Education and Society in Post-Mao China

Edward Vickers, Zeng Xiaodong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351719735
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The post-Mao period has witnessed rapid social and economic transformation in all walks of Chinese life – much of it fuelled by, or reflected in, changes to the country's education system. This book analyses the development of that system since the abandonment of radical Maoism and the inauguration of 'Reform and Opening' in the late 1970s.

The principal focus is on formal education in schools and conventional institutions of tertiary education, but there is also some discussion of preschools, vocational training, and learning in non-formal contexts. The book begins with a discussion of the historical and comparative context for evaluating China's educational 'achievements', followed by an extensive discussion of the key transitions in education policymaking during the 'Reform and Opening' period. This informs the subsequent examination of changes affecting the different phases of education from preschool to tertiary level. There are also chapters dealing specifically with the financing and administration of schooling, curriculum development, the public examinations system, the teaching profession, the phenomenon of marketisation, and the 'international dimension' of Chinese education. The book concludes with an assessment of the social consequences of educational change in the post-Mao era and a critical discussion of the recent fashion in certain Western countries for hailing China as an educational model. The analysis is supported by a wealth of sources – primary and secondary, textual and statistical – and is informed by both authors' wide-ranging experience of Chinese education.

As the first monograph on China's educational development during the forty years of the post-Mao era, this book will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand the world's largest education system. It will also be crucial reference for educational comparativists, and for scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds researching contemporary Chinese society.

1
Introduction

Education, development and social change in post-Mao China – framing the debate

Thirty years ago, … a difficult decision had to be made over whether to press for educational progress rapidly or more gradually. The pursuit of [economic] development has been our iron rule (ying daoli): without development, the achievement of a flourishing education system, or a strong and prosperous country, would have been impossible.

Chen Zhili (former Education Minister), The Rising of a Country through Education (Chen 2008, iv)

Over the past few years, the issue of equity in education has become the focus of widespread public attention ….¹ The obsession with ‘development’² has not only led to a dilution of reform, but has also to a certain extent obscured the situation regarding equity. Today, we can already clearly perceive that modernization without equity is soulless modernization, and development without equity is deformed development.

Yang Dongping (2006, 3)

Since the 1980s, East Asia has played host to a long succession of Western educational pilgrims. In the 1980s and 1990s, they headed for Japan, Taiwan, Korea or the other ‘tiger’ economies, to return as prophets preaching a gospel of ‘interactive whole-class teaching’, didactic moral or civic education, regular and rigorous testing, an overwhelming curricular focus on Maths, Science and literacy, or various combinations of these (Morris 1998). Underlying the allure of the East were twin assumptions: first, that a clear causal link could be traced between education and economic growth in these societies; and second, that the educational practices relevant to economic success could be isolated, extracted and transplanted into other social and cultural contexts to produce similar results.

In the early twenty-first century, seekers of oriental wisdom have tended to bypass Japan and her neighbours, bound instead for China (while Japanese policymakers – the boot now on the other foot – agonise over the supposed educational roots of their economic stagnation). The same twin assumptions underpin much foreign debate on China’s education system, as well as Chinese attempts to borrow educational ideas from overseas. Thus the British Schools Minister returned from a trip to China in early 2009 proclaiming that the wisdom of Confucius would prove invaluable in raising school standards in England (Oakeshott 2009).³ In 2007, a group of prize-winning school principals were taken East ‘to partner up with a Chinese school, see the rapid changes being made to the Chinese education system, and drool’ (Shepherd 2007). A massive surge of Chinese investment in ‘elite’ higher education has meanwhile elicited either admiration or nervousness (or both) from foreign observers (e.g. Jacques 2009, 401–3; Levin 2010). For the transient spectator of the country’s developmental progress, often ‘China presents no analytical challenges: excellent economic performance must be the result of excellent economic policies’ (Huang 2008, 26) – and of excellent educational policies, too.⁴

However, as our opening quotations illustrate, domestic perceptions of China’s recent educational record are decidedly mixed. Triumphalism certainly colours many official statements, both reflecting and stoking popular excitement at China’s seemingly inexorable rise. Nevertheless, there is broad acknowledgement of the tensions and problems that have emerged during the period of rapid economic growth – not least with respect to inequality and its implications for social and political stability. A relatively open and sometimes passionate public debate ranges across a wide range of educational issues.⁵ Moreover, this is not confined within Chinese borders, but engages both China-based scholars and those working overseas.

