The following table shows what teachers believe are successful in present education systems:
coding GG GR GH CH CC CR
knowledge education 2 1 2
The Gaokao 2 2
3 tracks of schools 3 1
Humanistic Gymnasium G9 3
Realschule 2
Gemeinschaftschule 2
Exam ability of students 1 1
Idea of quality-oriented education 1 1
Student freedom 1
Equal educational chance 1
Social training 1
Preparation for university 1
Help for students 1
Mixed students 1
Independent learning 1
Compulsory education 1
Many good universities 1
Examination organizing 1
Teacher evaluation 1
Respect on teachers 1
Responsibility of teachers 1
The order of the coding depends on the counting numbers, and from the results shown in the table above, there’s no sharing point on the success of the education systems in two countries, and there’s nearly no common opinion among German teachers in 3 types of schools, but there’re some agreements among Chinese teachers of different schools. Comparatively, within the same track of German schools, the teachers also share the similar opinions about the success of education system.
Instead of answering the question of what is successful, 4 teachers from the Realschule and 5 from Hauptschule only talked about what is not successful in the system, which means only 2 Realschule teachers and one Hauptschule teacher looked at the system positively and answered the original question, and all Gymnasium teachers gave answers about the success in the system, and some also mentioned or were asked about the unsuccessful aspects, so it can be seen that Gymnasium teachers are more satisfied and positive about the education system.
As to Chinese teachers, normally they are not like German teachers who can say “I don’t know what is the success, but I can tell you what is not successful”, they just try to find an answer to the question they were asked and not to think of other aspects, so I had to ask them what is not successful in the system in order to get the equal and full views from both countries. That is also an example to prove that the interviewees are a big part of the participation in a research, and they can also create and enrich research questions.
1) Knowledge education
Chinese teachers from all levels of schools agree that Chinese education system is very successful at knowledge education, and it is true that Chinese students have to learn a lot of knowledge from the textbooks, and they are trained to build a solid foundation of basic knowledge, for some teachers also believe it is necessary for children to memorize more knowledge in mind by rote with no need of full
understanding when they are young, and later they will understand better and deeply with age and more experience. In reality the secondary education of China does underline the importance of basic knowledge, and about 80 percent of exam content is about basic knowledge, which leads teachers’ teaching to focus only on the knowledge.
On the other hand, it is ‘ironic’ to say knowledge education is successful, because the Chinese teachers also have a very big worry on students who learn the knowledge only for the examinations and don’t know how to use the knowledge, in the end, what the students learn becomes only ‘dead knowledge’. Take an example of English subject, the English exams mainly cover reading and writing full of vocabulary and grammar, but a very small part of listening and no test on speaking, as a result, Chinese students have very good knowledge in English vocabulary and grammar, on which they can get very high exam scores, but their English is mute and they can hardly speak or communicate in English, which has given birth to a booming expensive industry of language agency focusing more on the training of English speaking under the teaching of foreign teachers in many Chinese cities.
2) The Gaokao
Some Chinese teachers believe that the Gaokao is a success in the Chinese education system, because, on one hand, the exam impartially provides a platform of a just and fair competition for all students no matter what family background they come from, especially an equal chance for the children from very poor families, who can change their life or fates and even the destiny of their families through very hard study to pass the Gaokao and get into a good university and then start a good job career; on the other hand, the exam does select many intelligent and talented students who really make some outstanding contributions later in different fields of Chinese society, which means the result of the Gaokao is successful, universities can get their wanted students, and the students are admitted to their desired universities, maybe not all, but in general it is a happy end.
However, each time when Chinese education becomes a topic, there’re always tons of various voices of criticism, almost all of which fall upon one point that examination-oriented education is a big problem in China, and the Gaokao is the
root of all problems. Many Chinese people including teachers believe everything would be changed completely in the school, when the Gaokao system was changed.
Because one score of the Gaokao decides a student’s future and whole life, the school education has only one aim that is to teach students how to get high exam scores especially in senior high school, and all resources are put in only one thing that is to train students’ exam-taking abilities and skills. But the Gaokao is really the main culprit of education system’s problems?
CCD28M has very reasonable comments on it, who doesn’t think it is school that doesn’t want to have more activities or projects for students, but the burden and pressure from the exam-oriented education is too heavy, and without that burden, the school education could be much more active and lively. However, from another side, it is not wise to discard the system of college entrance examination, because China is a country under the rule of men, not the rule of law, and without the Gaokao, the admission to university would become a game manipulated by the money and power, the children from especially the poor families would never have chances to reach the good universities.
