“We could feel the strong anxiety among parents, that nearly half of the students can’t make it to an academic high school – the common pathway to college and university,” said Ivan Zhai, a senior executive of overseas admissions at an Ontario-based high school.
“They don’t want to accept a vocational-school fate, so studying abroad has become their lifeboat, though it means more pressure on the family’s financial capacity and the worries about sending their children abroad at a young age,” Zhai said.
“Lots of students who failed to get into high school in their cities in China actually have quite good academic records and would meet the entrance requirements for high schools in other countries such as Canada,” he added. “We are like offering them a second chance to approach reputed universities across the world.”
Zhai added Canada is also seeing an increasing number of Chinese parents who, having obtained university degrees and worked for years, are eagerly applying for undergraduate degrees at local colleges, with the aim of enabling their children to attend public middle schools in their college district.
“The policy to admit only about half of junior high graduates into high school began during the 13th five-year plan and was emphasised even more during the 14th five-year plan [from 2021-25],” said Dong Shige, an education specialist and founder of Shenzhen RDF International School. “And with the difficulties in job hunting seen by more than 10 million university graduates, the policy shift is getting faster.”
“On the one hand, private high schools face stricter restrictions, but on the other hand, there is more encouragement for private vocational schools,” Dong said.
Middle-class Chinese parents have not been able to keep pace with the authorities in terms of the transformation in education and population policy, Dong added.
In large cities such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou, with massive permanent populations, middle-class families are increasingly investing in the competition for the 50 per cent admission rate for public high schools, resulting in higher annual education budgets.
A white paper on studying abroad in 2023, released by the New Oriental Education & Technology Group, a leading provider of private educational services in China, showed that the willingness among Chinese students aged 15 to 17 to study abroad is higher than in the last two years, as the competition and pressure among teenagers mounts.
“We can see the trend that the budget allocated in preparing for children to study abroad accounts for a larger share of family expenses compared with previous years, amid intensifying worries about their children failing to get into high school,” Dong said.
At his school in Shenzhen, for example, some students transfer during the midterm to international schools, which can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, rivalling college tuitions that many Chinese families will face next.
This article was first published on SCMP.
Source: CNA