Our aim in this book is to contribute to that debate by constructing a coherent narrative of China’s educational development since the death of Chairman Mao in 1976. While wary of the simplistic assumptions underlying much policy-oriented educational comparison, we by no means deny that there are lessons that those abroad can learn from China’s developmental record. However, any attempt to derive such lessons must be founded on an understanding of the educational system in the round, of its relations with the broader social and political context, and of how and why it has changed over time. The existing literature on education and society in China offers invaluable insights into many aspects of educational development, but there is currently no monograph in English that attempts a comprehensive analysis of the entire system over the post-Mao period. This is the gap we aim to fill.

The present volume focuses mainly on the formal education system as conventionally understood, treating this sequentially from the early childhood phase (Chapter 4), through schooling in the compulsory (primary and junior secondary) and post-compulsory years (Chapters 5–10), to tertiary level (Chapters 11–12). At each level of the system, we examine how government policies have affected educational provision; how social, economic and demographic change has created new pressures; and how officials, educators and institutions have tried to adapt to these – and with what effects. The main body of the book is divided into sections dealing in turn with the different phases of education from preschool to college level. Within the largest section, on schooling, are chapters dealing with key issues such as the implications of changes to financial and administrative arrangements, curriculum development, assessment, teacher training, marketisation, and attempts to promote vocationalisation. Following the section on higher education, Chapter 13 examines the increasingly salient ‘international dimension’, discussing how various forms of educational internationalisation have influenced society and culture both within China and elsewhere. This theme is pursued further in the final chapter, which critiques the use of the Chinese case in international education policy debate, and proposes an alternative interpretation of its significance for policymakers and researchers.

The analysis of these hugely varied aspects of the system is scaffolded by a narrative of the political and social changes affecting China during the ‘Reform and Opening’ period, particularly of the shifts in the regime’s developmental strategy and the role it has accorded to education. Supplying that narrative is the task of our long Chapter 3, divided into four sections (cited as Chapters 3.1–3.4). This necessarily involves examination both of choices made and of roads not taken or abandoned. In historical analysis – perhaps especially of recent events, where key figures linger on to defend their legacy – there is always the danger of being seduced by assertions of inevitability proffered by actors seeking retrospective legitimacy. This risk is particularly acute when the object of enquiry is as large and complex as China, and when critical analysis is often deflected by claims of Chinese uniqueness or exceptionalism.

In order to establish a perspective from which to critique such claims, in this and the following chapter we attempt to locate China’s educational development in comparative and historical context. In Chapter 2, we discuss education’s role in post-war East Asian development, querying the frequent characterisation of China as a variant of some ‘East Asian model’. The validity of such a characterisation is explored especially through comparisons with Taiwan (a Chinese society that has followed a different developmental path) and India (China’s major developing-world competitor and the only other population ‘billionaire’), drawing on recent work in economics as well as education. We then look back at the educational legacy of the Mao era, discussing whether this might have prepared the country for pursuit of a more East Asian-style developmental path. The choice of an alternative road, and its subsequent twists and turns, form the central subject of the remainder of this book.

