Robin Jones
Although it might be expected that the Chinese education system is homogeneous, there is considerable diversity within and between the different parts. Both physical education in schools and universities and sport in special schools and institutes are considered in this chapter.
Education in modern China suffered a significant setback during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) when a whole generation of young people lost years of opportunity. During the same period, sport also suffered because the young people who would have become the sports stars of the future were also prevented from developing their talent. Coaches and administrators of sport also lost their futures to the dogma of the time and the whole physical education movement came to a virtual standstill. The years since the Cultural Revolution have seen education become an important part of the government’s reforms. The Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee in May 1995 said: ‘A vital factor for the success of our cause lies in the availability of skilled people, which requires the vigorous development of education as economic growth allows.’1
At state level, physical education in schools and universities is governed by regulations drawn up in 1995, and signed by President Jiang Zemin.2 These regulations identify crucial areas where schools are required to follow state policy and are important in setting out the way physical education is presented and taught (see Appendix at the end of this chapter). The hierarchical structure of the Chinese education system is apparent in the regulations and, although provincial autonomy has increased in recent years, schools are still obliged to conform to the national pattern. The system is carefully controlled by the government, and displays a surprising amount of selection.
THE OVERALL SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY SYSTEM Schools
As China surges forward economically and industrially, there is a pressing need for a trained labour force. Thus, for the last decade, the Chinese education
system has been addressing the problem of training skilled people at all levels by creating specialist schools for various categories of students: key schools for academic students, technical and vocational schools for professional, administrative and clerical jobs, skilled trades and technical work; and special sports schools for the gifted. A consequence of this policy is that Chinese schools are selective in their intake of students, and there is considerable pressure on students (and their families) to ‘make the grade’. Key schools are found in both the primary and secondary sectors of education; a school is designated ‘key’ on the basis of the quality of the teaching and its facilities, and about 15 to 20 per cent of schools meet these requirements. Figure 5.1 shows the general pattern of Chinese education.
For both key and non-key schools, six years of primary education is followed by three years of junior middle school, at which point further selection takes place for the transfer to either senior middle school or vocational school.
At the age of 15, about 15 per cent of students leave junior middle school for direct entry into work. Of the remainder, about 40 per cent of students transfer to senior middle school for three years, whilst the other 60 per cent go to the vocational and technical schools (there are three or four variations of these schools, according to the particular trade, profession or clerical work on which they focus). Nine years compulsory education, i.e. primary, plus junior middle school, is the universal pattern in China, and this period covers two important transfer points. First, primary to either key or non-key junior middle school, at 12, and second, junior middle to either key or non-key senior middle school, at 15. Primary schools themselves may be key or non-key, so there is considerable differentiation and selection of students between the ages of 6 and 15.
From key middle schools, the transfer rate to senior middle schools is virtually 100 per cent. However, from non-key junior middle schools to senior non-key middle schools, the transfer rate is lower at around 60 per cent. In practice, there are relatively few students who transfer from a non-key school to a key school, but it is possible. The situation is confused also by some schools allowing fee paying students to bypass the examination system, even though this is discouraged by the government.
Following senior middle school or vocational school, students may then enter the work force, or take the State Examination for entrance into higher education.
Table 5.1 Kinds of key and non-key schools in China primary, key primary, non-key junior middle, key junior middle, non-key senior middle, key senior middle, non-key
Universities
There are several different kinds of universities:
• General universities covering a broad spectrum of subjects
• Subject-specific universities, e.g. transport, medicine, sport
• Normal universities that are responsible for training teachers
• Special universities (a few) for ethnic minority groups in China
• Institutes of various kinds that cater, as in the universities, for different aspects (including sport)
Undergraduate courses are usually of four years’ duration.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is a structural part of the university system. Departments, besides having a head of department, also have a party leader whose task is to liaise with those students who are or who wish to become party members (usually around 10 per cent of the group). Alongside the work of the CCP, all new students at university are required to undergo two weeks of basic military training on arrival at university. The training, alike for men and women, is campus based and involves squad training, marching, weapon training, martial arts drills, parades and so on. There is no doubt that this is taken seriously by the leaders and the military instructors who organize the activity. It is seen as providing discipline and cohesion for the students, who respond readily to the instructions, even if, privately, some admit to disliking the requirement.
