a 1600. ;-)

Not any school - top schools...

[SenseOfHumor]

In India and China, the competition is high to get into top schools - not just any school. What the article is missing is that the top performers of these exams go to top schools and hence all these attempts. As the high school kids in the US compete to get into HYPS(Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford), is the solution building more HYPS?

MIT needs a lesson in 100% admissions

[sethstorm]

Somethings wrong with that kind of admissions policy, and it shows. Multiply that admit rate by 4 for every university and we might have something of value - there should be no valid reason to just build prestige classes. Once you get to that point, you'll start to see where having merit blind admissions generates more benefit than exclusion. One country has already done it with success as of now in the West, and they oddly are doing quite well for it in the economy - despite what some here may think.

Baseball?

[spun]

What is this "base ball" you speak of? Couldn't you phrase that in terms of a car analogy?

Dont ask Ireland that one

[sethstorm]

BZZZT. Wrong Answer. Thanks for trying.

  Somehow removing the barriers to education have helped that country do a bit better wrt dealing with the Problem of the East. So much for trying to justify a high tuition and exclusivity when it is flat wrong.

Unfortunately that wont work.

[sethstorm]

Just allow open admissions, and you'll be better for it. Allowing education at all levels to be as easy to get as water from a tap seems to work better than thinking only some anointed few are allowed access.

Bahahaha

[Inoshiro]

"A private system would be detrimental to the totalitarian state that is the Peoples Republic of China. Keeping people dumb keeps them under your thumb. America's elementary and secondary educational system is run in much the same way. Privatization of education is the only real solution."

Right, because 2 examples are statistically significant. I guess Canada's public post-secondary system, where tuition for a 4-year honours degree is roughly $20-25,000 CAD, is totally broken too.

Wait, maybe it's just that the culture in the US is different! Certainly I wouldn't call their education system public when I hear that people are paying $10-20,000 per year of tuition!

Re:Bahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Education in Canada needs to be cheap, because of the higher mortality rate due to waiting for the 'free healthcare' ;)

It's the Economy, Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Since China is a totalitarian state with a Communist-turned-Fascist economy, there's no reason for the Enlightened Leaders to provide education for any more students than they think they will need to fuel their plans. The rest can go to hell.

Unfortunately Nixon's dead but we need an Anti-Ivy

[sethstorm]

The thing that makes the US great is that we give education to all who seek it. Education is not reserved for a select few, which would immediately breed a caste of the "chosen." Even if a person is not mentally worthy of a higher education, I say the fact that they want one is proof enough of their worthiness.

Unfortunately there is a caste system. Now if you just made things open to all and paid via redirected subsidies, you would have a decent way of educating everyone on the highest level. Heck, you might even have a better economy for not beating the masses down for once.


I partially understand what you are saying, and yes, there should be a seperation between the average, and the higher than average. The smartest people get to go to Harvard, Yale and MIT. The average get to chose from any number of local universities or community colleges. But everyone should get an opportunity to learn. It is a basic fundamental of democracy and helps bridge the gap between races, classes, genders and religions.

Unfortunately this is where you have it wrong on the worst levels. The kind of levels that have such oddities in our administration that use Non-Ivies as pawns and exclusionary colleges as a determination of how high you should go. Education is one of the things that

If you can name anyone after Nixon with that amount of power that actually stood up and expressed vehement hatred(heck, the Enemies List shows with MIT being a rightfully big target) for such elitism in education, I would be very surprised. I bet the names of those today who actually got anywhere meaningful(read public and exclusionary sector jobs) with a "local university" or "community college" could be counted on one hand.

Open admissions seems to work quite well, and what do you get with a lot of people with that knowledge? A good deal of people who know a lot more than what they came in with.

Cheating is work too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chinese cheat because they get one chance; here in the free world we cheat just because we're too lazy to do the job right.

I teach at a rather well-respected private institution in the US, and though I've been doing it for only a year I've already had to expel one student and have another suspended for the most elaborate cheating scheme that anyone here can remember. If not for a careless oversight on one conspirator's part, they would have been successful. The sad part was the immense amount of effort they went through to cover it up: lying, forgery, and eventually just coming in and begging for forgiveness. With the amount of time and effort they put into cheating, they could have studied and done extraordinarily well.

Some of these devices reek of the same folly: with the time, money and effort one puts into preparing such a plan, couldn't one just as easily work on passing legitimately?

Re:Cheating is work too.

[bokane]

Actually, it's not uncommon for students here (particularly from middle-class families) to take the exam multiple times before getting a passing grade.

