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July 6, 2015

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To cram or not to cram, that is the question

ZHANG Chenming, a 6-year-old who will enter primary school this autumn, has been enrolled in a summer full of “cram” courses by his parents: mathematics, handwriting, English, swimming and baseball.

But a report recently issued by Shanghai education authorities suggests Zhang will do no better in first grade than his peers who have had no extracurricular training.

In a survey of more than 160,000 parents of first-graders, the Shanghai Education Commission found no real difference between “cram kids” and those without pre-school special classes in factors such as adaptability, interest in learning, academic stress or classroom attentiveness.

Some children without extracurricular training even showed more interest in class work and enthusiasm for school in general.

The report dovetails with education policies requiring primary school classes to treat all students the same, with no fast-track teaching for those who come with cram courses under their belts.

Despite doubts being cast on the wisdom of subjecting young children to intensive tutoring, Zhang’s mother Du Feiyi told Shanghai Daily she believes the classes will be icing on the cake for his future school performance and the sports courses will keep him fit.

“My son’s kindergarten provided some classes on logical thinking,” she said.

“They serve as a basis for math olympiad. So I signed him up for a private mathematics class.”

Fierce competition

Many parents in Shanghai are obsessive about their children’s education. They believe cram courses give their offspring an advantage in the fierce competition to get into the best primary, middle and high schools. In turn, high performance in grades 1-12 is considered a passport to prestigious universities. Good education, in their view, equals good jobs and a successful life.

Zhang attends a swimming course at a local sports school up to five times a week. All his other summer courses are held on weekends.

“Each hour of these courses cost us 100 yuan (US$16) to 150 yuan,” his mother said, “and each course lasts for one or two hours. I am a member of a WeChat group of mothers of first-graders, and most us are keen on early education classes.”

Du said she is not certain that primary schools will heed the new policy and offer the same lessons to all pupils. If the majority of a class has already mastered the content, teachers may skim through the curriculum, leaving those not well prepared behind.

At a branch of a foreign company in the Pudong New Area that provides extracurricular lessons, Shanghai Daily saw many parents waiting outside for their children.

An employee said business was booming, with the number of students up 20 percent from last year.

Some of the parents are preparing the groundwork to send their children abroad for study in the future, the person said.

Song Ying, the mother of a 6-year-old, said she has been sending her son to private classes since he was three.

“His father used to download English cartoons for him,” she said.

“So we decided to tap into his interest in English and enroll him in a language class.

“English is a necessary skill for today’s children. We couldn’t provide him an English-speaking environment at home, but he can have one here,” she said.

Besides English, the boy takes courses in logical thinking, Lego robotics and swimming.

“We also plan to sign him up for piano lessons,” his mother said.

Song expressed reservations about Shanghai’s current primary school system.

“There are only 35 minutes for each class, which might be not enough for the teacher to cater to the learning abilities of all the children,” she said.

Competition for slots in the best primary schools propels many parents to insist on pre-education courses for their children.

Math olympiad training, for example, is widely considered a stepping-stone to the best schools, Song said.

Not all parents buy into this “leg up” attitude toward education.

A mother who asked to be identified only by her surname Wang said she hasn’t enrolled her 6-year-old son in any cram courses. What he learned in the regular kindergarten was enough, she said.

Other like-minded parents worry that putting intensive study pressure on young children instead of letting them have fun while they can will hurt their personalities.

The Shanghai Education Commission tends to agree. It has urged parents to ease up in their obsession with cram courses.

According to Shui Bing, a teacher at Shanghai Yangpu Primary School, teaching young children communications skills, how to adapt to change and how to focus their attention is more important than filling them with facts.

“We need to ensure that kids are taught at the same pace, so children who’ve studied classroom content in advance will have to go through it all again,” Shui said.

“That could mean that children who have been subjected to cram courses will lose interest in learning.”

Shui said parents should pay more attention to cultivating their children’s ability to concentrate.

She said it’s also important for children to “mix with peers outside of kindergarten so that they broaden their social skills.”

Xiong Bingqi, deputy head of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, told Shanghai Daily that no matter what education authorities say, parents are fixed in their ideas about the need to prepare their children for an education system where advancement is based on score-oriented exams.

“Our education system needs improvement and reform ... anything else is just masking the symptoms,” she said.




 

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