The EconomistMarch 21st 2020 China 39A
s a teenageschoolgirl, Tang Sisi has mixed feelings about the
snowstorm that hit her village in the poor western province of
Gansu on March 16th. On the downside, the snow burned out the
village’s electrical transformer, cutting her access to online classes
that have replaced normal lessons since covid-19 closed schools
across China weeks ago. On the upside, when the internet dropped
just after Chinese class, Sisi’s first lesson of the day, she could
abandon her usual place of study—a rough wooden chair and desk
in an outdoor courtyard, placed to catch the signal from a neigh-
bour’s Wi-Fi—and shelter from the storm.
Sisi, whose father is a village official and whose mother is a mi-
grant worker, cannot afford to miss many classes. Like millions of
Chinese teenagers she is preparing for an examination for en-
trance to senior secondary school. It is known as the zhongkao, and
sends students down one of two tracks. A vocational track involves
three years studying a trade at a technical school. An academic
track starts at senior high school and, for the most studious, ends
with a four-year degree course at university.
Put bluntly, those who do well at the zhongkaohave a shot at be-
coming doctors, bank managers, government officials or teach-
ers—Sisi’s own ambition is to teach English. Teenagers who do
badly must either enter the labour market or study for vocational
diplomas of varying quality. The zhongkaomay not be as famous as
the gaokao, the terrifying university entrance exam that has in-
spired books, documentaries and feature films. But the zhongkao
shapes more lives. In one sign of the exam’s hold on parental
imaginations, Chinese social media erupted in heated debate
when Hubei province, seat of the virus outbreak, announced that
the children of medical workers would be granted ten bonus
points on their zhongkaoscores.
The idea that clever, hard-working villagers can make it to the
best schools is not just an interesting question of public policy. It is
a pillar of China’s social contract, with roots in ancient tales of
poor students transformed into powerful scholar-officials by bril-
liance at exams. In modern-day China, a harshly unequal country,
education remains an unrivalled ladder of social mobility. Even in
a good year, success in the zhongkaois a hard ladder-rung to grasp.
As a matter of stated government policy, the test is designed to
sendroughlyhalf of all students into vocational training, an out-
come widely seen—fairly or not—as failure. In 2018 just under 8m
teenagers were admitted to academic senior high schools. They
represented 58% of all students who completed nine years of com-
pulsory, free education that year. With schools still closed in most
of China by covid-19, this is not a good year.
The coronavirus will leave many scars on China. Some of the
longest-lasting, but hardest to see, may involve months of school-
ing missed by vulnerable students, who risk doing worse in the
zhongkaothan they could have done if face-to-face classes had not
been disrupted. In painful contrast, affluent teenagers with good
computers, fast internet and private tutors may overperform.
Sisi turned 15 on March 19th and normally attends boarding
school in a town an hour from her home. She described her life in
an interview conducted over the internet because Chaguan is
spending 14 days inside his flat in Beijing, behind a front door
bearing a government notice inviting neighbours to monitor his
quarantine after a family member returned from abroad.
She has some reasons for hope. Sisi has diligence on her side.
Ranked 20th in her class of 52, she reports that “this morning for
our English class, only 30 or so students signed in.” Her father in-
stalled an internet connection this week, allowing her to study in-
doors from now on. Sisi is under less time-pressure than students
a year older than her. She is in the first of two school years that end
in zhongkaotests. This June, assuming the exam is not delayed, she
is taking two subjects, with the rest to follow in a year.
More alarmingly, however, Sisi finds online classes hard to fol-
low. “Sometimes I come across things I don’t know in homework
and there’s nobody to ask,” she worries in a quiet voice. Some
teachers move through lessons too fast, she adds. When unable to
take notes in time, she takes screenshots on her phone then tries to
make sense of the material later.
A veteran middle-school teacher from Xiamen, reached by tele-
phone, fears that virus-imposed distance learning will hit certain
students hard. She worries about those without parents at home to
police them, and those—mostly boys, she says sadly—going
“through a rebellious age” who don’t see the point of study.Quaranteens
Better-off parents can buy help from such services as Fudaojun, an
app which offers one-on-one tuition by experienced teachers, at a
typical cost of 150 yuan ($21) for 40 minutes. The app has seen or-
ders from zhongkaostudents jump by 72% since last year. One of its
tutors, a chemistry teacher from the southern province of Guang-
dong, explains how the zhongkaocontrols access to elite schools
with the teachers and resources that help students to reach good
universities, and thus prestigious jobs. That makes a bad zhongkao
result a grave blow. “If you’re already losing at the starting line, the
gap to catch up is huge,” she says.
Because the epidemic broke out during the spring-festival holi-
days, easy-going students “still feel they’re on winter break, they
haven’t quite shifted their mindset,” worries the chemistry teach-
er. Nonetheless, one of her tutorial students, a boy with bad school
grades, is experiencing a useful culture shock. “Now his mum is
home full time, she doesn’t allow him to go out and has set very
specific times for study and homework. He’s already doing much
better.” That is both a cheering tale and worrying. If good schools
promote equal opportunities, closed schools play up accidents of
birth. In exam-obsessed China covid-19 is going to break a lot of
young dreams. 7Chaguan This virus also kills dreams
Chinese teens sitting a life-defining exam may bear the scars of covid-19 for ever