West Is Trounced By Chinese Aspiration

[interestrateripoff]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100007487/west-is-trounced-by-chinese-aspiration/

A picture tells a thousand words, and there are few more telling, or poignant, than this one, which shows parents who have travelled with their children to enroll for university in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province, bedding down for the night in a campus gymn made available to those who cannot afford hotel accommodation.

It is impossible to imagine this happening in the UK, or indeed any other advanced economy, where many parents don’t bother to accompany their children to university at all, and to me is another worrying sign of the growing gulf in ambition that separates the aspiring developing world from the tired old, “advanced economies”. To the developing world, the future looks bright. In China, and most other developing countries, going to university offers a route to a better future; in the West, we’ve lost our belief in self improvement and seem already resigned to a future of gentle, or even catastrophic decline.

For China, expansion of tertiary education forms a key part of the country’s development strategy. The number of graduate and undergraduate students in China has approximately quadrupled in recent years. In 1998, the total number of graduates from tertiary education was 0.8 million; in 2005, it was more than 3 million, a nearly threefold increase. The number of enrolments (of new and total students) has risen even faster and approximately quintupled between 1998 and 2005. Since then, the numbers have continued to rise at an almost exponential rate.

What’s more, the focus is strongly on the sciences. There are already substantially more Ph.D. engineers and scientists in China than in the United States, as China produces three times the number of engineers per year. You can argue about the quality of some of these graduates, but what China may lose in terms of the standard of qualification, it makes up for in quantity, and even on the standards it is catching up fast.

China is also increasingly dominant in terms of foreign undergraduates studying abroad. Attending a graduation ceremony for my son at Manchester University this summer, I was astonished by the numbers of Chinese. This perhaps told you as much about the seriousness with which the Chinese take their studies and the prize of an eventual degree as their numbers. Again many UK students don’t bother to turn up for the graduation ceremony. To them, a degree is nothing special.

More at the link.

What's not mentioned is the size of the debt which UK / US students get burdened with.

If you have quantity will you find solutions faster over quality?

Certainly you could have a very blunt trial and error approach to discovery.

[ken_ichikawa]

Except one thing... their students have the exact same unemployment problems perhaps even worse than they do here in the UK. There are too many graduates and too few jobs for them which devalues the things to nothing!

And quite literally you get PhD types working in Mc'ds or doing literal shit jobs by shoveling shit.

A big point to note is that

Chinese people and China have old style thinking, that education = sucess.

It doesn't it hasn't for a long time, my dad is most confused by the way I have two degrees and professional qualies as long as my leg and can't find anything half decent.

He always says why don't you go and study some more.... as if this will generate more sucess....

My cousins were grads who couldn't find jobs so they did their masters.... they still couldn't find jobs so they did their PhD.... ironically Universities where Phd's would have worked are cutting back big time!

Edited September 6, 2010 by ken_ichikawa

[happy_renting]

In places like China, elderly parents are probably much more dependent on their children. A successful child can provide for them in their old age.

Maybe the parents aren't there for the sake of their kids.

From my point of view, anyone turning up at Uni and needing their parents around might not be mature and ready enough for Uni

[DotBomb]

The chinese throw their huge population at everything. At what point does the demographic issues and one child policy take that advantage and turn it into a mega disadvantage. Really, of these millions of scientists, the few gifted ones will probably not want to live under the communist party, but in sunny california.

[Charlie Don't Surf]

How is this different to middle class parents in the UK paying for their kids to go to private school and/or funding them through university?

[ken_ichikawa]

How is this different to middle class parents in the UK paying for their kids to go to private school and/or funding them through university?

It is different because it isn't just middle class types, it is from even the poorest families. There are many stories of people from small villages in the back end of nowhere saving and scrimping everything to send their son or daughter to university. You find 10000s of such stories online about these things and how the entire family suddenly leans on the child thinking education = well paid job.

While our own underclass just go past go and collect £70 a week from the government.

Added to the fact China is Corporate Kleptoist while The UK is Corpoate communist (where a huge amount of our GDP is dependent on government spending) it means the proportion of pointless government jobs is somewhat lower also...

[Zngland]

In this new world you'll have to be connected. Bribery and corruption will be common just like in places like India.

Did you know that in this country examination results are altered for "rich kids" and sometimes kids who are

poor studied and got a place in their equivalent " Oxford Uni" are sometimes bribed or just told to choose

?? so that after exam manipulation a "connected" thick kid can take the space.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

West Is Trounced By Chinese Aspiration Lower House Prices

Fixed.

[Executive Sadman]

In places like China, elderly parents are probably much more dependent on their children. A successful child can provide for them in their old age.

Maybe the parents aren't there for the sake of their kids.

From my point of view, anyone turning up at Uni and needing their parents around might not be mature and ready enough for Uni

I seem to recall most students coming up in parents cars, loaded with studenty crap, parents walking around.

Also strong families in Asia, multi generational households etc. Seems a European mindset that to be an adult you have to shun your family. I guess its good to an extent, but the degree of geographical dislocation of families in the UK i dont think is necessarily always a good thing.

[numpty]

My youngest daughter boards at a school near the M25 and this year there has been a very large influx of Chinese girls..it is nice to know that are educational system is admired in some respects

[easy2012]

My youngest daughter boards at a school near the M25 and this year there has been a very large influx of Chinese girls..it is nice to know that are educational system is admired in some respects

This is a tricky one - those capable of sending their daughters here may not exactly the ones who need to be 'bailed out' by higher education obtained by their children.

I would say this:

The top 1% of British education is probably as good as top 1% of Chinese education

The next 9% of British education is probably much better than the next 9% of chinese education

But the next 90% of British education is err.....

