My observation from hiring both Chinese and Western graduates is that with Chinese graduates, you get a much better guarantee of someone who will actually work hard at their task for 8 hours a day, but, you will need to supervise them and give them a great deal of guidance. With Western graduates, about 75 percent of them are completely useless because they are so undisciplined and lacking in basic knowledge. The remaining 25 percent, however, and pure gold. They attack problems creatively, are eager to show you their best and rapidly take to new tasks and challenges.
I hope this can point out some of the flaws in the Western education system that challenges the best, but leaves the average students coddled and overly confident in their abilities. — J; Beijing
我非常同意这样一个观察结果。中国学生和年轻职工,在完成一项具体事情上时很能干,可是缺少自我管理能力,缺少长远眼光。换句话说,中国学生总体上,缺少在Vision, Mission, and Values三个方面的真正思考和训练,而这正是西方所倡导的Liberal Education的真正意义。我的个人浅见是,中国的人文教育被非常庸俗地归 结为一句话:做事先做人。又曰:听话、出活。
"... Perhaps most important is the huge difference between how Chinese and Americans value an university education. In China, high school and the gaokao exam scores are the apex of many students’ education. While the prestige of the university is very important for parents and students, the quality of education that a student receives at university is not always of the greatest concern."
"... There is little reason to study if you know you will receive your degree regardless of your class performance. In turn, faculty and administrators lack incentive to improve their programs because parents and students often are more concerned about receiving a degree than receiving a quality education."
"... the other 95 percent of educators in China are just scraping by and have no interest in the job. // The curriculum are mandated by bureaucrats, equally lacking in dedication. The system of entrance exams is rigged against the poor, and the rote memory methodology rewards good memory and cheating. Thinking is not required, memorization is required."
教师不敬业;教学大纲受官僚控制,粗编滥造。
"... Having the piece of paper -- not the degree -- is what employers require. The Human Resources profession is a joke in China [highlighted by the blogger], so interview skills on the employer side are a joke as well, and since getting ahead is a function of who you suck up to, not what you are capable of, why should it be a surprise that a degree is worthless?"
只要你认识人,你就能进去,才不管你有没有能力!
Delayed Adolescence
"Many middle-class Chinese kids from the city have never worked or held a job until after they finish college."
Unfortunately I have to concur with this assessment. Having hired and fired more than a few"straight out of university" employees, my experience has been mostly negative. They come in with high marks and high wage demands but can't complete even the simplest real world tasks. They might be able to solve math problems quickly but real world problems leave them frozen.
I couldn't agree more with Jack. It is an unfortunate reality that has shown up time after time. And what's worse is that even experienced hires and domestic managers often disappoint as well. I don't walk in with a bias to bring in an assignee or expat, but that is often where I end up after I have wasted my time interviewing others who come in with high hopes and high demands. Something is not right with their system.
This analysis is so wrong that I do not know where I should to start to rebut. First of all, the problem of China higher education is not Gaokao. The entrance exam is vigorous and fair to everybody. It is a much better system that the US SAT exams. The US college admission system is plagued with so many corruptions: subjective, often with personal prejudice assessment by a reader, all sorts of political and financial agenda, favoritism, racial and ethnic preference. Based on my teaching experience in a major US research university, an average chinese high school graduate can easily outperform an American counterpart in math and science in average.
Now here is the problem: Most of the post-doc fellows from China in my lab appear very weak and inappropriate trained, even from some of the most elite Chinese Universities, at least in the beginning. I sometimes wonder whether Chinese are running some diploma mills. The problems of Chinese college or graduate school graduates are not because of GaoKao, but with its college education curriculum and training for the students. These problems lie with the quality of its college professors and administrators, not of high school. They should reform the University education system with more vigorous screening of qualified faculties and programs, but should keep its college admission system.
When I was living in China, I was hiring an assistant and the resumes poured in touting their English proficiency, yet when it came to the interviews, very few could communicate with me. They'd passed the tests without learning to speak on a rudimentary level. Also, once I'd hired people, they weren't that curious about learning the business and if something else came along, they'd just leave. The odds that an assistant will stay a year are very slim. Which is not to say that all Chinese college grads are lazy. I hired and met a lot of very bright and curious young people -- but only after a good bit of digging.
The teach to test system has also had a very big effect on innovation. If all you think about is learning it the way you are told, you don't think outside the box and that is where innovation comes from. I think it explains why China is great at copying but not so great at invention (at least in the last century.)
这个可是真实的上海、北京的外资企业外方人员对中国大学毕业生的评价啊?我们的大学,教了学生解决什么样的real world tasks?