Education and development in contemporary China – four perspectives

First, however, we briefly review the current scholarly debate on Chinese education. At the risk of gross oversimplification, it is possible to see much work in this area as strongly influenced by four broad perspectives or orientations. The first, involving adherence to officially sanctioned orthodoxy, involves endorsement of the policy choices of the past forty years, typically allied to claims that these have been necessitated by China’s ‘special characteristics’ (tese) and the unique challenges of her ‘national situation’ (guoqing). The second, labelled here the ‘anti-globalist’ position, recognises a more mixed picture as far as the record of the post-Mao period is concerned, but tends to attribute negative aspects of this primarily to the malign influence of external forces – ‘global capitalism’, ‘neoliberalism’, and so forth – confronting ‘developing’ China. The third position, which we dub ‘practice-oriented’, focuses on specific educational problems or issues with a view to identifying practical ‘solutions’. Agnosticism regarding the political or historical context for such problems has rendered many followers of this approach complicit in post-Mao efforts to move discussions of education ‘from the political to the technical sphere’ (Thøgersen 1991, 40). Finally, we identify a cross-disciplinary ‘critical’ perspective defined by a concern with exploring education’s relationships with social, political and ideological tensions. The best examples of this not only eschew a reductionist approach to causal explanation, but also encompass criticism of the very frameworks that structure mainstream educational debate in China, and elsewhere.

As with any such crude attempt at pigeon-holing, it will be found that these four categories overlap considerably, that individual scholars at different times adopt different positions, and that some work combines elements of various perspectives. Nonetheless, they help in mapping the contours of the debate over the recent history of China’s education system in a way that transcends any ‘Chinese–foreign’ divide.⁶

The official or orthodox perspective

The quintessential exposition of the orthodox perspective is naturally found in official publications such as The Rising of a Country through Education (quoted above). The current orthodoxy holds that the post-Mao era has witnessed steady educational progress guided by enlightened pragmatists. Policymakers are portrayed as wisely flexible in their adherence to predetermined blueprints, eschewing overweening central planning in favour of the tactic of ‘crossing the river by touching the stones’ (mozhe shitou guo he), as Deng Xiaoping once put it. On the opposite side of that river lies a vision of a strong, technologically advanced China commanding awe and respect abroad, but hazily defined in social or political terms. Defenders of orthodoxy typically insist on China’s unique size and complexity, the manifold risks the country faces, and hence the need for continued Communist Party tutelage. Since the 1990s, Confucian tradition has increasingly been invoked to argue the virtues of developmental autocracy (Economist 2010) – or, in the more sophisticated and nuanced formulation of Daniel Bell (2015), of ‘political meritocracy’. Other scholars based outside the mainland have invoked culture to differentiate China both from a decadent ‘West’ and more ‘backward’ developing countries. Rao et al. (2003) thus attribute to ‘Confucianism’ China’s superior record to India’s in universalising basic schooling. Meanwhile, Hayhoe juxtaposes an idealised vision of a harmonious, communitarian Chinese order with a dysfunctional ‘Western world … where the individual’s satisfaction and fulfilment has tended to be given priority over family solidarity and community benefit’ (Hayhoe 2006, 361).⁷

Unsurprisingly, though, the principal exponents of this approach are to be found on the mainland itself. Reviewing the state of education policy research there, Yang describes ‘a mix of traditional Confucian ethical sermon, Chinese interpretation of Marxism, and policy explanation and/or justification in line with Governments [sic.]’ (2006, 215). Most scholars, he writes, ‘accept the discourses of policy as the governing structures for research’ (216). Uncritical acceptance of Talcott Parsons-vintage modernisation theory remains widespread, reflecting a preoccupation with ‘catching up’ with the West. Theoretical concepts derived from Western scholarship are frequently deployed, but often ill-digested and detached from empirical data. Meanwhile, in educational research in general, and policy-related scholarship in particular, ‘personal reflections’ tend to dominate published output. The pervasive rhetoric of ‘science’ (seen as accomplished through Marxism) clashes with the extremely unscientific nature of much social science research. However, as some of the research cited in this volume demonstrates, this damning verdict, while broadly valid when Yang was writing a decade ago, is rather less so today.