Communal life for students differs markedly from western university campus life. Dormitories for students are typical (six or eight undergraduates to a room, or three or four postgraduates), with tight institutional controls over such things as access for visitors. Student accommodation is cheap (about 10 yuan per month), but student grants of 80 yuan per month for undergraduates and 260 yuan per month for postgraduates are well below the cost of living. Even 260 yuan is barely sufficient to cover food and basic clothing, so undergraduates are usually heavily dependent on their families for additional funds. Luxurious student union buildings, pop concerts, discos, bars and a busy social life are not the pattern of Chinese student life!
Key primary and key middle schools may be attached to universities as part of the hierarchy of provision in Chinese education, helping to ensure Table 5.2 Transfer rates from middle schools to universities, vocational schools and work (approximate figures)
From To % Remainder to
Key, senior middle school University 80 Work
Non-key, senior middle school Senior vocational school 60 Work Vocational school Senior vocational school 60 Work
that education is highly prized by families and leading to quite intense pressure on students at each level. As China moves away from the cosy security afforded by the system that guaranteed jobs for virtually everyone, at any cost, the
‘prize’ of education is much sought after. In a rather perverse way, this has allowed institutions to meet some of the cash shortfalls (created as the government pushes forward with the reforms) through schemes whereby places at middle schools and universities can be bought.
In 1995, 49.7 per cent of those middle school students taking the university entrance examination were enrolled at university. The same year also saw the introduction of a unified system of university fees (ranging from 1,000 yuan to 1,500 yuan per year) to try to prevent the universities charging higher fees to those students with low grades in the entrance examination. But in spite of discouragement by the government, it seems unlikely that schools and universities will abandon this established practice altogether; it is, after all, a source of additional revenue.
Physical education in the overall structure
Throughout the education system, physical education is compulsory for all students. In primary and middle schools, pupils have physical education lessons on two or three days each week, plus extra curricular activities on other days. Following senior middle school, university students during their four- year courses are required to include two hours sport a week in the first two years. For all ages from primary up to university or adult level (according to the sport), sports schools are part of the education system, and exist in addition to, but separate from, normal schools. Students combine a general curriculum with sports training. Institutes of Physical Education are the principal centres for the training of specialist teachers and coaches. Like universities, their courses follow on from senior middle school, and are of four years’ duration.
Both theoretical and practical work is covered and the final qualification is equivalent to a degree.
PRIMARY SCHOOLS
Children in China attend primary school from the age of 6 to 12 years, during which time their PE focuses largely on basic athletics, games and gymnastics. Transfer from middle school to primary school is controlled by examination; academic potential is the major factor in the selection process (Chinese and mathematics are central to these tests). Sports tests are also part of the physical education programme in primary schools, and from the age of 9, national age group norms are applicable across a range of activities. The National Sports Standards Tests, or age group norms, span all years from 9 to 19, covering primary, junior middle and senior middle school (see also Chapter 13). For most years, there are up to seventeen
tests that, with some changes and modifications at different stages, continue throughout the span and, of course, boys and girls have different tables and standards. Students are tested on five or six of the seventeen, according to their abilities. Table 5.3 gives an example. These tests are routinely used by schools as part of the physical education programme, but they are also formally recognized when students transfer from one school to another, benefiting the physically able student and acting as a motivation for others. Minimum standards are required from everyone at primary and middle school. There may also be local variations of these tests that differ only slightly from the national standards.
