A sociologist has suggested that people in China’s rural areas are losing faith in higher education to improve their lives, prompting widespread discussion among academics and the media over the Lunar New Year holiday.
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“A new ‘education is useless’ sentiment has emerged in rural areas,” Huang Lifen, a lecturer at Shaanxi Normal University in the western city of Xian, wrote in the article that appeared on Chinese news website Guancha.cn late last month.
Based on observations of her hometown, a county in the central province of Hubei with a population of 1.1 million, Huang said some farmers were choosing not to send their children on to higher education.
According to Huang, this was not because the farmers thought knowledge was useless, but because they felt that the “form, content and cost” of Chinese schooling did not suit their needs.
There are nine years of compulsory education in China – six at primary level and three years of junior high school – followed by fierce competition for places in high school and higher education institutes, as well as vocational training opportunities.
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For decades, especially since late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping initiated the process of reform and opening up, Chinese society has encouraged individual effort, with many people believing that hard work and study can lead to social mobility.