China
中国板块
Inequality in education
教育不平等
Serve the rich
为富人服务
It is becoming even harder for poor students to get into a good university
寒门子弟越来越难进入好大学。
After xiong xuan’ang gained the capital’s best score in China’s university-entrance exam in 2017, he was interviewed by Beijing’s media. The son of diplomats, Mr Xiong acknowledged that his upbringing had been privileged. “All the top scorers now come from wealthy families,” he said. “It is becoming very difficult for students from rural areas to get into good universities.” His honesty drew much praise online.
熊轩昂在2017年获得高考状元之后，接受了北京媒体的采访。作为外交官之子，熊轩昂承认自己的成长过程受到了优待。熊轩昂表示：“现在所有的状元都出生于富裕家庭。农村学生越来越难考上好大学了。”他的诚实在网上赢得了很多赞誉。
Since 1998, when China began a huge expansion of university enrolment, the number of students admitted annually has quadrupled to nearly 10m. About one third of high-school students now proceed to undergraduate courses. Data are patchy, but experts agree that the share of rural students at China’s best universities (the top 1%) has shrunk. Only 0.3% of rural students make it into them, compared with 2.8% of urban ones. Most other tertiary institutions are far inferior.
中国大学自1998年以来开始大规模扩招，每年录取的学生数量翻了一番，达到了近1000万人。现在大约有三分之一的高中生考入本科。虽然数据不完整，但专家们一致认为，就读于中国最好的大学（前1%）的农村学生比例有所下降。只有0.3%的农村学生能够就读于顶级大学，相比之下，城市学生的比例为2.8%。大多数其他高等教育机构都远不及那些顶级大学。
Around the world, students from poor backgrounds struggle to compete with their richer counterparts. In China the divide is particularly stark. The main cause is the hukou system, which makes it very difficult to gain free access to state-provided services outside the place where one’s household is registered. This means that in cities, the children of migrants from the countryside are usually shut out of local state schools. They have to attend shoddy private ones that charge fees, or go to their parents’ village for an education that is free but also bare-bones.
世界各地的寒门子弟都在努力与出身富裕家庭的学生竞争。这种分歧在中国尤为明显。主要原因在于户口制度，学生们很难在户籍地以外的地方免费获得国家提供的服务。这意味着流动到城市里的农村孩子通常会被当地的公立学校拒之门外。这些孩子被迫就读于收费的劣质私立学校，或者回老家接受免费但贫乏的教育。
The situation is made worse by the way that university places are allocated. The best universities are concentrated in the biggest and richest cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. They offer a disproportionate number of places to students with local hukou. China’s two most prestigious universities, Peking University and Tsinghua, are in Beijing. Their acceptance rate is around 1% for local students but only a tenth of that for applicants from places outside the capital, according to state television. More students from Beijing are admitted to Tsinghua every year than the combined number of successful applicants from Guangdong and Shandong. The population of those two provinces is ten times bigger than Beijing’s.
大学招生名额的分配方式使情况变得更糟。顶级大学集中在北京和上海等最大且最富裕的城市。他们为有当地户口的学生提供了远超比例的招生名额。北大和清华这两所中国最著名的大学都位于北京。据官媒报道，这两所大学在当地的录取率在1%左右，但首都以外地区的学生录取率只有这个数的十分之一。清华每年招收的北京学生比广东和山东的录取总数还要多。而这两个省的人口却是北京的十倍。
In a paper published in 2015, scholars from Tsinghua and Stanford University said students with hukou in the poorest fifth of counties were seven times less likely than their urban counterparts to get a university place and 14 times less likely to attend an elite one. In those counties, the odds were even more stacked against girls and ethnic minorities. “It is really, really clear that it is now much, much harder for a poor, rural kid to get into a good university,” says Scott Rozelle of Stanford. He estimates that around 75% of urban children go to university compared with 15% of rural ones. Nearly 80% of children under 14 have rural hukou. But writing in 2017, Wu Xiaogang, now of NYU Shanghai, a Sino-American joint-venture university, said less than 17% of students in elite universities had rural household-registration before taking up their places. The pattern has not changed since then, says Mr Wu. “If anything, it may be even worse now.”
