In China, education is about as important as rice. I had a vague notion of this before I first came here in 2003, but by the end of that summer, I was certain of it. Now teaching English at a university here in Nanjing, I’ve never once had to reconsider this. My opinion, if anything, has been strongly reinforced. When I am on campus at night, walking past classroom windows, I will often see so many students inside that it looks like there are classes going on. It’s only when I see no instructor that I understand that everyone is just studying independently. This goes on, I know, at universities everywhere, but I don’t know if it goes on to this extent. Although not true for everyone, studying hard seems to be one of several almost clinical conditions of Chinese society-its importance hammered into students’ heads so consistently and from such an early age that it is difficult for it not to take hold. In and of itself, I don’t think that this is necessarily bad-getting the most out of an education is extremely important, something I’ve found that many (myself included) don’t really understand until after leaving school, if ever. Since I’ve been here, however, I have become aware of something that at first I didn’t pay much attention to but now think is a real problem. Almost every day, in the courtyard behind my building, I pass students either sitting on the stone posts that serve as seats, or pacing back and forth in the tiled area that forms its center, their noses buried in books, reciting English aloud. Before my classes begin (and sometimes, irritatingly, during them), I often see my students poring over the same paperback book-one with a cover picture of a little frog lifting a barbell over his head. One day I asked a student what it was. He showed me, wordlessly. It was essentially a Chinese-English dictionary. The word he was looking at was clutch. I asked him to try to use it in a sentence. Silence. And why was he reading a Chinese-English dictionary with a weightlifting frog on the cover? Because in China, one of the requirements for receiving a university degree is to pass a nationwide English competency exam, the CET (College English Test). There are different levels of this test, but non-English majors must pass the CET Band 4. I’ve been told that, in order to pass this exam, candidates need to know at least 4,000 English words. This book holds them, and then some. If they pass, they get a nifty little certificate with an official seal on it (in China, nifty little certificates with official seals on them are very popular) that will supposedly enable them to get higher paying jobs. That’s great. But my student still had no idea how to use the word clutch. Nor could he tell me what he was reading. This is far from unusual, even though, on average, most of my students have been studying English in a formal environment for eight to ten years. Don’t misunderstand me: I have no complaints about that student or most of my other ones. My complaint is with the system. On the one hand, you have education by decree: everyone must learn English to graduate. On the other, you have a national obsession with doing well on tests (another clinical condition), and an age-old learning method based on memorization and mindless repetition. The problem is that this method trains them to spit out what they’ve memorized and to pass exams. As far as English goes, this isn’t enough. So why bother? So what if a student passes the CET 4? It doesn’t necessarily mean that they know what they’re doing. And if it’s a requirement for all university graduates, it doesn’t really make them all that special in the job market. The only time it becomes truly important is if someone doesn’t pass it and they can’t get their degree. Should a student who never intends to leave China be kept from receiving their degree because they don’t pass an English test that doesn’t really serve a valuable purpose? At best, this policy is a waste of time for uninterested students and at worst can blow a big hole in an otherwise good academic record. Chinese students are pragmatic enough to figure out if they’ll need to learn English in order to try to best meet their goals. If they do decide that it will help them, they’ll be motivated enough to try to learn it correctly. Why make it mandatory?

Clarification: After posting the above entry, I became aware of the fact that I may have unintentionally given some incorrect information regarding Chinese policy. In fact, although at one time it was an official government requirement for university students to pass a CET exam in order to receive a degree, this is no longer the case. This policy decision now rests with the universities themselves. Currently, passing the CET 4 remains a minimum graduation requirement for students at my university. Beyond these basic facts, I believe that things become more complex. At this time, however, I am unwilling to speculate on it further without a closer examination of the details. Suffice it to say that, although I sincerely beg my readers’ pardon for my error, I wholeheartedly stand by the general message of my essay. Matthew MacDonald