Opinion

Amid US-China rivalry, Chinese parents’ dragon dreams for their children need an adjustment

By directing more young people to vocational schools, China is trying to meet future labour needs, particularly in industries where competition with the US is intense

Parents, however, will have to recalibrate their hopes for their children and how they define success

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Parents wait outside a school on the first day of the national college entrance examination in Shenyang in China’s northeastern Liaoning province on June 7, 2022. Since 2017, China’s education ministry has been aiming to stream at least 50 per cent of students towards vocational schools, making it harder to secure a place in university. Photo: AFP

April Zhang is the founder of MSL Master and the author of the Mandarin Express textbook series and the Chinese Reading and Writing textbook series.

Published: 4:30pm, 13 Dec 2023Updated: 5:41pm, 13 Dec 2023

There’s an old Chinese saying, wang zi cheng long, or wishing that one’s child becomes a dragon. It speaks volumes about Chinese parents’ desire for their children to succeed. Today, success tends to be defined as going to a good university and later securing a high-status job.

But, for many Chinese young people, this version of success has become increasingly hard to reach, because it goes against a trend in many countries in which technical skills are increasingly prized over a college degree.

Economies that wish to remain globally competitive must adapt. Recognising this, the Chinese government has been tweaking the education system, but its policy decisions have not gone down well with parents.

The Post recently published reports about Chinese parents burdened with the rising cost of schooling. One of the issues raised was that a policy enacted in 2017 has made it tougher for them to send their children to university.