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joshua tai

24 Jul, 23 tweets, 5 min read

A thread on my thoughts of the China edtech situation

Some have been asking my thoughts on this lately, so here it is. But just a heads up, I want to raise it from a 'student' and learning perspective rather than an investor perspective.

China is considering to make edtech platform non-profit and there's concerns. But my short answer is that it is actually good for students. I have studied in Taiwan for 9 years and Australia for another 7, so I guess I am quite qualified to comment on the education system.

First of all, to lay the ground work, I must explain the fundamental difference between a China (or Asian) education system vs a Western one. Although under both systems, you need to do tests in order to go to the good university, the test is so much fiercer in China.

People spent years trying to study for this university admission tests (or 'high test' in Chinese) in China. When i say years, I mean studying 8-12 hours a day, for at least a year straight (usually year 12, or sometimes even year 11 and 10).

That makes the a student under a Chinese environment living a student life that consist solely of one thing, study, all day, everyday. When i studied year 8-9 in Taiwan, the school asked us to go to school at 8am and studied till 9pm every weekday! Just think about that!

Later when i move to Australia, study time is cut in half, and lmao what a relief for me, study time is only 8:30 to 3 in the afternoon. If you asked me which one is better? definitely Australia's education is.

The biggest problem within a Chinese education system is that they try to make you good at everything, so you need to be good at Chinese, maths, physics, chemistry, history, social science and etc, whereas the Western culture wants you to be great at one thing, and that's enough.

Therefore, it is quite clear that the Chinese way requires so much more time and effort, and I personally would argue that requiring you to be good at everything is just unnecessary.

Ok, this is getting a bit of topic, so let me go back to China edtech. Here is a question for you, because of the fierce competition for getting into good universities, if your child or you are to prepare for the university admission test, when do you start to prepare for it?

I think a logically answer would be Year 12 right?? But guess when Chinese starts, the race starts in year 1 lol. People start gearing up in Year 1. Everything they do since year 1 is to try to get into a good university.

Just how toxic is that? Young Chinese students have no dreams, but only thinking about getting into a good uni and that's the sole goal of study. The worse thing still is that young Chinese students does not only study at school, but also after school.

Because people want to get good grades, some parents will send their children to after school or weekend studying class for additional study. This by itself in my opinion is fine.

However, the biggest problem that is happening now is that, because so many students are studying after school, teacher at school expects students to go to additional studies outside of school. Yes they EXPECT you to study hard outside of school.

This means that extra study is no longer an 'option' but an necessity, which creates both financial problems to parents and mental and stress to children.

Just one of my personal experience: My gf's cousins is currently year 2 in China, and her parents do not want her to go to after school, holiday extra study lessons outside of school.

However, because so many students in her class goes, teachers just skipped over some parts of the course, because they expect her to have learn those things in her after class studies.

Just imagine that, a year 2 students, doing a course with 13 lectures for example, and the teacher only teachers you lecture 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, because the teacher expect the other ones to be taught in these after class education schools. Like what the heck?

For me, the most important thing to note is that the Chinese tutoring is not the Western tutoring that is only 1 hour-3 hour a week. Chinese tutoring is 3 hours plus a day!

I myself do belief there needs to be a fundamental change in the Chinese education system, and having such intention is great in my opinion. I believe a student life should not be consist of only studying, but also, sport, music, free time and fun time.

That's why I am all for banning tutoring or doing whatever it takes to help with this problem. The additional education institutions are definitely a part of the problem, and although making all of them becoming non-profit may be pushing the limit, i like the original intention.

Just want to remind you again that this is from a student and not an investor perspective and I am by no means an expert on China. Therefore I would appreciate any contrary thoughts so that we can discuss further and have fruitful conversations.