Re:atleast in my day a-level exams were much the s

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually only the final exams are done at the end of the 2 years. A whole lot of courses are modular, meaning lots of little exams over the course of the two years, the AS levels are only one year long and so have tests at the end of that first year and there are retakes if you need to do them. The colleges will also take into account poor health/tragidy/any other extenuating circumstance so there are massive provisions made for students. Oh yes, there are also marks for coursework so it's not even all exam based.

In other words the end exams are important but definatly not the be all and end all of it.

elitism

[migloo]

"the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

You are american, aren't you?

China cannot afford to train average students and "elitism" is not a dirty word there (yet). China recovered its pre-Mao tradition of state-sponsored highly competitive school system which the visiting Jesuits of the 19th century found so efficient that they imported it into the European monarchies. It even survives in France which still openly deflects its brightest high school kids from the regular university in favor of its few "Grandes Ecoles" (literally "great schools":).

If and when China becomes prosperous, you can expect second class universities to bloom there just like in the USA.

Or to put it another way...

[uxo]

"If there are that many people that desperate^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdishonest to get into a university..."

Because if they opened more schools...

[AriaStar]

...then it wouldn't be so elite to have a college education, and so many people would be "educated" that there wouldn't be enough "uneducated" people left to hire to do the yard work, clean houses, and prepare fast food because they'd all want to make what their degrees are worth. *rolls eyes*

Re:another good idea. - SOLUTION

[StarvingSE]

My university used TA's mostly to teach lab sections of classes (basically babysit the students and make sure they don't build bombs in chem lab). TA's were also popular in undergrad classes as well. All of my advanced classes were taught by actual profs.

My friends who attended other universities have said the same. I think your university is the exception.

Also, every TA I've had to deal with spoke perfect ENGRISH. I don't mind being taught by a knowledgable PhD student, but at least make sure they have a command over the common language spoken in the country they are teaching in!

Two thoughts

[RomulusNR]

1. Trade is working! The Chinese are learning from Americans. Results are more important than ability.

2. Underqualified students overseas sneaking into technical schools will keep overall aptitude balanced. Maybe we'll even start seeing the spread of frat parties and College Republicans. Again, trade works!

I like the German system

[ademaskoo]

The problem with the American type of education is that it is too linear. Students only have one cookie cutter option, which absolutely does NOT prepare students for a real life job. What we need is vocational training for those students who don't want to college, and a "college prep" for those that do.

Germany already has this system in place. The students on the "college prep" course attend what is called "Gymnasium" to earn essentially the equivilent of the American Associate's Degree. Those in the vocational programs are taught topics related to the industry of their choice; this includes job placement and an apprenticeship once the vocational degree is earned.

With the current American system, students are almost forced to go to college just to get the vocational skills needed for their chosen industry (certification anyone?). A few of my friends in the IT program are there just for their MCSE and don't plan on earning a degree.

What I like about the German system is that time is not wasted on needless high school courses, and that the cost of vocational education is completely placed on the taxpayers - not the students who don't have any money for the training anyway.

Just my $0.02

Cheating and corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

A recent study published in Portugal states that there is a relation between cheating and corruption:

http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/porfepwps/214.ht m

Abstract: Today's economics and business students are expected to be our future's business people and potentially our tomorrow's economic leaders and politicians. Thus, their beliefs and practices are likely to affect the definition of acceptable economics and business ethics. The empirical evaluation of the cheating phenomenon in academia has been almost exclusively focused on the US context, and the non-US studies involve, in general, a narrow scope of countries. In the present paper we perform a wide cross-country study on the determinants of economics and business undergraduate cheating which involves 21 countries from the American (4), European (14), Africa (2) and Oceania (1) Continents and 7213 students. We found that the average magnitude of copying among the economics and business undergraduates is quite high (62%) but with a significant cross-country heterogeneity. The probability of cheating is significantly lower in students enrolled in schools located in the Nordic or the US plus British Isles blocks when compared with their South Europe counterparts; quite surprisingly that probability is also lower for the African block. Distinctly, students enrolled in schools from the Western and especially from the Eastern Europe observe statistically significant higher propensities for perpetrating academic fraud. Our findings further suggest that average cheating propensity in academia is significantly correlated with 'real world' business corruption.

Disclaimer: not related to this study in anyway

Make it harder to get in school then

[Anonymous Coward]

If they won't build more schools, if there aren't enough qualified teachers, if there are too many graduates for the white collar jobs, then make it harder to get into the brand-name schools. Certainly all these students can't have the same grades.

Mod Paren Tup

[Anonymous Coward]

mod paren tup

litium ion

[petermgreen]

i suspect the maker of this cheating device used a lithium ion battery (to keep the size down) and didn't include (or didn't build to a high enough standard) the nessacery protection circuitry to make it safe

Don't you know what Universities are for?