I suppose if you are paying £30k pa in fees that that school falls within the top 10% ?

[easy2012]

The article neatly sidesteps massive problems in China - millions of graduates struggling to achieve success and respect for their families, chasing fewer and fewer low paid factory jobs. Young men in particular under immense pressure to get a job and an apartment to get a bride. Suicides on the increase.The majority are as screwed as we are.

Oh yes, over educating one population is not necessarily to achieve the optimum outcome for an economy (like Blair/Brown ideas to try to get lots of people to the uni). If an economy needs 10 graduates, 5 bin man and 3 builders, then that is how the resources should have been allocated. Making them 18 graduates would have been a misallocation of resources.

With 1.3bn population, I suppose china can afford to misallocate a few of its human resources...

The main thing about chinese aspiration is that they can see better days ahead, while Brits can only see relative declines ahead of them.

[steve99]

Oh yes, over educating one population is not necessarily to achieve the optimum outcome for an economy (like Blair/Brown ideas to try to get lots of people to the uni). If an economy needs 10 graduates, 5 bin man and 3 builders, then that is how the resources should have been allocated. Making them 18 graduates would have been a misallocation of resources.

With 1.3bn population, I suppose china can afford to misallocate a few of its human resources...

The main thing about chinese aspiration is that they can see better days ahead, while Brits can only see relative declines ahead of them.

''If an economy needs 10 graduates, 5 bin man and 3 builders, then that is how the resources should have been allocated''

This has been an issue for a long time. Many jobs now demanding graduates would have been done by a much lower level course or just a bit of on the job training. For eg, my mother became an accounts clark at the age of 45 back in the 70's, the very same company she worked for (the worlds biggest soft drinks maker) now demands a degree in accounting to do the lowest level job in the accounts department. Most IT jobs require a degree when in fact most IT jobs demand less brain power than say an electronic tradesman back in the 70's which of course was done as an apprentiship at the age of 16. This list is endless. What is needed is a brand new system that is able to work out the allocation of human resourses in real terms and divi up the education as needed. The other issue connected with employment is the fact that increased productivity has been wasted on little more than price inflation of real assets and a massive increase in useless financial services and transaction which as we all know produces nothing (along with a long list of other rubbish services that have become pointless and wasteful) . The way around this of course is to refocus on needs of the population rather than the 'wants' of the financial vacuum parasites which are the current focus of government right now. One exaple of this could be reduce working hours across the board, which of course doesnt fit in with the mindset of the current 'system'. The current 'system' is set up to support a core of oligarchial buisnesses and individuals, eg banks and certain big buisness groups like the CBI and until this is put under the microscope and broken up then little will change (the end game of the current framework is that we sprial down to the bottom and have a revolution or a massive war with someone else)

Edited September 7, 2010 by steve99

[interestrateripoff]

Oh yes, over educating one population is not necessarily to achieve the optimum outcome for an economy (like Blair/Brown ideas to try to get lots of people to the uni). If an economy needs 10 graduates, 5 bin man and 3 builders, then that is how the resources should have been allocated. Making them 18 graduates would have been a misallocation of resources.

With 1.3bn population, I suppose china can afford to misallocate a few of its human resources...

The main thing about chinese aspiration is that they can see better days ahead, while Brits can only see relative declines ahead of them.

Misallocation of resources is still a misallocation of resources. China risks a butterfly effect.

[catsick]

This is a tricky one - those capable of sending their daughters here may not exactly the ones who need to be 'bailed out' by higher education obtained by their children.

I would say this:

The top 1% of British education is probably as good as top 1% of Chinese education

The next 9% of British education is probably much better than the next 9% of chinese education

But the next 90% of British education is err.....

I suppose if you are paying £30k pa in fees that that school falls within the top 10% ?

I have done a fair bit of graduate recruitment in China and also in India over the years, my observations are that system in china really is fairly egalitarian and the very clever kids who work very hard end up at the top, the parents are super pushy but that will not make the kids pass the exams and the exams are super strict.

My wives family is Korean and generally they would make massive sacrifices for the kids education, they have ridiculous amounts of after school lessons, the kids who come out top in this system really know their stuff, its easy to say ahh but they are just book smart and are not "rounded" I say interview 10 and you get a full spectrum.

Generally the preference of the kids is to get into the A1 top domestic university in Beijing Shanghai or in India the IIT's or IIM's , After this a top 10 international Uni like Oxford or Harvard would be seen as a good second choice if you didn't make the grade on the IIT exam , then the second tier of domestic universities. The pupils who go to universities in the UK like Nottingham or Manchester are the real failures who could not get anywhere approaching half decent locally and who had rich parents who could fund an overseas education and did so out of dispair that the kid couldnt cut the mustard in the competitive domestic market.

After all that though the thing I most remember about recruiting in india was going to give a talk to about 200 IIT students mainly 19-21 year old Indian boys sitting in a lecture theater in 45 degree heat in the middle of the day, you can imagine how much sweating was going on in the height of summer, the memory of the odor will never leave me ....

[Austin Allegro]

What has accompanying your children to university got to do with anything? They're adults!

When I was an undergraduate in the early nineties, many students turned up in the family volvo with mum and dad who helped them unpack. I would imagine this happens even more nowadays, esp as mum and dad can check on their BTLs in the town at the same time...

[Executive Sadman]

Anyway, without aspiration, they know this is their families future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX6xCJ2qAP4

Here, without aspiration, your future is a life on benefits and welfare more generous than what youll get for working.

Given that Governments across the west seem hellbent on causing inflation, and reducing peoples spending/earning power, i dont see this changing anytime soon.

[Ruffneck]

Fixed.

House prices in China are very high , even higher as a % of wage than the UK.