主题：【编辑】美国经济周报2010年9月第1期 -- 南方有嘉木
China’s Ivy League is no place for peasants.
by Isaac Stone Fish
August 21, 2010
As China tries to graduate from the world’s factory to a nation with a strong middle class, its peasants still aren’t ready to make the leap. According to official statistics, China’s urban-rural income gap reached 3.33:1 in 2009, the widest since 1978, if not before. And as the gap increases, poor peasants are becoming marginalized in higher education, closing off one of their best opportunities for advancement. The trend is particularly alarming in Tsinghua and Peking universities, known as China’s MIT and Harvard respectively for their places atop China’s academic totem pole.
Students enrolling in those schools (both of which have some 30,000 students total) this September will find themselves in the overwhelming company of their urban peers. The most recent statistics published by China’s state-owned media showed that of China’s top two schools, Peking University had a rural population of 16.3 percent in 1999 (down from 50 percent to 60 percent in the 1950s), while Tsinghua University had a rural population of 17.6 percent in 2000. Both figures are from the most recent years in which any sort of dependable data have been published; experts and students alike agree that the numbers have shrunk even further since then. Pan Wei, a professor at the school of international studies at PKU, told the blog The China Beat that the number might be as low as 1 percent—a shocking statistic considering that more than half of China’s population is rural. “We can hardly find anyone here with a rural household registration,” Pan told NEWSWEEK. Media-relations officers at both schools did not answer calls for comment.
Across China, peasants make up 56 percent of the college-age population but only 50 percent of university students, mostly concentrated in China’s vocational schools or less prestigious universities. Yet the very top schools are the most skewed toward city residents. Why can’t peasants make it into elite universities? “Every rural area in China, including the outskirts of Beijing, lacks the educational resources of urban areas,” says Liu Hong, executive director of Peer China, a nonprofit organization that focuses on bringing educational equality to Chinese
Traditionally, entrance to a university depended solely on an applicant’s score on a standardized test, called the Gaokao. But over the last five years or so, “China went into a different system that relied less on the Gaokao and started to allow for more monkeying with the system,” says James Z. Lee, dean of humanities and social science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. “If you’re fluent in French, you have a better chance of getting into a good university in China; that used to not be the case.” In other words, Chinese schools are copying Western ones that consider applicants in a more holistic way as they try to nurture well-rounded individuals instead of ace test takers. Yet, Liu says, “focusing on individuals widens the gap between urban and rural, because teachers in rural areas” can’t offer their students nearly as well-rounded an education as their urban counterparts can.
The problems with peasant education are manifest. Farming villages aren’t great places to live, so they have a tough time attracting good teachers. In the experience of one educational NGO worker who works in rural China and asked to remain anonymous because of a company policy not to criticize China to the media, “Many teachers in rural areas who have college degrees actually only have them from continuing-education programs, which don’t really provide an education.” The aid worker described visiting rural schools and asking principals how many of their teachers have been to university: “The principals will say 100 percent, but if you dig a little deeper you’ll find out that something like 20 percent have gone to university and the remaining 80 percent have degrees from these short-term programs.” Unsurprisingly, English-language teaching is especially bad. Although it’s required, Liu points out, “the middle-school English education is next to nothing; even the best students will have to have thorough remedial work in catch-up English.”
What’s more, as wages continue to rise, the opportunity cost for peasants to leave high school and enter the work force skyrockets. Good high schools can cost $3,000 for three years, and a high-school-age laborer can earn $150 a month; that’s a cost differential of about $8,400—a fortune for poor peasant families.
Public health is another part of the problem that affects the poorer half of peasants, who make up about 28 percent of China’s college-eligible population. Scott Rozelle, codirector of the Rural Education Action Project at Stanford University, points to health problems, such as 40 percent anemia rates among poor and rural Chinese children—and the failure of the Ministry of Education to provide nutritious lunch programs. A spokesman for the ministry, asked about nutritious lunches, told NEWSWEEK to “get in touch directly with various schools in China, since China has so many schools and the conditions are different.”
A bureaucratic gap between the responsibilities of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education exacerbates the health problems of poor students. “There is not one school in a poor area that has a nurse, and there’s no budget for health exams,” says Rozelle. “We asked a thousand principals in poor schools the rate of anemia among their students, and 82 percent said, ‘What’s anemia?’ ” Anemia significantly drags down test results not only of students with the disease but also of their peers, because students with anemia tend to disrupt classroom learning.
