Winning education, America and China!

Providing a student with a taste of life in two of the most powerful and dynamic nations in the world is a winning combination.

I AM always being asked by anxious parents about where they should send their sons and daughters to school or university.

As a graduate of a British university, most people would expect me to be a big promoter of UK institutions.
In the past, that would have been the case, but nowadays I’m no longer so convinced.

Indeed, the smartest Malaysian parents have already anticipated changing trends, sending their offspring to the United States, especially schools on the East Coast (and Ivy League colleges).

At the same time, virtually every young Chinese Malaysian scion is expected to spend at least a year or so brushing up his or her Mandarin in Beijing.

Some even attempt courses at the city’s prestigious Peking University.

To my mind, it’s a winning combination: providing a student with a taste of life in two of the most powerful and dynamic nations in the world.

This doesn’t mean that I think American graduates (even Ivy Leaguers) are cleverer than their British counterparts.

If anything, they’re just more articulate and confident.

These are qualities, however, that tend to evaporate the moment they put pen to paper.

Indeed, I’ve never understood the educational value of multiple choice tests so in vogue in the American education system.

Why is this trend occurring?

Well, for one thing, American universities really score in terms of the money at their disposal and the incredibly diverse student body.

This in turn creates a superb and influential network for the future for their students.

At the same time, one of the most high-profile recent British graduates was Bo GuaGua, the son of disgraced Communist Party apparatchik Bo Xilai.

The young Bo studied at the elite British public school, Harrow, followed by Oxford University’s Balliol College.

When his father and mother fell so spectacularly from grace, GuaGua’s ostentatious ways and flamboyant educational choices were viewed as evidence of his parent’s waywardness and lack of discretion.

With China now the source of the world’s largest number of overseas students (surpassing even India), GuaGua’s disastrous stint in the UK may well prove to be a powerful disincentive for other parents in Beijing and Shanghai.

Indeed, a million Chinese students were studying abroad by the end of 2006 and in 2011 alone, 340,000 students headed overseas.

The shift may well take time as London remains an important financial capital despite its fading diplomatic leverage.

Still, the Great Power rivalry across the Pacific means that the United States possesses a powerful allure for Chinese parents as they seek to prepare their children for the future.

The children of China’s new rich can now be found in places like the Phillips Andover Academy (founded in 1778, the alma mater of President George W. Bush), its rival Phillips Exeter (1781) and the Groton School (1884, where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt studied).

They’re attractive to Chinese parents because it gives their children the edge for entry to Ivy League universities like Harvard or Yale.

Even Bo GuaGua headed to the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) to study public policy after Oxford.

US Department of Homeland Security numbers indicate that there were 6,725 Chinese students in American secondary schools in 2011, compared to just 65 in 2006.

Overall, more than 157,000 Chinese students studied in America that year – a full 22% of the total number of foreign students there.

China again surpassed India as the largest source of overseas students for America in 2010.

Malaysia, in contrast sent just 6,190 students to America that year.

It would seem that many Malaysians still hanker for British educational institutions – perhaps to our disadvantage.

As this is being written, the best and brightest minds from the world’s two superpowers are rubbing shoulders in the schoolyards and lecture halls of America as well as, increasingly, China.

It’s always a good thing when young people come together.

Perhaps the long-feared clash between China and the West may not materialise after all as children from both compete in their respective elite institutions instead.

  Ceritalah
By Karim Raslan

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Made In China By CHOW HOW BAN

ZHANG Xinyang has been in the limelight since he was 10. Then he became the youngest person in China to study at a university.

At 13, he continued his master’s degree at Beijing University of Technology. Yet again the now 16-year-old genius made history when he was accepted by Beihang University in Beijing last month to study doctorate in mathematics.

Zhang’s fast-track education has sparked a debate over whether it is against the law of nature or whether it is the right thing for China to do to encourage young children to jump classes and grow to become adults though in reality they are not ready or mature.

In his recent interview with China Central Television (CCTV), Zhang showed his childishness and unreasonable thinking by saying that he had on several occasions threatened to stop his studies if his parents refused to buy an apartment for him in Beijing.

Genius or rebel?: A photo of Zhang grabbed from the Insight programme broadcast on China Central Television recently.

His remarks have caused a stir on the Internet, with many netizens saying that he should not pressure his parents who obviously cannot bear the exorbitant house prices and he should earn his own money to buy the apartment instead.

“What a selfish boy! What use to receive so much education?” said a netizen. Another commented that Zhang should be labelled as an “abnormal kid” instead of genius.

Others said that if Zhang were not China’s youngest doctorate student, his words would not have weighed so much.

“It was we who had different thoughts on an ordinary 16-year-old kid because of his reputation. He is only a rebellious boy like many at that age,” they said.

Zhang was raised by an ordinary middle-income family from Liaoning province. His father Huixiang, who works as a civil servant, discovered that he was smarter than his peers when he was very young.

Since then, Huixiang has educated his son to be an active learner and encouraged him to think and question.

The boy would speak about serious topics from the Iraq war to city image. Sometimes he would argue with his father when they have different views on certain subjects.



Fun it might seem for Zhang to bury in his books, walk into the examination hall together with his older classmates and skip so many levels of education. But, he revealed, in the interview, that it was not enjoyable after all.

When Zhang started to distract from his studies and play with computer games, his father scolded him. At the heat of the argument, his angry father walked out of Zhang’s hostel and walked 50km home in Langfang, Hebei province that night.

“He wanted to punish me but in reality, he was actually punishing himself,” Zhang said of his father’s reaction during the incident.

He said his father would certainly suffer from a more painful heartache than other parents of normal children if he failed to do well in his studies, because of the way his father had groomed him.

“He wished he could feed me with milk forever but it would not happen.

“The later he loosens his grip and let me go, the greater the repercussion would be,” he said.

With tremendous pressure from his parents and high expectations he had on himself, Zhang failed some subjects during his master’s degree and faced the danger of not able to complete his studies. He even thought of killing himself.

In the interview with CCTV, Huixiang said he could not make a difference throughout his life and all he could do was to cultivate his son hoping that he could spread his wings in future.

Huixiang has come out with a book titled The Miracle of Learning.

The book relates how he and his wife raised their son – they had never watched television nor muted TV programmes when their son was around.

When his son threatened him to buy an apartment, Huixiang and his wife had no choice but rented an apartment near his son’s university to persuade him to finish his studies.

Zhang said he started to think about having their own house in the Chinese capital after studying at university and being influenced by the media and the materialistic world.

He claimed that it was his parents who wanted him to pursue his studies in Beijing and realise a dream that they could not fulfil themselves.

“I am not sure if they impose their thoughts or dream on me or not, but I am inheriting my father’s dream. They wanted me to stay in Beijing so they should work hard for it,” he said.

Huixiang said his son changed after coming to Beijing and being exposed to the pomps and vanities of city life.

“He is after only money. He came into contact with such things too early and thought it would be hard to survive without money or even if he has knowledge and ability,” he added.

Zhang was quoted by Beijing Evening News as saying that he had reasoned to his parents, when they were staying in Tianjin, that if they did not buy an apartment then it would be too late as house prices would continue to increase.

He said he was aware of the debate on the Internet over what he said but added that it would impossible for everyone to understand him.

“I would rather maintain a positive thinking. Now I just want to forget about the episode, remain low-key and continue with my studies,” he added.