[CrankyOldBastard]

Most posters in this thread seem to be under the misguided impression that Universties are principly teaching institutions. They're not.

Universities are primarily Research Institutes, that also teach to acquire a little extra funding. People who go to University and expect to be taught well will almost always be very very disappointed.

A Student who self-educates (i.e. reads books from that big room full of them - there's one somewhere on your campus, even though you've propbably never been there!), practices skills (does problems from afor-mentioned books), engages in low-level research ("What happens if we super-cool that solution before adding the ether?"), and has (occasional) access to people who can help if they're terribly stuck (tutors, senior undergrads, postgrad students, lecturers, readers etc).

The expectation that the primary purpose of University is teaching is, in my opinion, and based on my experience teaching (and researching!) at University, the second biggest cause of the lowering of standards of both research and graduate quality. Once we had a "full time" teaching load of 6 hours contact (lectures and tutes) a week, with the rest of the week devoted to research and guidance of PhD candidates. Now it's not unusual to have 20 hours or more per week of contact. So it follows that there is no way serious research can be done seriously!!

And because the students expect to be taught (and will not, or cannot, teach themselves), they are very bad at problem solving and basic research. Employers want graduates who can think and apply their knowledge to solve problems. Everything else only needs robots and drones.

You guys...

[manif3st]

...must get invited to parties all the time.

Re:You guys...

[smokeslikeapoet]

Actually, I'm a Frat Boy.

Math degrees

[janzen]

Uh huh. Try searching Google for "quantitative finance jobs". Many require Ph.D. degrees in math (or other numerical fields such as physics) -- and starting salaries for "junior" positions tend to be around the £50-75K range. Experienced people make much, much more.

There's a huge cultural gap in education methods

[jesterzog]

Plagarism? Standard everyday occurance.

I've been an assistant teacher in several comp-sci courses with large proportions of Chinese students, and although I didn't see any formal studies, there certainly appeared to be a much higher rate of plagiarism in those groups than other people.

I think part of it was due to English language problems. The Chinese students in the course would often get together in groups to translate a set of questions from English, work on the answers, and then collectively translate it back to very similar (even identical) English.

In other cases, it was just straight cheating.

My girlfriend also tutors and supervises exams for different courses, and she's had situations where more than half the class was cheating in tests. Her Chinese office-mate told her that it's at least partly due to a completely different culture in China. Apparently you don't elevate your status in China by being an individual and creative. Instead, you get higher status by fitting in, and by copying what people of higher status do already, as exactly as possible. It won't get you to a better position, but at least you'll be nearer to a better position. So if someone considered an expert in a field (such as a textbook author) says something, it's important to agree and say exactly the same thing. The easiest way to do that is to simply copy the text -- perhaps also to memorise it, but ultimately say as similar-a-thing as possible.

I certainly don't want to claim that all Chinese students are likely to be cheating, which would be completely unfair to the people who really do spend a lot of time and effort to learn the subject properly. I've had more than a few Chinese friends who spent a lot of effort into individual efforts, and did really well at it. There's certainly a major culture gap, though, and sometimes I wonder if some of the universities in western countries spend enough time and resources considering that people who come from China might not always understand or appreciate how important it is to learn to think for themselves.

Perhaps the new measure of intelligence

[shadowbearer]

Should be how efficiently one uses the information sources available to one?

  SB

Academic inflation

[bokane]

Making more schools is actually what's behind a serious problem in China at the moment:

Several years ago, the government upgraded the status of basically all colleges, institutes, etc. to "university." In the short term, this led to employment for (more or less qualified) professors and "university" education for a greater number of students, but it's also led to a dilution of the value of a university degree, and a flooding of the job market with basically unqualified graduates. As a result, many university graduates are now finding that even with degrees from top universities, jobs aren't opening up the way they used to.

At the same time, more and more students are aiming for university educations, leading to increased strain on a "university" system composed primarily of colleges with vestigial institutes grafted onto them.

Obvious answer

[Kosi]

If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"

The communist party doesn't want that. It's obvious that they want to keep the number of educated people as little as possible, because the more educated the people are, the more will they question the communist party dictatorship, and they wouldn't like the outer world seeing another mass murder of students like on the Tiananmen Square. Keeping the number down also allows control over who gets educated and who not.

Kosi

Invade

[Anonymous Coward]

neighbours, occupy their universities and loose some of the chaff on the way there....
repeat.

I hear MIT is pretty good.

What's a degree if *everybody* has one...?

[Joce640k]

A University degree is a title, it has to mean something, ie. that you're one of the [b]BEST[/b] in the country. If you take the attitude that anybody who wants a degree ought to have one then this value is lost.

