On Tuesday March 11, the BBC reported that an estimated £20 billion is lost every year (1.3% of the UK GDP) due to miscalculations stemming from poor math skills. So, when Under Secretary of State for Education, Elizabeth Truss, visited China in February this year she decided that the level of math literacy she was witnessing in Shanghai should be imported to Britain.
Truss noticed that the level of math skills by the average Chinese student far exceeded the level of their British counterparts. So she decided to arrange a workshop in the UK for local math teachers to be taught by teachers from Shanghai. The move comes in light of a plan to place a greater focus on math and science in schools in order to compete with countries such as China who have pulled ahead in terms of sciences. The hope is also to decrease the reliance on technology, such as calculators and computers, in order to get people solving problems for themselves again.
Source: news.ifeng.com
Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.
Keywords: Teachers from Shanghai to lead workshop in England
All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.
Please login to add a comment. Click here to login immediately.
What is the problem with some of you guys here? This a cultural and academic exchange of ideas and teaching techniques. No one is telling the English teachers to adopt memorization or the whole notion of the ways students learn in China. If the British teachers can take one or two techniques to improve their own teaching styles then that is a big plus. When China does things better than we do in the West we can learn from them as well. I've done a few teacher training programs in China and I would say that most of my techniques are not used afterwards. But when I later meet a teacher and they tell me that they used one of the things I taught, I feel better. The same thing is happening here. No one education system has all the right answers.
Mar 17, 2014 17:49 Report Abuse
Does this sound racist to anyone else? Asians are all good at maths? Is that the idea behind this?
Mar 16, 2014 23:59 Report Abuse
Just out of curiosity, what exactly is she trying to solve?
Mar 16, 2014 22:28 Report Abuse
It's a batch of 60 'gratification jobs', to give China the happy eyes. "Me so clever" and all that nonsense. Remember, if a country like the UK praises your teachers' mastery of a hard science like math, then obviously there isn't an education problem in China. This is how CCP handles complaints about poor education - with uplifting stories. I'm laughing at the stupidity of the performance, but also crying for the people's future in this country. UK probably got a great trade deal for playing along. And don't worry - these Chinese aren't stealing any British jobs, because the positions didn't exist in the first place. It's a temporary curriculum of 'masterclasses' - I wouldn't consider that a reliable way to feed my family, would you? 5 dozen bozos are going to our isles to promote their superiority, and unless they choose to become illegal immigrants, the delegation will be waved goodbye to at the end of it.
Mar 15, 2014 17:10 Report Abuse
The teachers from China are going to the UK as advisers to a number of "centers of excellence" which Gove/Truss want to set up to help develop maths teaching in the UK. The spur for the initial ridiculous idea (why yes, another pointless initiative rather than a revision of school funding based on real need) was prompted by the PISA statistics. Truss' visit was also based on this - although she is as thick as a plank and, much like her boss, doesn't know what she's doing. I don't think there's any need to extend the criticism of a daft policy initiative and skewed statistics into an absurd attack on these teachers ("illegal immigrants", "bozos") which uses less than mature language ("me so clever"). Alot of what you are arguing is also untrue: "official" propaganda actually lauds point schools and graduates who go to teach in the Western Development Region. It doesn't do much to solve the problem of asymmetrical development, but that has more to do with the nature of propaganda (and it's divergence from reality) rather than the "official" direction of the CCP and its stories.
Mar 15, 2014 22:03 Report Abuse
if the propaganda spin in Chinese newsmedia is different than I described, them i'm simply mistaken. but, i didn't say they were illegal immigrants; that's putting words in my mouth. were you reaching for a 3rd point to illustrate your dislike of my comments? you overlooked "give China the happy eyes" - it was also intended to be condescending and insulting...
Mar 15, 2014 23:19 Report Abuse
If you give a high school Chinese an A-Levels exam, he will score an A. If one year after the Chinese finishes high school you give him/her an similar test, it won't be even close as good. I guess that Chinese schools teach the right things, but due the lack of explanations and too much practise of equation useless for life, Chinese people are not able to use what they learn and therefore forget it really fast.
Mar 15, 2014 16:48 Report Abuse
I find this very frustrating. It appears to me time and time again that the UK government does not understand China. The standard of teaching in china is low, resorting to hours of repetition without explanation of what they are doing. There must be other factors involved that accounts for that amount of money being 'lost'. I'm worried for the UK when people start thinking we need to keep up with china in exam results.
Mar 15, 2014 09:49 Report Abuse
Coming from Michael Gove's Ministry, does this surprise you? Startling headline grabbing policy with absolutley nothing of practical substance behind it. "Free Schools" comes to mind...
Mar 15, 2014 10:27 Report Abuse
Michael Gove is an idiot and Elizabeth Truss is his prophet. The reasons Shanghai schools perform well in maths is because they are well resourced (teachers in Shanghai spend a huge amount of time doing in-service training and are very well paid compared to other places in China), have a positive demographic bias in favour of educated, middle class families and because parents in Shanghai are more likely to send their children to extra curricular tuition to supplement their school studies. If you want to compare apples with apples then you should compare Shanghai's PISA results with selective grammar schools. Do that, and you'll find their lead drops significantly.
Mar 15, 2014 07:53 Report Abuse
Why do I have a feeling Mike Horner is lurking nearby? Seriously though....kissing ass again? Geez, that's low...bloody low...
Mar 14, 2014 22:05 Report Abuse
Interesting considering the CCP recently said in their annual report for last year that 97% of Chinese people do not understand science or technology. I also suspect that maths, as opposed to arithmetic, is of a similar high percentage. Memorisation of what the teacher says does not equate to fully understanding any subject.
Mar 14, 2014 20:21 Report Abuse
Sign up with
Google
(
(