TIMEasia.com: Education

THE PRICE OF EDUCATION
Asia lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to spending on education
(Percentage of GDP, 1999)

Sources: World Competitiveness Yearbook 2001, IMD; Vietnam General Statistics Office

COVER STORY
Back of the Class
East Asia's strict classrooms and well-drilled students were once the pride of the region and the envy of the West. But falling test scores and anxious, depressed kids indicate that serious reform might well be the only way to save Asia's troubled schools

Textbooks
History education is tainted with bias

Overseas
Some Koreans want their children taught in the U.S.

Viewpoint
Maybe American kids are all right after all

Class Note: Cram School's Kinda Cool

Doing Time: A Student's Day

School Daze

After leaving public school, Seira found she still wanted to learn. She enrolled in Apple Tree, an experimental academy in Saitama prefecture, where children come when they please and study only what they want. It doesn't look like a dropout's place: the kids don't have attitudes or drug problems or rap sheets. There's not a nose ring in sight. When a visitor walks in, all the kids look up, then bob their heads in a show of respect.

Yusuke Masuda, 19, is a baseball stud who was the star shortstop of his little-league team. Even though he was popular at school, Yusuke felt stifled by the crowded classrooms, authoritarian teachers and emphasis on uniformity. Like the others here, he faked illness to get out of school and never went back. Now, he helps tutor the younger students at Apple Tree, sitting next to them on tatami mats as they go over their math lessons. "The biggest condemnation of the Japanese education system," says Yoshie Masuda, Apple Tree's founder, "is that even normal kids can't handle school anymore."

Apple Tree is part of a 30-member, experimental-education consortium that received Japanese government approval last year. Before that, young kids who dropped out of traditional schools could attend alternative academies—but they were not allowed to apply to public high schools unless the principal gave his personal consent. (Translation: hope you like working at a 7-Eleven the rest of your life.) Now, with so many kids eschewing the system altogether, Japan's Education Ministry has realized it has to embrace other forms of schooling. "There are many ways to teach children," admits Yoshimoto, the Education Ministry bureaucrat. "We must look at all methods to address the needs of our students."

This April, Japan will complete a radical restructuring, abolishing Saturday classes, encouraging volunteerism and allowing schools to experiment with different curriculae. Later this year, Taiwan will scrap its university entrance exam system in favor of a more holistic approach that considers grades, essays and extracurricular activities. In South Korea, up to a third of incoming college students will be picked not for their test scores but for their unique talents.

The real revolution, though, is coming from the region's parents and kids. Some parents are allowing their children to escape the system altogether, either by dropping out or going to school abroad. Others are turning to that budding crop of alternative schools like Apple Tree, where creativity and camaraderie can flourish. At the Beijing 21st Century Experimental School, 1,400 kids from all over China receive bilingual education and loads of computer training. Even though private schooling is a fledgling phenomenon in China, 21st Century has already sent its top students to Elite institutions like Peking and Qinghua universities. "My old school was supposed to be good, but it didn't really teach me anything about computers or English," says Ni Chengcheng, a 13-year-old, straight-A student. "I know that what I learn here will be useful for my future."

Perhaps the biggest problem with Asia's schools today is that children themselves no longer link substantive learning with schooling. "I look for a spark in kids' eyes," says a Hong Kong therapist who deals with 10 young stress cases a week. "But more and more, I just don't see any interest in what they're being taught." Surveys show that while East Asian pupils top worldwide academic tests, they retain the information for the least amount of time, believing, not surprisingly, there is little utility in what they learn in the classroom. And employers are taking note. According to Alexa Chow, managing director of Centaline Julies Personnel Consultants in Hong Kong, graduates of Asian schools are finding themselves beaten out for positions with multinational corporations by peers who were educated abroad. "Those educated overseas," says Chow, "are more independent, more aggressive and more proactive when tackling problems." A poll of 20-plus countries by the Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement discovered that Asian students scored second-lowest in enjoyment of math and science, even though they placed first in understanding of these subjects. No wonder, then, that so few Asians are drawn to research when they graduate—they want nothing to do with stuffy labs that stifle creativity as their schools did.

3

promotion

QUICK LINKS: COVER STORY | TEXTBOOKS | OVERSEAS | VIEWPOINT