What's needed to enter China's top
schools:
Brains... and bribes
Everything's
negotiable if parents have cash,
connections
Students prepare
for the university entrance exam - or gaokao in a classroom in
Hefei, Anhui province. For many Chinese parents, getting into a
reputable high school means proper preparation for the rigorous
admissions exam. PHOTO: REUTERS
By WILLIAM
WAN
FOR years, Ms Yang Jie's
friends warned her to save up for her daughter's education. Not for
tuition or textbooks, but for the bribes needed to get into the
city's better public schools.
A
strong-willed,self-made buinesswoman, Yang largely ignored their
advice. "Success in life," she told her daughter, "is achieved
through hard work."
But now, with her daughter entering the
anxiety-filled application process for middle school, Yang is
questioning that principle. She has watched her friends shower
teachers and school administrators with favors, presents and money.
One friend bought a new elevator for a top school. His child was
admitted soon after.
Reining in corruption has been the main focus of
China’s new president, Xi Jinping. But such campaigns are barely
making a dent, critics say, in a country where children are shown
as early as elementary school how to game the system.
Almost everything, from admission to grades to
teacher recommendations, is negotiable in Chinese schools if you
know the right person or have enough cash, parents and teachers
say. As a result, many believe, the education system is worsening
rather than mending the vast gap between the elite and everyone
else in China.
As middle-class parents in Haidian, one of
Beijing’s most competitive school districts, Yang, 42, and her
husband had some money but few connections to help their daughter
get into an elite school.
Then, this summer, a dance teacher pulled Yang
aside. He said he knew people at the middle school her daughter had
been aiming all her efforts at attending.
And suddenly, Yang admits, she started looking into
how much savings she and her husband could cobble together if the
dance teacher’s friends were to ask for compensation. She still
hasn’t decided what to do.
Their dilemma, she said, boils down to this: “If
everyone else is playing the game, how can I refuse?”
In Chinese cities, the best schools are the public
ones.
Private schools are often aimed either at foreign
expats or children barred from city schools, like the offspring of
low-income Chinese migrant workers.
Even by Western standards, the top public schools
are often astounding. During a recent tour of Beijing’s Jingshan
School, administrators showed off a $326,000, one-story-high
telescope for astronomy lessons, housed in a rotating room with
retractable ceiling; flat-screen televisions in every class; pricey
computer labs; an Olympic-size pool; and a state-of-the-art
hydroponics garden. The school recently began requiring doctorate
degrees for all upper-grade teachers.
Meanwhile, just miles away, at a private school for
migrant families, kids walked off a dirt road into a ramshackle
facility with cracked walls, overcrowded classes and a single
bathroom consisting of cement holes in the ground.
An intense competition has developed among parents
to win admission for their offspring to the best schools.
Academic performance still matters greatly. And
like many students, Yang’s 12-year-old daughter, Ma Qianyi, has
spent every night over the past three years, even on weekends and
vacations, attending expensive cram classes.
But she is the first to admit she doesn’t work
hard, compared with her peers.
The hyper-competitiveness has driven many parents
to curry favor in any way possible — delivering organic rice to a
teacher worried about food safety, bringing back lavish gifts from
abroad. When all else fails, store gift cards are always a safe
bet.
“Sometimes, you open these cards on National
Teacher’s Day and find crazy amounts inside,” one Beijing teacher
said.
Such gifts, several parents explained, can lead to
more attention for a struggling student, extra praise for gifted
ones or even a seat closer to the front of the classroom.
“It’s human nature,” said one parent who regularly
sends her son to school with gift cards. Like many adults
interviewed for this story, she asked for anonymity to talk frankly
about school corruption. “If the teacher is choosing between two
kids on equal footing, the effect of a gift may be small, but it
could make all the difference.”
Yang used to send gift cards, too, worth $20 or $30
— modest in comparison to the $200 or $300 from other families. But
she eventually stopped even that.
“It didn’t seem to make a difference,” she said. “I
decided to save the money instead for things that actually
contribute to my daughter’s education, like cram classes.”
The decision left her daughter uncomfortable and
even bitter at times.
Her mother recalled the time in second grade when
Qianyi lost out on a top award. “My daughter said to me, ‘The
teacher chose that girl because her mother was smart and gave
medicine to the teacher when she was sick.’ She asked me, ‘Why
didn’t you give any medicine?’ ”
The question has haunted Yang of late, with her
daughter finishing elementary school in the spring.
Getting into a good middle school means a shot at
Beijing’s top high schools. A top high school means proper
preparation for China’s infamously rigorous college admissions
exam, called the gaokao. A good gaokao score means a secure job,
higher income, better housing, better marriage prospects.
Education in this communist country is supposedly
free and funded by the government. But elite schools benefit from
hefty fees and donations. These days, admission to a decent Beijing
middle school often requires payments and bribes of upwards of
$16,000, according to many parents. Six-figure sums are not unheard
of.
In theory, middle school admissions are guided by
where children live, but independent studies have shown that only
half the students at Beijing’s top public schools are chosen that
way.
Instead, getting in often comes down to three
things: talent, money and relationships, particularly ties with
government or party officials.
“If you know someone, you pay a lot less,” said a
mother in Beijing’s Chaoyang district.
Some payoffs have become semi-legal. Many
government ministries and state-owned companies reserve seats for
children of their employees through large donations to schools.
And most top schools charge a “school choice fee” —
ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 — for children living outside of
specific school districts. The central government has repeatedly
banned such fees. But they have not only remained, they’ve risen in
recent years.
Lacking the resources of wealthier,
better-connected families, Yang and her daughter decided early on
to target seats reserved at most top schools for those with
“speciality skills.” That’s why Qianyi took up dancing three years
ago.
“It’s the only thing I’m good at,” she said
matter-of-factly on a recent night, while wolfing down noodles
before a lesson.
The dance instruction has cost Yang $5,000 in the
past six months alone — a huge strain for a woman who earns $20,000
a year and whose husband is unemployed.
But schools’ evaluations of such skills have also
proven susceptible to corruption.
A parent in Yang’s district who was approached for
bribes by a coach explained it this way: “Just because your child
wins first place in a race doesn’t mean he has the best chance. The
school can choose the third- or even fourth-place runner and simply
say they had more potential.”
Yang was shocked when her daughter’s dancing
teacher offered to help. Even now, she wonders whether his offer
came from greed or genuine recognition of her daughter’s
talent.
As she waited outside her daughter’s dance studio
on a recent night, she weighed their options.
Neither Yang nor her husband attended college; she
did finish a vocational high school. Yet, she managed to start her
own company with a friend, selling imported sensors.
Today’s China, however, is a different country from
that of her youth, exponentially more competitive. Millions vie in
megacities for limited jobs, housing and mates.
Yang said she has struggled to define guiding
principles for herself even as she has tried to teach life lessons
to her daughter.
“I want her to be able to see this society for what
it is — one that is full of wolves,” Yang said. “But I don’t
necessarily want her to be either wolf or sheep.”
Yang said she is beginning to see the dancing
teacher’s offer less as a moral dilemma and more as a purely
practical decision.
“The system, the pressure, the bribes, it’s all
unfair,” she said. “But in the end, the only thing I can do is
what’s best for my daughter.”
WASHINGTON POST
Part D, The Straits Times, Saturday, October 12, 2013, Pg
D14
