The young Chinese students sat in rows within a dreary elementary school classroom deep in the interior of their vast country. With their books propped open before them, they read loudly in unison, showing off their skills for a few visiting Americans who could understand nothing of the Chinese phrases.
It was the early 1990s and I was part of a team of consultants from U.S. colleges and universities brought to China to provide advice on a variety of education issues. We were working with the education committee of Gansu Province, along the famed Silk Road at the far western end of the Great Wall.
About that same time, Americans were beginning to fear the potential emergence of a powerful, educated Chinese populace that would overwhelm us with a youthful army of men and women bearing world-leading skills and knowledge in math, science and engineering.
Something has happened in the intervening years, however, that has raised important questions about the education systems in both China and the United States. A recent report from the McKinsey consulting firm, “China’s Looming Talent Shortage,” says the country’s so-called “stuffed duck” tradition of “dry and outdated knowledge transfer” is resulting in graduates who lack “the cultural fit,” language skills and practical experience with “teamwork and projects that multinational employers in a global era are looking for.”
Today, as American educators seek to copy the Asian test-centered system that provides heavy emphasis on math and technology, the Chinese are beginning to blend an emphasis on critical thinking, versatility and leadership into their educational traditions.
The U.S. trend is not surprising. When parents speak to admissions counselors at Western State College in Gunnison and at other institutions of higher education in Colorado, from community colleges to our research universities, they want to know what field of study will help their son or daughter get the best, and highest-paying, job upon graduation.
The concern about future employability weighs heavily on parents who are asked to fund an education that, to many, seems excessively expensive. Still, their gut feeling is that education is the way to ensure prosperity for their children, and they expect – and demand – a sound return on their investment.
Economically speaking, they are exactly on track.
Alan B. Krueger, Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, says that, up to a point, every additional year of schooling will likely raise an individual’s earnings about 10 percent.
But is that the only measure of the return on an investment in higher education?
The April 1 New York Times Magazine reported that “a generation of more independent-minded students with wider horizons” is spearheading a reform movement in Chinese education. Even the government is taking up the call to promote suzhi jiaoyu – generally translated as “quality education,” or “character education.”
The article profiles Tang Meijie, a young Chinese student at Harvard University who is pondering questions raised in a course focused on “what philosopher William James once called ‘our national disease,’ the pursuit of success.”
As a result of her Harvard experiences, Meijie has decided that when she goes home, she will try to “make liberal education’s ideal of well-rounded self fulfillment more real in China.”
The concept is one that more young people in more countries, including the United States, should recognize and adopt.
The reason, most agree, is that the 21st century is and will continue to be volatile, complex and full of change.
“In recent years, the ground has shifted for Americans in virtually every important sphere of life,” says the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU). In a report titled “College Learning for the New Global Century,” the association asserts that “the world is being dramatically reshaped by scientific and technological innovations, global interdependence, cross-cultural encounters and changes in the balance of economic and political power.”
These waves of change will apply equally to careers. Studies show that Americans change jobs, on an average, 10 times in the two decades after they turn 18.
With that in mind, the AACU contends it is far more important “for students to develop transferable skills and capacities” than to choose a hot major in a field that might quickly either cool or be replaced by other priority fields.
The point was made succinctly by David Kearns, former CEO of Xerox Corporation. “The only education that prepares us for change,” he wrote, “is a liberal education. In periods of change, narrow specialization condemns us to inflexibility – precisely what we do not need. We need the flexible intellectual tools to be problem-solvers, to be able to continue learning over time.”
“Liberal” education (not necessarily political) is defined by the AACU as “a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and that cultivates social responsibility and a strong sense of ethics and values.”
Still, many ask, “What’s it worth?”
An article by Anna Bernasek in the “liberal” New York Times says the benefits of higher education are “vital to a nation’s growth.”
“If economists are right,” the article suggests, “education is not just part of the cost of maintaining a functioning democracy, but a source of wealth creation for all. That means that investing in the education of every American is in everyone’s self-interest.”
The debate in Colorado continues over how to increase funding for higher education in the state and to raise it from among the lowest per capita in the country. In the meantime, faculty and staff at colleges and universities across the state continue to do what they can with what they have to prepare students to deal with a world that within four or five years will likely be quite different than it is today.
Adequate tax-supported funding for Colorado higher education is imperative if the state expects to maintain a level of economic competitiveness with the rest of the nation and make college accessible to more students.
Students need to hear from their future employers that narrow learning will limit, rather than expand, their opportunities.
And all of us must consider the ever-increasing education levels in countries like China where “character education” is beginning to blend into the long-adored traditions of math, science and engineering.
Larry K. Meredith (lkmgunnison@yahoo.com) is author of the historical novel “This Cursed Valley” (Pearl Street Publishing, April 2003).
