From Confucianism to the Cultural Revolution, the role of education in Chinese society has undergone many changes. Currently, education is a big deal, and a big business, in China. From the cradle, parents prep their children for the notorious gao kao, hiring tutors and enrolling them in after school and weekend classes. Until they take the gao kao, during the last year of high school, Chinese students study, study and study some more in an effort to win a spot at a top university. But doubt remains about how good China’s universities really are and if the growing number of PhDs they churn out are really up to international standards – just look at China’s trouble with the Nobel Prize. Tsinghua University (which generally ranks just behind first place Peking University in domestic rankings) recently became the first mainland university to crack the top 50 in a ranking of world universities; they ranked 49th. Many of our readers have experience with education in China, including teaching in China’s universities, so we asked you to weigh in on this question:

How do you think China's universities measure up internationally?  

Perspectives seeks to promote dialogue and cross-cultural understanding by featuring Chinese and foreign responses to a single question. Email us to be added to our weekly question mailing list or to suggest questions of your own and feel free to add your perspective in the comments section below.

I don't think there's any comparison. Unless you've come to China for Chinese lessons, the level of education in China's universities is supremely poor, and it's only made worse by the inability of students to take ownership of their futures, the corrupt system behind the administration's hierarchies, the obsessive and uninformed parents who put pressure on ill-equipped kids, and the fact that a Bachelors Degree seems more like a western high school diploma / Masters Degree more like a western Bachelors...
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The focus on memorization here puts Chinese students at a huge disadvantage when it comes to all levels of education. Schools in other countries emphasize critical thinking and independent thought, which in my opinion are much more important.
J / US

China has great universities. The problem is foreigners still don’t want to recognize that China’s universities are good so Chinese students have to go abroad if they want to succeed.
W / China

They don't.
R / US

Things will improve when the schools stop teaching kids to pass exams by memorizing answers and cheating... and start teaching members of society to make informed decisions. Oops, that might upset the Party's apple cart! Never mind! Stop daydreaming, and do your homework!
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The question is too wide. China and the West both have many universities. Some are good. Some are bad. I haven’t had the opportunity to study overseas but my friends have and have described different things. Some went to top schools but others went to ones that were not very good so I think in both places it depends on the university not the country.
D / China

I don’t know about Chinese universities but having attended a low level American public university I really don’t have much good to say about it. This wasn’t a small backwater town university either, we’re talking about 25,000 students, most of whom didn’t care, were barely literate and couldn’t do fifth grade level math if their lives depended on it. Most of them worked, drank heavily and worried a lot about their fake IDs, and spent very little time on their studies. I realize it’s different at Yale and Harvard but overall I’m not sure that American education is so hot.
T / US

Chinese universities are far below good international universities in quality of instruction, research materials, access to international journals, and students who can think beyond memorizing.
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I feel China’s universities are very good. The one problem is many of the best Chinese students study abroad. Most of them come back to China and soon top students won’t have to leave at all.
X / China

Another question is whether Chinese and Western students are both getting what they pay for. Tuition fees vary greatly depending on what country and what kind of school (public or private) you attend. I find it encouraging that China’s best universities are still all public universities. Though it has issues, I think the attention Chinese pay to education is very important and something that has been lost in the West. If you attend a great school but don’t care and just do enough to skate by than the quality of the institution hasn’t done much for your education.
R / UK
 

Related Links
10 Best Universities in China
Top Universities in the World: Mainland Cracks Top 50
Quantitative in the Extreme – China's Gaokao Test
Top Majors, Spring Festival, and Spring Break: Differences in the Chinese and American university experiences

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