ARTICLE: "1977 Exam Opened Escape Route Into China's Elite: A Generation Seized the Change to Study After a Lost Decade," by David Lague, New York Times, 6 January 2008, p. A4.
Fascinating story about the first Chinese who took exams for the privilege of getting college degrees. Something like 5 million took tests, but only a quarter million got admitted.
Nowadays about nine million take the tests and more than half get in.
Soon after this started up again, the first college students to study abroad started showing up in places like the University of Wisconsin when I was there in 1980-84. All of them studied ag and veterinary sciences at first (or so I heard), but then engineering got big.
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Comments (2)
Yea, the Chinese suddenly showed up at Montana State in the early 80's. Mostly Ag and Engineering, although we had one as a grad student in our Political Science department. Thing I recall is it appeared they all were married. Most lived within the same general cluster in Married Student Housing.
Posted by outback71
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February 18, 2008 7:05 AM
The transition from the Culture Revolution to the Deng Reforms are huge, and this is just one of them.
Many of the businessmen in China today were educated up until middle school, when they were inducted to the Red Guards. Except for de-programming, they never went back to school.
But just a few years later, the same cohort instead is competing to attend the best universities in the world.
Stunning.
Posted by dan tdaxp
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February 18, 2008 8:21 AM