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The admissions process now includes live interviews. Photo: Mimi Lau

For Chinese elite private school, straight As aren’t always enough

As the sun rises above Guangzhou’s Yuexiu district on Saturday morning, it’s yet another hectic beginning for mainland pupils battling cut-throat competition over elite school places.

Already a straight-A pupil scoring an average of no less than 290 out of 300 in Chinese, English and maths since Primary One, Lele is also part of her school’s basketball and swimming teams. At just 11, she has already achieved a performance-level of clarinet playing and is a member of the city’s children orchestra.

And that is not enough.

Lele is taking no chances as she is one of the 140,000-plus primary school pupils fighting for scarce places in elite secondary school in September this year. This year is particular challenging as the local education bureau changes admission rules for private secondary schools, replacing written examination with face-to-face interviews, which are happening this month. Public schools would continue to follow the old protocol by allotting places to pupils who live within the school district while considering their average grades in primary schools at the same time.

Watch: Guangzhou students and parents meet new challenge to apply for private secondary schools

“Yuexiu is the heart of Guangzhou’s best schools, the competition is so tough that you really have to be the best of the best in order to stand a chance,” said Lele’s father who was forced to break the family apart in Guangzhou and Xian in the past year. With a master’s degree, he is tasked with preparing Lele academically since Primary Five for secondary school admission while the mother works alone in Xian to provide funding for their daughter’s expensive tuition classes.

Many over-prepared parents have years ago invested in an overpriced property within elite public school districts. To further improve their chances for a school place that could promise university entrance, many pupils applied with outstanding talent achievement in sports, foreign language, music and science along with flying colours in academics.

Elite private schools, which offer nearly 40,000 places, usually would be a back-up option, branches established by the most sought-after public schools. The new change in admission rules is leaving many parents anxious and helpless as many are clueless how their children are going to perform in face-to-face interviews or what questions they would be asked.

Lele’s Saturday usually starts at 8am with an English-language lesson followed by advanced maths at 10.30am. Her father picks her up for lunch and they prepare for a tutorial in Chinese in the afternoon. At 5pm, clarinet practice begins, followed by dinner. Sunday is devoted to the children’s orchestra.

“She is a good pupil. I know I shouldn’t push her like this but as a father, I can not run the risk of her being turned down from an elite school,” he said. “Her classmate scored only 91 per cent in a subject recently and was too frightened to face the parent. You can imagine the kind of torment we are placing on children? What kind of child can score 99 per cent every time?”

He would not give details about how much the family had spent on Lele’s extra classes but a friend of the father’s said she had once spent 100,000 yuan in a single semester. “It seems all the good grades and good school places are piled under stashes of banknotes,” he said.

The shop logo of GRADE A tutorial centre in the heart of the Taojin area in Yuexiu, a prestigious neighbourhood of old Guangzhou, came with bold characters that read: “Operated by six elite school principals”. It’s not hard to see tutorial has become a lucrative business.

“You are literally buying the high scores with money, the earlier you start, the better the results would be,” said a staff member at GRADE A tutorial centre with the interior filled with photos of famous school teachers who work extra on weekend to tutor pupils.

Every 20 sessions of group tutorials at Mos Mathematics training centre from Primary One to Primary Six ranges from 2,000 to 3,000 yuan. Usually parents need to pay up at least 10,000 yuan a month just to cover all subjects and other talent training; some even more if they are looking at higher-end tailored classes.

To prepare for the face-to-face interview, parents of some primary school pupils in Guangzhou are preparing résumés of more than 100 pages for their children amid fierce competition. A report by the Southern Metropolis News said some parents were spending thousands of yuan on the CVs and buying fake certificate to give their child an edge.

“It’s more difficult for primary school pupils to apply for a good middle school this year than it is for college graduates to find a job,” said one mother, Xian.

Xian said the résumé she had prepared for her child included more than 100 glossy pages, half of which featured photographs while the rest were academic certificates and evidence of extracurricular activities and awards. It cost more than 200 yuan to print.

Alice Zhang, a Guangzhou-based educational consultant, said the parents of grade six primary pupils in the city were stressed by changes in applications for secondary schools.

“The Guangzhou Education Bureau decided to cancel written tests for secondary school admission and replace them with face to face interviews instead,” she said.

Zhang added that the change of rule was aiming at reducing pupils’ pressure in handling written examination and allowing schools to focus on their character as well as presentation skills.

Adopting to the new change, some tutorial centre, like the Starlight language art school operated by teachers and journalists, are offering mock interview opportunities for parents and pupils to get a taste of what school place admission will be like. Pupils were seen demonstrating their skills in gymnastics, saxophone and singing, along with solving mathematical questions, speaking in English and interpreting ancient Chinese poems or idioms in front of schoolteachers in the mock interviews.

Nathan Hunt, a native English teacher at a local primary school, said: “I feel that the pressure for Chinese parents is a lot greater. At home in England, it’s not that parents don’t care but they are not so pushy for these things [academic scores], students are encouraged to play a lot more,” Hunt said. “Here in China, many students study outside school on weekends but weekends at home is for play, rest and to have a good time with friends.”

 

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