An urbanite from Hebei province, Shi Shuo graduated from Tsinghua University in 2008 with a major in art design. “I think the number of peasant students definitely dropped in the four years I was there,” he says. “As resources become more and more concentrated into the hands of people with power and money, it’s more and more difficult for regular families to get into elite universities.” In the topsy-turvy Mao era, students carried their peasant background with pride, and elite universities were full of peasants. In a speech last year, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao mused about how when he attended university “almost 80 percent, or even higher, of my classmates were from peasant villages.” Yet as China’s economy started growing in the late 1970s, and wealth became more and more concentrated in urban areas, poverty and agriculture became symbols of an impoverished, out-of-touch China that many of its urbanites are happy to have moved beyond. “I live in a dorm, and all of my roommates are from urban backgrounds,” says Li Xiao, a rising junior at PKU. Li says that of all the kids she knows at school, just three or five admitted to having rural backgrounds; maybe more came from the country “but they’re ashamed to speak about it.”
China’s education system, where peasants can get a rudimentary education before populating thousands of factories along its eastern coast, suited it when the country sought to be the world’s sweatshop. “At the same level of development in their history, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. had practically full enrollments in high school,” says Rozelle. By contrast, only 60 percent to 70 percent of China’s current high-school-age students are in high school. Yet factory jobs will continue to migrate to places like India. Wages in China will continue to rise. And as long as China finds no better way to educate its rural poor, it’s staring down a future with a 100 million-strong underclass.
在学校里带大四学生毕业设计，一个很聪明的小伙子说打算在实验室里留一年不去找工作，我问他为啥，他说学费没交齐，毕业证拿不到。我大惊失色，因为知道他父亲是高校教师，难道这高知家庭的孩子也会交不起一所重点大学的学费？他说确实交不起，就因为跟姐姐俩人一起念书，妈妈下岗了。
另一方面，由于有一些农村的亲戚，可以证实这些年农村的生活水平确实有较大提高。
本届治下，比较loser的或许要数城市贫民和下中产了？
也是因为交不起学费拿不到毕业证书。另外农村的生活水平确实提高很快，可是和城市居民相比差距还是越来越大了。个别地区不能代表整体。
loser主要是城市中拿死工资的。
本帖一共被 3 帖 引用 (帖内工具实现)
