Some of China’s policies are downright maverick. This week, authorities in Shanghai started a campaign to encourage graduates to delay graduation and stay in school for anywhere between 6 months to 2 years. Under the plan, the city will finance certain universities to provide vocational training during the extended school term. Students who complete the training will be awarded a pseudo ‘post bachelor degree’/ 学士后/xue2 shi4 hou4.
Many students have already chosen to do a postgraduate degree right after their undergraduate studies, which was largely how it was done in China even before the recession. It seems universities will soon need new dorms to house all these students, which works well with the government’s efforts to boost infrastructure spending . Harmony?
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March 6, 2009 4:31 am
Hi Jenny,
I’m a big fan! Keep up all your good work.
In the first paragraph, I think you mean “vocational” instead of “vacational.”
Andy
March 6, 2009 5:37 am
How do you feel about paying taxes? do you think they are too high? they’re close to unaffordable? Is it good after all to have a big government that builds the Shanghai maglev taking money from your wallets? Was it worth to have the government financing students’ extra education? The burden of taxes is high pretty much everywhere in the world, but people are always reluctant to give up their government benefits. Strangely enough there never was a Dear Amber about paying taxes. I’ve ready thousand articles about China, but never heard what Chinese think about Franklin’s aphorism “In this world nothing is certain but Death and Taxes”.
March 6, 2009 11:15 am
The government tries to improve economic output by paying it’s brightest people NOT to work. Good luck, economy!
March 6, 2009 1:35 pm
Andy,
Thanks a lot! And thank you for pointing out my mistake. Corrected. It’s an interesting time around the world and especially in China. And it’s particularly interesting to observe the happenings from more than one angle.
March 6, 2009 1:53 pm
Marcos,
I have to say income tax in China is not that high compared to a lot of places in the world. We go by a bracket system too and if you are on a RMB 5000 salary, you pay about 8% on the portion that exceeds the RMB1800 exemption line. But at the same time, social benefits are quite scarce too, especially in areas like health and education. That’s why people save 30% of their salary on average. Now if you look at China as a whole, a large bulk of people have very little tax burden because they make under RMB 1800 or just a little over. That’s why there isn’t overwhelming public outcry for tax cuts, even though the urban high income groups will certainly welcome it.
But what I find particularly interesting is a slight disconnect between pubic spending and people’s perception of where it comes from. Public spending is not primarily presented or perceived as ‘tax payers’ money in China. We tend to think of those moeny as a different source of finance altogether as opposed to something directly comes out of our pockets, which it does. But the government has really done it cleverly by taxing business heavily and keeping income tax affordable. That’s my side of the picture.
March 6, 2009 1:58 pm
Jim,
The problem with China’s tertiary education is a lack of quality. In the past 10 years, the number of universities nearly doubled under the plan to expand the system and put more people through higher education. But of course quality is compromised. Many college graduates don’t receive the knowledge and skill that prepare them for work. The brightest will get work. The problem is the majority of the rest.
March 6, 2009 5:29 pm
Jenny
this insight you gave about taxes is very helpful. I think it helps me understand Chinese politics better, which is important. One year ago or something I read an McKinsey article whose point was that in a few years “the middle class will be a majority in the middle kingdom”. I think this is a good, yet challenging change for the government, who will have to weigh differently the needs of its people.
I see how this change was difficult in my own country, Brazil, that is now a middle income country. Middle class people feel choked by the size of the state, but they are unwilling to give away their privileges. In many ways I see that the middle class in developed countries enjoy a lower living standard than the Brazilian middle class, although they don’t hold that many graduate degrees. I’m not boasting my country as a paradise, though. A huge part of my people live in abject poverty.
The disconnectedness you see between public spending and peoples perception I see as a rather universal thing. Only when the Leviathan is too large they realize what monster they’ve reared.
Now about tertiary education, you say the expansion of courses compromised quality. But we keep seeing Chinese nationals getting the highest grades in Ph D.s programs worldwide. When I told one of my colleagues I was learning Chinese they joked they should too, as so many Chinese wrote papers in plant physiology. I don’t know about the average Chinese student, but the elite is certainly bright.