That is one of the few things where I vehemently disagree with the Chinese way compared to us europoors.
Classes under 20 persons per class have a significant increase in efficiency both for teacher and students.
Chinese Economics Thread
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Classes under 20 persons per class have a significant increase in efficiency both for teacher and students.
Yes. Saying I am talking like a westerner is totally irrelevant to the discussion. You said I am presenting no solution but several posts i was talking about how Chinese banks should sell a bit of foreign reserve for stimulus (and thankfully they are doing it) just to prop up demand and create more jobs, one of the effective way to fight deflation and youth employment itself. Now when I point out your hypocrisy now you starting to look into my argument which you chose you to ignore in the first place and instead called me talking like a westerner. If you want proper conversation, I am very willing. If you want to get to people nerve, you are still an amateur, just my obversation.
Honestly while I agree with the general sentiment behind having more teachers per student, isn't there also a merit to having larger classes? The current system has proved capable of producing some of if not the best prepared students globally, for many many years.
Chinese school runs using large classes with a single, "authoritarian/impersonal" lecturer (as opposed to European style teaching where teachers develop more personal relations with students). If that sounds familiar to you, it should, because that's how universities globally are run as well. A lot of elite universities in many different countries manage to create really really good graduates using this system.
With large classes, you isolate the students and encourage them to study in small groups rather than approach things as a "whole class". It also pushes students towards learning how to study on their own, rather than being guided by sometimes overly coddling adults.
An impersonal lecturer puts out information and sets a goal for the student to achieve. Students essentially recieve an obstacle and are asked to solve it using their own problem solving skills.
That's teaching kids from an early age the expectations that will come in work and university. It's teaching them to organize with their peers, plan ahead and take responsibility over their own lives.
There are strengths and drawbacks in both models, and some European countries have achieved good results as well. Instead of just splitting classes and hiring more teachers, the best path might be to study the advances and disadvantages, then reform the existing system based on the result.
Even though I'm just an amateur in educational theory, this topic is still very interesting to me.
Starting from kindergarten, then preschool, elementary and high schools, China would need to close and shut down many schools due to the falling birth rates. The average school class size has decreased over the years and should accelerate after the falling birth rate. I am doubtful that public and private primary schools can absorb that many tutoring school teachers even with downsizing the school class.
As for why China has so many super size class, it is more or less due to the closing of rural primary schools as the local government wants to save money. By moving rural students to urban primary schools also give them access to better education as schools in urban usually has better resources.
For most EU nations, the optimal class size is under 20 but some EU nations have bigger class size such as UK. South Korea has decreased its class size from over 30 to around 22. Japan class size is over 30. There are pros and cons for both having small and large school class. Ultimately, it comes down to if you wanted more personal interaction betweem the teachers and students or more formal teaching environment that students would be less reliance on teachers.
As for why China has so many super size class, it is more or less due to the closing of rural primary schools as the local government wants to save money. By moving rural students to urban primary schools also give them access to better education as schools in urban usually has better resources.
For most EU nations, the optimal class size is under 20 but some EU nations have bigger class size such as UK. South Korea has decreased its class size from over 30 to around 22. Japan class size is over 30. There are pros and cons for both having small and large school class. Ultimately, it comes down to if you wanted more personal interaction betweem the teachers and students or more formal teaching environment that students would be less reliance on teachers.
Seems like a stupid move.
Small classes are good and desirable but have not been possible for China.
Since 1962 to 1997, there were more than 20 millions new borns in China every year. If class size was enforced at 20, the country would have needed at least a million classrooms and probably two million teachers just for the primary schools. China simply couldn't afford it.
If I remember it correctly, when I was in primary and middle schools, the class size required by laws/regulations was 40. Not sure if it has changed now. But even 40 was usually too small in reality. Classes were often packed with 50+ or even 60+ kids.
The super crowded classes are also the consequence of education resources not distributed evenly across the country. In the poor and less developed areas, there were not enough schools and classrooms to take all the school age kids. Then the schools were lacking qualified teachers for the classes. It might have improved to a degree now because of urbanization and lower birth rate.
On the other hand, parents who can afford it all have been trying hard to get their kids squeezed into the few better schools in town. And we have heard stories of kids migrating to other places for better schools.
10 millions were born in 2022. They will start primary school in 2029. Hopefully we will see better class sizes for them.
FriedRiceNSpice
Captain
In the modern age, there are alternative ways to boost quality of education aside from building more classrooms and hiring more teachers. New technology can be applied to provide higher quality education through non-physical mediums. A hybrid approach that combines classroom learning with digital platforms would be a much better investment. In the future, AI could potentially be leveraged to create customized learning plans for students that respond to a student's innate interests and talents could supplement standard curricula being taught in the classroom.
While I agree that Internet and digital media can play an important role in middle schools and above, it's critical for primary school students to get enough face to face, personal teaching. AI or not, kids still need to attend schools. Packing 50+ or 40 kids in one room is still too much, IMO.
FriedRiceNSpice
Captain
Technology will never fully substitute classroom learning, hence a hybrid approach tailored to students by grade as well as possibly even individual needs. Also while teacher to student interaction is important, I'd argue student to student interaction is even more important. Using elementary school as example, students would still attend school each day. However, they can split their time between teacher driven lessons and in small groups working collaboratively on technology assisted learning. Then when they go home, in addition to traditional homework assignments, they can use a computer for addition personalized guidance and learning. As a result, you accomplish smaller class sizes without requiring more teachers.
Yes this might be able to cut down the number of primary school teachers required but you will still need the many classrooms for smaller class sizes.
And it is for the future, not for the time being. Specifically I'd avoid letting primary school kids use computers without being supervised constantly. There are too many pitfalls when kids of this age get hooked up to computers of the existing forms. We have seen what happened during the pandemic. Perhaps in 5 to 10 years or so, when humanoids become common in most households, it will be okay.