My Apologies

[virg_mattes]

I forgot that some nitwit will always come to the table with an absolutely irrational edge case that disproves the statement for that single case, and then argue that this means the whole thing falls apart. Sure, printing five billion dollar bills and giving it to one person will indeed severely unbalance the economy, but then it's not the printing of the money that's the problem, eh? It's handing five billion dollars to someone out of the blue sky that causes the problem. If that money got printed but then was only handed to people with claim to it (say, mailing out cash for tax refunds instead of checks), then it would have precisely zero effect on the economy, just as I claimed. So go away until you've decided not to be a nitwit about it any more.

Virg

Semantic Point

[virg_mattes]

> Ah... no. Printing money can cripple an economy.

Incorrect. You'll notice several things in my comment. First is that I did in fact separate printing money from creating monetary value, so you can claim it to be semantic nit-picking but I did address his real point, not the point of printing money. Second, the amount of printed money in the economy relative to the amount of actual money (the value of M1) is vanishingly small, so you'd have to print an appalling amount of it before it would start to have any real effect on the economy, and doling out economic value does cause inflation, but then that was covered by the first point.

Virg

Back to Basics

[virg_mattes]

Let me address your points in order of approach, since you make a point but your order makes it hard to rebut.

> So this whole article should be more about the lengths to which lazy Chinese go in order to avoid studying and still go to college.

I find it tough to believe that it's laziness that drives someone to cheat in such a way as to require surgery to correct it. Competition in China for slots in universities is extreme (the article itself addresses this if you demand my source) and this is an indicator that more people want the slots than there are slots to provide. You comment:

Almost in all cases you cannot just remove the reason why people are driven towards cheating so the solution would have to involve some change in the way people think.

I'd say that the change needed is to convince people that they can get an education without cheating, and the only realistic way to do that is to increase the number of slots in the universities.

> Yes China is growing economically really fast but 50,000 - 100,000 more graduates each year would put some serious strain on the economy ( education in China is paid for by the government ).

I'd say this is a relatively easy problem to solve, except for the fact that China's government is run by oppressive idealogues. There's nothing in the function of a university that requires that it be funded or run by the government, but good luck trying to get a private university established there. Therefore, the government itself is being a limiting factor. The upshot of this is that there's going to be very little the government can do to prevent cheating, then.

> Unless there is a shortage of a specialist of a certain kind ( and this is not te case in most countries ) them producing even 1000 more specialist ( read graduates from a given major if you wish ) would create unemployment and hence would devalue the preexisting workers.

This would seem to make sense, but frankly that's not how higher education works. To be blunt, a degree is more than the major it supports. Sure, your major specifies what you concentrated on, but I learned a lot more in college than just the scope of my degree, and that degree qualified me to be able to do a wide range of jobs. For some majors that's not as likely, but for some it is. Given the choice between a community college education and no college education at all, you'd be hard pressed to convince me I'd be better off with the latter, even if I end up as a carpenter.

> There is a lot more than free markets working here and the Chinese educational system is nothing like the American one.

I fail to see that this is a good thing. Their model seems to have a problem that ours doesn't. If the government is afraid to fix it, they don't have a lot of room to bitch about the problems that fear causes them.

Virg

Re:another good idea. - SOLUTION

[nelsonal]

It is the exception because all that time spent teaching means that the profs aren't out there doing ground breaking research (which enhances the image of the university). That also means that your professors are there because they like to teach rather than research. But you're not going to draw the same "names" to come research there, either. I have three guesses as to the gp's educational institution (Mudd, Rose, and Cooper) but most people have never heard of any of them. They are mostly regional institutions but you come out of them with an education that I'd consider to be one of the best in the field.

What can I say, cheating is about a better life

[amonlee]

Definitely, cheating is not right. However: Without a degree, lots of people have to work as cheapeset labor in the world, 12~16 hours a day, 6~7 days a week, less than US$100 payment a month. What is your choice, cheating or not cheating? Even with a degree, some gradutes have to accept no-paid-at-all work in some companies just for experience. But they still got hope, to the people without a degree from the lowest level of society, they are the most hopeless people in China.

The point is that the parent is imagining some...

[blueZ3]

utopian dream-world that never existed, where only the best and brightest got into Soviet schools. Leaving aside the fact that this is a first-order fallacy, I think it's important to call people on complete ignorance of the repression that was going on behind the iron curtain during the communist era. Perhaps the parent didn't think through their post (on Slashdot? Never!) but for those of us who experienced first-hand what was happening in Eastern Block countries, this sort of mindless worship of the Soviet system rankles.

And you should read my post again: I didn't say our system was necessarily better -- both political influence and money are poor indicators of scholastic success. I'm just pointing out the parent's naivete on the subject of education under the Soviet system.