Education and social justice
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Thirty years ago, China's society was recovering from the Cultural Revolution. At the time, what was needed was to restore basic primary and secondary schooling. As the economy developed, demand for people with higher education grew and the government steadily increased the number of college places.
But education reform is not just about meeting the economy's demand for skilled staff. It must also take social justice into account.
Problems of fairness in education start as soon as a child reaches school age. In cities, to get their child into a good primary school, parents have to buy a house in the school's catchment area. This is in effect a hidden form of school fee. And parents must plan well ahead as they need to buy the apartment at least three years before the child goes to school. This system obviously favors the wealthy and skews the provision of primary education away from any idea of social justice.
If the countryside is taken into account the system is even more unfair. The 2000 census showed China had 807.39 million rural residents, accounting for 63.91 percent of the population. Although the number of rural residents is dropping, they still make up more than half of the total. But in terms of college entrance rates, the position of students from rural areas has actually got worse over the past thirty years. We need to think long and hard about how to provide equal educational opportunities to students from the countryside.
Some people favor reform of the college entrance examinations. It is quite right that to foster all-round ability, entry into college should not be decided solely by test results. How can you measure ability in a race with different starting lines? But major reforms should not be undertaken too hastily. Some people say colleges should be allowed to decide their own admission criteria. But without a well-developed system of monitoring, fairness could not be guaranteed.
In theory interviews could be a way for colleges to assess candidates. But is it scientific to judge ability on the basis of a conversation lasting a few minutes? The results might favor students from schools that foster social skills and superficial fluency rather than academic ability. And how could we ensure that personal connections, and frankly gifts, would not influence the process?
At bottom, the problem is one of China's regional differences and unbalanced development. The essential unfairness is that the students in a rural school in Guizhou Province cannot get the same level of education as students in Shanghai, simply because of the huge gap in school finances. And the abilities that a college stresses, such as presentation skills and global outlook, are far beyond the horizons of students from the poor rural area of China.
But any reform of education must pay attention to social justice. Just like an automobile cannot run without gas, education cannot flourish without justice because education and justice are indivisible in modern society. Education represents the future of a society, a nation, and a state, and it must be seen in its broader context.
Mr.Shi Weicheng is Ph.D candidate of International Politics, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University.