In conjunction with the Sports Commission, middle schools may also be identified with a particular sport, according to their strengths (which may be a combination of facilities, PE teacher strengths and the decision of the Sports Commission) and the primary school pupils are then matched as far as possible (on the basis of their sporting potential) with the relevant middle school that specializes in the particular sport.
MIDDLE SCHOOLS
Middle schools, covering the ages 12 to 18, comprise the secondary stage of Chinese education; key middle schools cater for those students at the top end of the academic ability range.
At age 18, the end of senior middle school, students are eligible to take the State Examination for entrance into university. Every year, the state sets the marks that are needed for entrance and, according to their total marks,
Table 5.3 National age group standards—female, 9 years
Test Points 100 75 50 25 5
50 metre sprint 8.5s 9.0s 9.5s 10.5s 11.3s
25m shuttles—m. in 10s 48m 46m 43m 38m 34m
4×10m shuttle 11.6s 12.7s 14.2s 15.7s 16.9s
8×50m shuttle 1m33s 1m48s 2.03s 2.18s 2m 30s
Skipping, 60secs 180 145 110 75 47
High jump 0.96m 0.85m 0.75m 0.65m 0.57m
Long jump 3.12m 2.72m 2.32m 1.92m 1.60m
Standing broad jump 1.76m 1.56m 1.36m 1.16m 1.0m
Shot put 6.0m 5.0m 4.0m 3.0m 2.20m
Softball throw 23m 18m 13m 8m 4m
Medicine ball throw, 2 hand 20m 15m 10m 5m 1m
Sit ups 44 34 24 14 6
Inclined chins 38 28 18 8 2
Press ups—20 sees 14 12 9 7 5
Source: Chengdu (1997)
students are allocated a place at university. In this, sport has a place that is quite unlike that in Britain, because sporting ability is formally used in the selection process for university entrance. A gold medal in the Olympic Games gives access to any university in the subject choice of the student, whilst in lower competitions there is a well-defined range of sports performances or rankings for which students are awarded a number of points in the State Examination, thus enhancing their chances of gaining a university place. To gain these rankings, students must achieve the required standard in an ‘official’
competition at city level or above (see Tables 5.4 and 5.5).
Between 500 and 600 points are usually required in the State Examinations for entry into the best universities. Therefore, the fact that performance in sports tests and sports competitions is recognized gives added status to the PE programme.
Up to the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), China operated a scheme of physical tests for students that was a close match with the GTO/PWD3 scheme of the former Soviet Union. During the years after the Cultural Revolution this was replaced by a ‘sports level for teenagers’, or physical proficiency test (based mainly on running, jumping and throwing), and which is now part of
Table 5.4 Points awarded for standards achieved in official competition
Table 5.5 Middle school PE standards for ‘graduation’. Minimum 45% required for ‘Pass’.
Distances in metres
Source: Chengdu (1995) Handbook of Middle School
Source: Chengdu (1995) Handbook of Middle School
the National Age Group Norms. At the end of senior middle school (age 18/
19), when students are about to enter tertiary education (universities, institutes, senior vocational or technical colleges), they are required to have reached the minimum standard in these physical tests before being allowed to proceed.
There is some inconsistency in saying that everyone must reach a certain physical standard, whilst also saying that there is a pass-fail threshold because it could imply that the fail level is so low as to be meaningless, or that the fail level is ‘flexible and arbitrary’. As will be mentioned later, in practice there is some flexibility in applying the marks to the entrance examination; students are allowed (and expected) to take the physical proficiency aspects on more than one occasion so as to reach the overall pass standard for graduation from middle school, which is set at 45 per cent.
A further example of National Age Group Norms is given in Table 5.6.
It can be seen from the tables that fifty, thirty, or twenty points for first, second or third grade in sport can provide a significant boost to an overall score of perhaps 570 required in the State Entrance Examination for a top university. However, outstanding performance in sport may be recognized much further, and lower overall scores of around 350 may be accepted (with an extension of the length of the university course also possible).