我老家在湖南乡村。乡里的劳动人口主要以两种方式谋生。
年轻人和一部分中年人都在长三角和珠三角，或打工或做生意，总体而言日子过得都不错，从这些年居住条件的变化就可以看出。现在的农村的房子动辄三层，外墙贴砖，合金门窗等，没有个三十来万下不来。
另一部分中年人在家，去竹场到附近的小矿上都能挣得上钱，矿工现在一个班可以拿到200元了。
可以说，在农村只要有劳动力、肯吃苦，今年来日子都过得不错。但另外一个现象却是，劳动所得大部分都消耗在房子上边，真正存起来的不多。而很多中年人十年之内基本会丧失承受挖矿等高强度工作的能力，年轻人很多还缺乏扛起一个家庭的能力，未来不算乐观。
另一个比较严重的问题是，随着农民的富有，社会道德却基本丧失。年轻女性在外边做皮肉生意的不在少数。闲暇时乡亲之间除了赌博没有其他娱乐活动，且赌博的金额越来越大。
阶级的划分不以地域或者居住地为标准，而以是否掌握生产资料为标准。农村的情况，只要是有孩子读书，或者家里有人生了大病，一般生活水平也就只能是不饿死的样子。
老马丁叔叔曾讲到，下层出身的孩子向上的道路会越来越艰难。想到我在大学时候的生活，确实不假。没有条件，没有方向，茫然四顾，生活学习身心疲惫，思想和行为模式脱离社会主流。当时很恶毒的想到，希望工程把落后地区的孩子送到中学大学，也许并不一定能够帮助他们。
物质生活极大丰富之后，却发现所有的东西都消费不起了。这真是一个讽刺。据个人观察，很多企业事业在过去十多年间并不缺钱，但就是没有提高工人的基本工资，宁愿用非物资福利比如旅游，发放购物券等东西来刺激员工。
清华北大在北京招生的分数不高，但都是北京户口的城市学生。
在外省招的，都是分数相当高，例如集中在全省前100名。以前清华北大的招生优势没有那么明显，可能是从前1000名中录取。
考到全省前100名，可能99%都是城里重点中学的城市学生。如果是前1000名，那就可能有10%的农村学生。也有可能考到前100名的农村学生，上别的好大学也就接受了，报清华北大怕招不上，又怕别的好大学也不收，就放弃报清华北大了。而排前100的城市学生信心足一些，非去清华北大的气势更足。
由于扩大招生，如果看一般的重点大学，我相信这个数据就不会这么变态。农村学生上大学，甚至上重点大学，应该比以前容易。但要上清华北大，那就比以前困难。因为城市里的顶尖学生忽然对清华北大发生了变态的兴趣，而以前趣向是较为分散的，所以，留给农村学生的机会少了。
这是我的一个估计，没数据，胡想的。
且慢为这一数字乐观，因为韩进又接着说了，我们的高等教育有本科、专科、高职。作为教育部发展规划司司长，他也只能“估计”：农村学生录取到高职的比例会高于录取到本科的比例。值得注意的是，今年毕业的610万大学生，其中高职院校毕业生约占一半。考虑到高职院校依然“低人一等”的地位，我“估计”这部分学生绝大多数来自农村。
再“估计”一下：为数众多的、位于二三线城市的地方本科院校，可能也成了农村生源的主要聚集地。如此，我们还能为“农村大学生录取比例高于城市学生”感到乐观吗？
此外，在高考加分政策面前，农村学生也同样处于极不利的位置。我“估计”在每年享受高考加分鼓励的学生中，农村生源仍然占少数。
首先，从加分项目的设置来看，就对他们明显不利。比如需要在各类赛事中获得奖项：全国中学生学科奥赛、全国青少年科技创新大赛、“明天小小科学家”奖励活动、全国中小学电脑制作活动等等。农村学生即使有获奖的天赋，也会受困于师资等教育资源而无缘这些机会。至于能够加分的“归侨、华侨子女”，你认为他们会是农村户籍吗？
其次，城市的重点高中往往能得到更多的加分指标，比如北京某中学某班竟有大约一半学生能获得加分资格。而且，一些高考加分项目沦为了权力和金钱寻租的对象，农村学生的家长自然鲜有这种能耐。
前阵子闹得沸沸扬扬的“高考体育加分”丑闻，越是原本成绩就好的孩子“体育加分”的比例反而越高。都是航模啊武术啊什么的，而且都是“XX市比赛XX赛区第几名”之类的加分理由，基本上就是交钱买加分（比如航模，有些城市交大概不到2万参加培训，就能保证获得加分）。如果一个农村孩子和一个城市孩子高考原始成绩一样，城市孩子的这个加分就把农村孩子给挤下去了。
我孩子的中学，有一些外地来京的特级中学教师，同样在我们老家江苏的县级市，也听到省中的XXX老师被南京XX中学看中，调南京去了。我听到一些原因很意外，其中最多的是这些老师自己的孩子能够跟着父母去这些高层次的中学或进大城市！因为这些有名望老师自己应该在本地日子过得很滋润了。
另一方面，现在教育非常市场化，城市的孩子可以通过补课的方式提高自己的学习成绩，象我们自己的孩子现在花钱很少了，一年也得大于5000以上用于竞赛辅导等。农村的孩子既没有人力资源又没有经济资源要走到金字塔顶端太艰难了。
比较一下过去考状元，一般要有好的启蒙老师或者父辈的考试经验会有一定优势，但教材(四书五经等等)，相差不会太大。其余就靠先天智力与刻苦用功就行了。所以现在的农村孩子上清华北大比古时候中状元可能还要难。
我现在想想都觉得很幸运，我自己来自农村小镇，我们考大学时粉碎四人帮不久，大家肚子里都没货，我们能拿到文革前高中课本就幸福死了，我们老师很多都是文革高中毕业生，他们中的一些人也参加考试都没我考得高。大家在差不多的起跑线上冲刺，我们班上有四个人考进了大学本科，我和我的好朋友都进了重点大学，现在我的中学母校还在，但学生基本上很少能考到一本的大学了。
其本来的意图早已变质了，现在多成了社会不公＋腐败的温床之一了。