清华大学和斯坦福大学的学者在2015年联合发表的一篇论文中表示，相较于拥有城市户口的学生，户口在中国五分之一最贫穷县的学生考入大学的概率要低7倍，考入顶尖大学的概率要低14倍。而在这些贫困县中，女孩和少数民族的胜算更低。斯坦福大学的斯科特·罗泽尔表示：“显而易见，一个贫穷的农村孩子愈加难以考上好大学。”罗泽尔估计，能考上大学的城市孩子约有75%，而农村孩子只有15%。近80%的14岁以下儿童有农村户口。但目前就职于中美合资大学——纽约大学上海分校的吴晓刚在2017年写道，顶级大学中有不到17%的的学生在入学之前是农村户口。吴晓刚表示，这样的模式从那时起就没有变过，“如果非要说出点不同的话，那就是当前的情况可能更糟。”
That is because inequalities in society are becoming more pronounced. The children of wealthy families have access to the best schools as well as to after-school tutoring and extra-curricular activities. Their parents can afford homes in good catchment areas. China offers nine years of free, compulsory education, but fees are levied at state-run senior secondary schools. In poor areas, charges can amount to more than 80% of net income per person, one of the highest such burdens in the world. Some students prefer to start work: a typical unskilled factory hand can earn in a month what a poor farmer earns in a year.
这是因为社会上的不平等越来越明显。出身富贵的孩子可以上最好的学校，也可以参加课外辅导和课外活动。他们的父母能负担得起好的学区房。中国虽然提供免费的九年义务教育，但公立高中是收费的。学费可能达到贫困地区人均纯收入的80%以上，这样高的负担堪列世界之最。部分学生更倾向于开始工作：一个无特殊技能的普通工厂工人的月薪，相当于一个贫穷农民一年挣的钱。
Since its relaunch in 1977, universities mostly have relied on test scores for admission. In 2003 China began to allow some universities to recruit students with special talents such as in sports and arts. Again, the wealthy have been the main beneficiaries: only they can afford to pay for the training needed.
自1977年高考恢复以来，大学大多依靠考试成绩进行录取。2003年，中国开始允许部分高校招收体育和艺术等方面的特长生。富家子弟再次成为新政策的主要受益者：只有他们才有能力支付所需的培训费用。
For decades state-funded feeder schools in poorer areas played a vital role in offering good students from the countryside a chance to get into university. But many have closed as a result of migration into cities. Meanwhile, competition has grown for places in good senior secondary schools. Ma Hang attended primary school in his home village. But the best junior high school in the county would not accept village students unless they paid extra fees or had powerful connections. His parents managed to use such a connection to get him into the school. He says that set him on a path that led him to a feeder high school and then to university.
几十年来，政府资助的贫困地区生源学校在为农村优秀学生提供进入大学的机会中发挥了至关重要的作用。但由于许多农村学生移居城市，大量生源学校已经关闭。与此同时，优质高中的录取竞争也日益激烈。马航在农村老家读了小学。但县里最好的初中不招收村里的学生，除非他们支付额外的费用或者有强大的关系。他的父母设法托关系将他送进了学校。他说，这让他走上了一条通往生源学校然后再考入大学的坦途。
Rural children in China face obstacles at every stage of development. Babies are more likely to be undernourished and lack parental attention. By the time they enter primary school, many have ailments such as anaemia, poor vision and worms. Around 60% of students from the poorest counties suffer from at least one of these afflictions, says Mr Rozelle.
中国农村儿童在成长过程中一步一个坎。婴儿时期更容易营养不良，而且缺少父母的照顾。当他们进入小学时，许多孩子都患有贫血、近视和寄生虫等疾病。罗泽尔表示，来自最贫困县的大约60%的学生至少患有其中一种疾病。
Those who, despite the odds, make it to elite universities often feel socially isolated. In 2020 a student from the countryside took to social media to describe being “lost and confused” at university after leaving the “straightforward environment” of school, where passing tests was the focus. More than 100,000 students, many with rural backgrounds, weighed in, sharing their own experiences of feeling like misfits and lamenting their job prospects. They coined a new term in Chinese: xiao zhen zuotijia, meaning “small-town swot”.
那些排除万难，最终考入顶级大学的寒门子弟往往会感到自己孤立无援。2020年，一名农村学生在社交媒体上分享自己在离开了学校这个成绩至上的“单纯环境”后感受到的“迷惘和困惑”。超过10万名学生参与了讨论，其中许多人有农村背景，他们分享了自己感到格格不入的经历，并哀叹自己的工作前景暗淡。他们创造了一个汉语新词：小镇做题家，意思是“一直埋头苦读的小镇学子”。
Wang Jianyue, a country-born physics whizz, can relate to their complaints. He chose to study finance at university, thinking it would be easier to find a job with such a specialism. It was only after he saw several of his classmates get internships at big financial firms using their parents’ connections that he “truly understood the gap” between himself and them. Mr Wang changed his focus to computer science. Unlike some other small-town swots, he has, to his relief, got a job offer.
出生在农村的物理天才王建岳可以理解他们的抱怨。他选择在大学学习金融，因为他认为这个专业会更容易找工作。直到看到几个同学利用父母的关系在大型金融公司实习后，他才“真正理解”自己和其他同学的差距。王建岳后来便转攻计算机科学。与其他小镇做题家不同的是，王建岳找到了一份工作，这让他松了一口气。
来源：经济学人
参与评论