The fact that students going to university have to continue with weekly PE for the first two years of their studies gives weight to the requirement for middle school students to reach a pass standard in PE, but there are obviously
Table 5.6 National Age Group Norms, male, 18 years
Source: National Age Group Norms, 1989 Note
* Points for intermediate distances, times and scores are possible.
students for whom PE is a trial rather than a tribulation! In contrast to some programmes of PE in other countries, Chinese schools do not offer students options in selecting their sports, but rather present a programme based on the general and specific requirements of the State Regulations, the decisions of the Provincial Sports Commission on the appropriate sports for their school and the lead given by the school principal and PE staff. Teachers are required to conform to the national rules for physical education, and students are ‘in receipt’ of the curriculum rather than being partners to it. Physical education is based on four components: health, fitness, the mastery of basic sports skills, and knowledge of the basic rules and techniques of sports. Use of the National Age Group Tests continues throughout the junior middle school in running, jumping and throwing and, at the end of junior middle school, the standards achieved become part of the student’s academic profile, which is then used to decide whether a student continues into senior middle school. Because it is from senior middle school that university education follows, the junior middle to senior middle school transfer is critical. It is the determining point at which future careers are largely settled. The following tables give the standards for the physical tests which one key middle school uses for the junior to senior middle school transfer. The school has 3,300 students and sends around 90 per cent of its students to university each year, including five or six to sports institutes. Table 5.7 shows the details.
The standards in these tables were established and set by the Provincial Sports Commission and, in general, are slightly higher than those in the Table 5.7 Standards for transfer from junior to senior middle school (age 15)
Source: Xindu, 1997
national standards lists. The minimum pass standard for the three activities is a cumulative total of eighteen points (as listed in the tables), the average for all students in the final year of junior middle school being about twenty- five. Usually two or three students achieve a maximum score of 300. A score of 100 points in any or each of the three physical activities is then translated as ten points in the transfer test from junior to senior middle school. In 1997 460 points were needed for the transfer at this particular school; thus a student who scored a maximum of 300 on the physical tests would be credited with thirty points out of the required 460 for the transfer test, i.e. a potential 6.5 per cent credit for good performance in physical tests.
In key middle schools, there is considerable emphasis on academic success and university education (which accounts for about 90 per cent of the students), but the importance attached to academic lessons has resulted, in the opinion of one PE teacher, in negative consequences for physical education in the middle schools and even in the primary schools. The PE teacher complained of lack of time for the subject, content that had become boring by its narrowness, teaching methods that suffered from large class sizes and mixed sex groups (he did not explain why this was detrimental and, in fact, not all middle schools teach mixed PE; one explanation may be the limitations of facilities and staff) and students who had little choice in their physical education and who were not streamed by physical ability. To understand this further, the organization of the other subjects should be explained.
Within key middle schools, students are grouped, according to their academic strengths, into the sciences or the humanities; their studies in middle school are divided into junior and senior blocks of three years. Those slightly weak in Chinese and mathematics may be restricted to junior middle school (unless they demonstrate progress) and thereafter they would transfer into vocational or technical schools. Students with demonstrable ability in Chinese and mathematics and the potential for university will continue into senior middle school, by which time they will have been grouped broadly into either science or arts/humanities, following a curriculum that has, in the 1990s, been largely influenced by the requirements of the State Examination for university entrance. Until 1998, the State Examination was relatively narrow, allowing virtually no choice of curriculum by the students (there is no psychology, sociology, sports studies or computer studies, for example) and consequently, even though a school may actually have taught a broader range of subjects and have an active physical education department, the strictures of the State Examination were dominant; it influenced the PE programme and student attitudes to the subject. A new pattern of State Examination is being introduced in 1999, referred to as the ‘3 plus X’ system. Chinese, mathematics and English will form the core of this new system, plus ‘X’, one (or more) other subject(s) chosen by the school. The ‘X’ subjects will be divided into a section on arts and literature (politics, history and geography) and one on sciences (physics, chemistry and biology), thus giving some