From the perspective of CCD28M, it is true that, as long as the Gaokao exists, the school education will surely focus on the scores, but the question is through which way to seek for high scores and high enrolment rates, if it’s through improving the student’s comprehensive quality and ability, then the pursuit of the enrolment rate is healthy and benign. Therefore, whether the education is successful or not depends not only on the mechanism of the system, but crucially more on the people who implement the education.
In essence, the Gaokao is a mechanism, when it exists, it can drive the education more strongly to the exam orientation, and if it didn’t exist, the exam orientation could be much weaker, but no one can boast that education will be successful on every student if there’s no Gaokao. Pragmatically speaking, education is mainly about how teachers think and do, and whether they can offer children something else except the teaching on textbooks’ knowledge.
Prof. Lu from Tsinghua University has talked about Chinese education system in a quite forthright and incisive way, he doesn’t agree that the Gaokao can be replaced
by American SAT for example, because in his understanding the Gaokao is not the real problem, the problem is that China is a society with a very low degree of integrity and honesty, often the end justifies the means, which means people could try all kinds of ways, even by some dishonest or cheating means, to misuse all the evaluation standards to reach their goals, for example, the personal statement can be written by some agent, recommendation letters cover all good words but nothing real about the recommended persons, and the social experience or activities can be simply made up from nothing.
From his opinion, the essential problem of education in China is the utilitarian culture, because China has not gone through the Renaissance, or Enlightenment Movement, or the industrial revolution, but during the long history till now what China has strengthened is the strong connection between study and future career to persuade young people to study hard for a good future, if they studied well, they could become officials or get very good jobs, which has caused and consolidated a deep utilitarianism that only becomes stronger and stronger in the educational field because of the harsh competition in the society. So it has become a hard and insolvable topic for educational researchers to find something more impartial and operable than the Gaokao.
3) 3 tracks of schools
Some teachers from the Gymnasium defend quite the 3 tracks of schooling system, which they believe has a big advantage that a “homogenous student performance level can be reached within schools” (Jacob & Tieben, 2007), and makes the teachers feel it’s a privilege to teach in the Gymnasium the cleverest and the most motivated students. GGM10F thinks the system is good, also because, even though a student starts in the Hauptschule, he/she can go on and change to another school to do the Abitur in the end of the school career if he/she is good enough and his/her motivation is there.
Some research shows that grouping students into different school types follows the theory that “optimal instruction is facilitated when the ability level of students is more homogenous, …tracking may provide an opportunity for better instruction and avoid the risks of demanding too much or too little from the students” (Becker et al.,
2016). It’s also believed that homogeneous classrooms can provide students “a learning environment that is better adapted to” their abilities individual (Jürges &
Schneider, 2007).
Due to that advantage of homogeneous class, except 3 teachers in the Gymnasium, one teacher GHW2F from the Hauptschule also think this 3-track system is quite good, which she believes can guarantee teachers in each different type of school to do the best for the students, more easily to prepare appropriate teaching materials and methods for students in their respective ways, and help students reach their optimal performance.
What’s more, the 3 tracks of the school system can “allow all the abilities of children to be awakened and also to be tested out through more demanding tasks at the appropriate level in each case” (Hearnden, 1976, p.62). Therefore, theoretically tracking can benefit both weak and good students in their individual levels, and produce better aggregate educational performance, because the “ability differences between the high- and low-achieving students in a class are smaller than in comprehensive school systems and allow more focused instruction without leaving the weakest pupils behind or have better students be under-challenged by the curriculum” (Jürges & Schneider, 2007).
4) Humanistic Gymnasium
Several Gymnasium teachers think that the humanistic Gymnasium with the Humbolt’s ideas of education is successful, because it concerns the whole person and teaches children the whole character to help them become persons with fulfilled life (GGF7F), especially the 9-year Gymnasium, which is quite good at preparing students for the university, and also offers students more free afternoons to develop their own skills and interests beyond the school (GGH7M, GGD15M). It is said that the humanistic Gymnasium, as the most prestigious type of secondary school, has held its own with a long and distinguished history by the virtue of its inner strength (Phillips, 1995, p.67).
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), the founder of the Gymnasium and also one of the major contributors to the concept of the modern German university, “relied
on the methodology of Pestalozzi who, though more pragmatic, shared his belief in general education as the interdependent development of head, heart and hand”, e.g.
the development of a whole person (Hahn, 1998, p.17). All the time in the Gymnasium “there is a healthy tradition of parental interest in academic progress at school” (Hearnden, 1976, p.17), where the main population of students comes from more educated family background, which could be a big reason as some teachers believe that among students in the Gymnasium the positive attitude to school is much more prevalent than other tracks of schools.
