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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?"
Trust me.. there is nothing socialistic about the current chinese society, least of all their health care.
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.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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