“Tuition doesn’t necessarily create successful people. It creates successful test-takers.”
Well, there’s some truth in there. That’s the strange thing about taking a test. When it becomes the main thing, where all our successes are measured by it, it ironically fails to measure what it was designed in the first place to measure.
It is either the wrong benchmark to start with, like a ladder that leans on the wrong side of the wall. Or, it is no doubt a useful benchmark, but in an unequal society, the rule of the game gets rigged by those who can afford it to the advantage of their kids at the expense of other kids whose parents are unable to afford it.
The reality is, as a nation, we are obsessed with measuring intelligence (because we think that is the most practical way to success). But it is the kind of intelligence that mainly aces academic assessments. It is to some extent one-dimensional (though I don’t deny its positive spillover effect). And no use denying it anyway, for that piece of paper generally determines where our kid will end up. Most times, grades are destiny.
Now, let me say that I have nothing against tuition. My kids go for tuition, selectively of course, that is, not all subjects. If you get a good one, you can see how they progressively improve. It works and it produces tangible, measurable results too. Most relevantly, it meets the benchmark set by a fiercely meritocratic society.
But, another reality is, the multi-billion tuition industry (in China, the investment reached $100b) is a creation of decades-long state policy. And that’s the busy hand of the market working its magic too. For where there is profit to be had, you can expect savvy businessmen to dive into it.
And you may have regulations to ring-fence it, but human ingenuity, driven by a market mindset, will always find ways to thrive by poking those regulation loopholes (that is why President Xi is going cold turkey on them, forcing them to turn into a non-profit industry, thereby radically pulling the bling out of their zing).
In any event, such relationship between a meritocratic state and its tuition industry is like the symbiotic relationship between the Nile Crocodile and the Egyptian plover or the Water Buffalo and the Oxpecker.
Plover birds settle comfortably in the open mouth of crocodiles to pick up meat stuck in their teeth. The Crocs get a free cleaning and the plover, well, free lunch.
Same here with Buffalo and Oxpecker. The former allows the latter to nestle on them so that they pick up tics for food. For the Buffalo, it’s free grooming.
So it is with the meritocratic state and its tuition industry - you provide the private education to the kids for a profit and I collect taxes from your gains. That kind of mutuality often goes unchecked because who wants to rock the boat when both are profiting from it, right?
But overtime, both suffer from the myopia of excesses. That is where that quote comes in - “Tuition doesn’t necessarily create successful people. It creates successful test-takers.”
When the test becomes the rule, the rule is inevitably stretched beyond proportionality. That’s where a deleterious form of obsession comes in and turns a noble industry into a race of intense competition just to meet ever-higher bar of academic excellence, thereby turning frantic registrations by parents who can afford into insane profit for the industry.
The collateral (or actual) damage? Well, it is usually the kids who are unwittingly turned into a means to an idolised end.
Sure, the result is glorious, and those who are given heaps of tuition due to a socioeconomic advantage over the poorer kids will reap the full benefits. But what you eventually get from the myopia of excesses is an even more unequal society blighted by a gnawing misattribution, that is, one where we equate success with a one-trick pony, leaving all other equally worthy skills or talent by the wayside to fend for themselves.
That kind of intense competition, like baby and the bathwater, tends to sideline those late bloomers indiscriminately, leaving a broken trail of potentially good achievers behind because they are seen as under-performers. You can thus see how some kids at that age under such stress and pressure can find life so meaninglessly bleak.
Oh, before I forget, and before I drone further along by myself, the quote and the thought above are inspired by the article below written by former teacher Ng Shi Wen and Assoc Professor Gerard Sasges. It’s a thought-provoking article. Read it if you have time. A good morning digest if you are a parent.
Going back, truly, every life has a lifelong capacity to grow. Underscore “lifelong”. Different kid, different leap. For some take the leap earlier, others later. And they all cover different distances in this lifelong journey. It’s no competition here.
And like they said, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. That’s another good quote for our society, especially the state, to bear in mind.
Our children are born to excel at a pace that is not determinedly uniform. They are not cogwheels in an assembly line going at a pace preset against an unsympathetic meritocratic stopwatch. They are human beings yearning to connect, grow and explore with our understanding and support.
Alas, we tend to celebrate youthful success but forget that true and enduring success comes to many at different ages. We should therefore celebrate ageless success too. And with a kinder clock of development, we, as a society, can go farther, much farther, because it is not about going at it alone, leaving many behind, but travelling together, leaving none behind.
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