5) Realschule
Among the teachers in the Realschule, only 2 teachers answered positively the question about what is successful in the education system, and both of them think that the Realschule is successful, because the Realschule has always kept the aim of combining text knowledge and practical ability together, not just for the brain as the Gymnasium or with much more practical things in the Hauptschule, in all, the education in the Realschule is perfect for children who can decide to go further to the university to do a job more about academy later, or go into a special kind of profession where they can learn something for more practical jobs when they are ready to leave school (GRD21F, GRE35M). Besides, the teachers also believe the Realschule is the most successful at making students social members, and the school doesn’t have so many problems like the Hauptschule and teachers there either don’t have the trouble like the Hauptschule teachers with too many difficult students.
The Realschule, defined as the ‘semi-academic intermediate school’, “has a long and distinguished history in Germany”, and it was founded and developed mainly
“in the nineteenth century with the increasing awareness of the need to develop a more modern and realistic approach to the education and training of young people than that offered in the traditional grammar schools” (Phillips, 1995, p.71). It has turned out that the Realschule with “high-quality non-academic education and training” has become “a strong backbone to the tripartite nature of the German secondary school system”, and contributed significantly to German powerful industrial growth by equipping young people with good basic knowledge and
practical training for the further disciplines in modern trade and professional life (Phillips, 1995, p.254).
6) Gemeinschaftschule
As to teachers in the Hauptschule, it seems that they don’t think there is something successful in the education system, except one teacher GHW2F who mentioned in the interview that the 3-track school system is good, because the class is more homogeneous in each type of school, but then she denied it by herself, saying, when there are 27 students in one class, it’s not possible to have a homogenous group of students. So she and also another teacher GHK5F would like to have a new school type, Gemeinschaftschule, which they think could be a good thing, for it makes students come together in one class as one society, not be divided into three different school tracks, so that the good students can help the weak ones, they can do the social learning in heterogeneous groups, and everybody has the same possibility.
The teachers also hope it can help to wipe away all the negative stereo types about the Hauptschule, the so-called bad and the most problematic type of school, at least help to reduce and minimize the bad pictures describing the children in the Hauptschule. But actually they admit that they have no idea how the school should work and what it will be, and they are also very confused why there’s still Gymnasium when having the Gemeinschaftschule, not all 3 tracks in one, even so, they put their hope on it and wish it could change their unpleasant situation. In the end, they show their worry that the Gemeinschaftschule is more like an experiment, for there is no concept for it, and every school does its own style of Gemeinschaftschule, from the view of reality it is also true that it’s more difficult to teach a class with very good students and very weak students together.
7) Exam ability of students
Another success that Chinese teachers agree with is that Chinese students have good abilities in handling and passing examinations, which also means Chinese teachers are successful at improving students’ study performance and training them to get high exam scores. Two teachers from junior high school also confirm the high
exam-taking skills of Chinese students who have been trained into kind of exam machines day by day, year after year since the primary school, and the only goal of their study is to get high or higher exam scores, which is also the only aim that teachers fight for in the teaching, because the evaluation says that students’ exam scores show the teachers’ teaching ability and performance.
The fact is it is the exam score that decides what kind of senior high school or university the students can go further, so the daily training at school is all for the Zhongkao or Gaokao, which is also the reason, no matter how reforms have tried to change the face of the school education, that till now China, undeniably, still has the solid exam-oriented education. In the other words, if Chinese students want to survive in the school system and reach bigger goals for a better future, they have to study very hard and have strong exam ability, which is the only way to go through this system successfully, and all other abilities are not that important. That’s why in China the success of students, teachers and schools is mainly measured by the exam scores. When teachers say the success is the good exam ability of students, it is a quite bitter success, for in their hearts they don’t really agree on it.
8) Idea of quality-oriented education
About the disadvantages of the exam-oriented education, everyone can tell. In China it’s been widely debated that it’s not right to focus only on knowledge teaching and exam scores, but ignore the development of every child as a lively whole person.
Then the quality-oriented education, with the aim of having students in all-round development, got rising voice as a right one to replace the exam-oriented education, which actually has been written in the policy for a long time so far in China, but only becomes a slogan without action in the reality, also because the pressure of Zhongkao and Gaokao makes it find no room to exist in the system. Maybe in some primary schools they start to have the awareness or willingness to try the quality-oriented education little by little.
Even though the quality-oriented education has not really been put into practice in Chinese schools, teachers believe its concept is very good and is exactly the idea of successful education to develop children in the morality, intelligence, physical condition, aesthetics, manual skill, and every aspect of body and mind. Perhaps it is
a little bit unrealistic to fulfill the quality-oriented education at this moment, but some teachers hope to find at least a balance between quality-oriented education and
a little bit unrealistic to fulfill the quality-oriented education at this moment, but some teachers hope to find at least a balance between quality-oriented education and