Education in Asia

Education has always been regarded as a door to success and a higher standard of living. It is highly revered in Asian nations like China and South Korea because there is a traditional belief that only educated people are able to be at a more elevated level of society. Also, due to Asia’s perennial concerns over familial honor and personal face, parents in Asia are doing their utmost to push their children forwards academically. In China, all students have the responsibility to GUANG ZONG YAO ZU (which means bring glory upon their respective family and their ancestors) by none other than making it to a prestigious school and scoring straight “A”s. Nowadays, as people are getting increasingly affluent, parents in Asia are having another powerful reason and means to drive their children—they can afford more enrichment courses. In big cities like Shanghai, it is a norm for parents to arrangement numerous extra-curriculum activities such piano lessons and Chinese literature remedial for their kids. And all these start at a shockingly young age of three, when children are still at a playing age! When accused of being too obsessed with grades and cruel to their children by exploring their leisure time to make accommodation for unreasonably many enrichment courses, many of them protest that it is a social criterion for good parenthood and only the most insouciant parents neglect to sent their children to cram school. They are right in the sense that everybody in society is doing exactly the same thing. According to Time, a renowned magazine, an estimated 90% Singaporean families arrange extra tuition for their children. It has become a duty for parents to drive their children towards a “brighter” future and they risk social disapproval if they do not fill their kids’ every waking hour with study or academic related activities. Sometimes, the population policies of a nation do have an impact on this trend. For example, due to China’s one child policy, families are only allowed to have one kid. As a result, parents are eager to ensure that their only child is well educated and nurtured. All the love and concern, which would have otherwise been divided among several children, is now concentrated on the only child. This explains the extraordinarily acute stress that Chinese students are feeling nowadays.

So, are parents in Asia doing the right thing? It is a controversial issue for discussion. They are doing this all out of a pure and good intension of securing a better life for their children. On the other hand, we are constantly informed of emotionally broken prepubescent and student commit suicide due to ferocious pressure they are imposed on by their parents. In fact, most parents know this, yet the majority of them believe that the goals are worth the risks. In my opinion, parents should not be so concerned about their children’s grade. Students will not be able to grasp knowledge well for they are forced to study for the sake of study. An appropriate amount of pressure can motivate one to excel however, too much of it would likely backfire. Teenagers are likely to experience depression and have high tendency to think pessimistically. Early this month, one student from one of the top Junior College in Singapore committed suicide because he felt that his private part is too small. We all know that this is too ridiculous a reason for one to take his own life. The actual reason behind could likely be the amount of pressure he was facing from his study. Stress compelled him to adopt the negative kind of perception of thinks around him and took drastic actions. This is just a tip of the iceberg. Such kind of tragedies is prevalent in many Asian countries like China and Japan. In China, the suicide rate is the highest during both the period when the third year Senior Middle students are busy preparing for university entrance examination and the period when the results are released. Society should not place too much emphasis on grades. We have to mind the holistic development of a student. Good grade is not necessarily equivalent to the ability to survive in the current globalized world where innovation, creativity and ability to communicate are highly demanded. The stress should be on the need to give children the ability to learn independently, rather than just stuffing them with information. Leisure and work should be in balance; blindly feeding the teenagers may not produce expected results.