The anti-globalist perspective

Orthodox narratives sometimes illustrate China’s success by invoking comparisons with ‘the West’, but disillusionment with the latter defines the ‘anti-globalist’ position, which blames Western influence for social problems. Official apologists often admit the existence of such problems, but retain faith in the capacity of the Party to overcome them. Anti-globalists are less sanguine – they see China as confronted with a ‘world system’ operated along ‘neoliberal’ or ‘market’ principles that restrict the policy choices available to the regime. Thus Postiglione accurately notes that the ‘socialist market economy’ has both expanded the range of educational choices available to China’s people, and rendered the capacity to exercise choice more than ever ‘a function of poverty, gender and ethnicity’ (2006, 5). However, stressing the ‘astonishing’ nature of China’s educational accomplishments ‘compared with other developing countries’ (3), he argues that ‘it is the experience with market forces within an expanding global economy that continues to confound efforts to reduce the educational gap between rich and poor’ (5). What is at question is therefore not the determination of the government to tackle this gap, but its capacity to do so given the ‘global’ forces ranged against it. In a similar vein, the historian Prasenjit Duara, acknowledging his debt to World Systems theory, portrays all East Asian states as victims of global forces:

Over the past 40 years or so, the nation-state in [Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China] has adapted to competitive global capitalism by gradually changing its role from protectionism and redistribution to producing and securing the conditions of competitiveness. In the PRC, this transformation since 1979 has been telescoped and radical.

(2009, 36–7)

While some see ‘Western hegemony’ as a continuing threat, others greet China’s rise as an opportunity finally to overthrow it: a viewpoint expounded by the former editor of the defunct British journal, Marxism Today, in his treatise, When China Rules the World: the rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World (Jacques 2009).⁸ A rather different perspective is adopted by one of the most prominent of China’s ‘New Left’ intellectuals, Wang Hui (2009). He argues that ‘the hegemonic position of neoliberalism in China was established precisely from within a domestic process during which the state’s crisis of legitimacy [after 1989] was overcome through economic reform itself’ (20). In other words, the regime adopted a ‘neoliberal’ agenda not under external compulsion, but because domestic political circumstances rendered it attractive. The global discourse promoting market-oriented reforms helped legitimise choices taken for primarily domestic reasons. Moreover, far from seeming to revel, like Jacques, in China’s apparent bettering of the West at its own capitalist game, Wang emphasises the social distortions and tensions to which this course has given rise, and identifies the only fundamental solution as ‘a transformation of the dependent status of wage labourers … so that they possess the right to participate in society and politics’ (Wang 2009, 102).

The practice-oriented perspective

While Wang’s arguments place him firmly in the ranks of our ‘critical’ scholars (see below), many educational researchers have tended to eschew critical reflection for a concentration on technical issues. This approach has undoubtedly been encouraged by the frequent linking of fieldwork opportunities to aid projects funded by international development agencies (see Chapter 13). Such funding typically dictates a focus on identifying technical solutions to specific problems, while avoiding political controversy. The superficiality of any engagement with the social and political context is exacerbated by the need to collaborate with governmental agencies wary of foreign ‘interference’. It is not coincidental that some of the most interesting and bold writing on Chin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations and terms
• 1 Introduction: Education, development and social change in post-Mao China – framing the debate
• 2 Comparative and historical perspectives on education and development in contemporary China
• 3 The politics of education in post-Mao China: An overview
• 4 Early childhood education and care
• 5 The funding and administration of basic education
• 6 The school curriculum: Ideology and control
• 7 The teaching profession: Training, retention and professional development
• 8 Evaluation, assessment and the senior high school
• 9 Marketisation, competition and schooling
• 10 Vocational and technical education
• 11 Higher education from 1977 to the mid-1990s
• 12 Higher education since 1998: Expansion, stratification and control
• 13 The international dimension
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index