Beijing school puts students on a fast track
Print Edition
For over 30 years, a Beijing high school has identified gifted students and placed them on a fast track so they can sit the college entrance exams when they are around 14 years old.
Beijing No. 8 High School selects around 30 students from thousands of 10-year-olds who must pass IQ, knowledge and personality tests before being accepted for a four-year program.
Of the first class in 1985, 19 are now involved in research, nine are professors and five are in professions such as medicine, according to Wang Juncheng, the school’s president.
When asked whether the classes rush gifted students and deprive them of in-depth knowledge, Wang said: “The students are quick learners and they cope very well at this pace. For this kind of children, ordinary classes can be boring and detrimental to their enthusiasm.”
Despite the success of the program, not everyone is a fan of accelerated education and there have been claims that the classes run counter to educational equality, as superior resources are assigned to gifted students.
Wang said that treating students equally does not mean treating them the same. “Forcing every student to learn the same things at the same pace may seem like equality to some, but it is unfair to exceptional students.”
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