|
The new semester has begun in China and students have gradually returned to their schools. However, the end of the summer holiday doesn't mean a return to school for some children as today a growing number of parents believe home schooling offers a better education. Public opinion is voicing dissatisfaction with an education system criticized as being outdated.
Ye Wanhong is an advocate of home schooling. For 12 years she worked as a Chinese teacher at a primary school in Guangzhou, in south China's Guangdong Province. Despite her experience as a teacher, she was unable to find a suitable kindergarten for her daughter and moved her from school to school. Last year she finally resigned from her school and began teaching her daughter at home. Ye gives her daughter tailored courses and does not limit what textbooks she should read.
This phenomenon has attracted a range of commentary from experts as well as parents. Supporters say that today's education system is too fixated on exam results to allow students to reach their full potential. Opponents, however, argue that insulating students from normal school education will affect their ability to integrate with the rest of society in the long term.
FOR
Xu Xunlei
www.zjol.com.cn
As early as the 1990s, Zheng Yuanjie, a famous Chinese writer of children's stories, decided to have his son Zheng Qiya study at home after his son finished primary school study. He compiled textbooks for his son. Today, his son has grown up to be a successful businessman, opening bookstores, starting magazines, and setting up photography studios.
China's current education mode is killing students' personalities and depriving them of happiness. Students are under so much study pressure and that is why we have seen so many students suffering from depression and even committing suicide. Besides, they have to go through numerous examinations in preparation for the eventual tough college entrance examinations. At first they are creative children with unique personalities, but after the torture of 12 years' traditional education, many of them end up as mediocre people passively adapted to the social environment.
Deprived of the happiness of childhood, they finally grow up and enter universities, but by this time, they have almost totally lost any interest and enthusiasm for studying.
People's personalities differ, so education should be diversified. It's not about opposing home schooling, but rather time to reform the current rigid examination-oriented education system.
Yuan Zheng
Yangcheng Evening News
In 1997, China signed the United Nation's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The covenant reads: parents can choose for their children non-public schools that suit their religious and moral beliefs. Private schools and parents' rights to send their children to these schools should be respected.
Education should be conducted in different modes and whether the mode employed is main stream or not does not matter. As long as the law does not forbid it, private schools are allowed to adopt whatever methods they like. In this sense, private schools are always the locomotive for education reforms.
| 
