'Power worship' culture prevalent
Source: Xinhua |
November 15, 2010, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ON a late October afternoon, Duo Duo went to the railway station after her primary school classes ended, instead of going home as usual.
Her plan to run away was foiled when police in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, noticed the fifth-grader and took her home.
Duo Duo's attempt to join China's army of street children was prompted by her failure to become class monitor - an ambition that her father describes as an "obsession."
Despite getting good grades since starting school and being a class representative in several disciplines, she was not satisfied and had always wanted to be the monitor.
But competition for the post was keen.
"We would have liked her to become the monitor, but we are worried that she is kind of obsessed," Duo Duo's father says.
However, her ambition is not exceptional in China's primary schools. A survey by Beijing-based newspaper Legal Evening News last month found 90 percent of 180 interviewed first-grade students wanted to be "officials" in their classes, and 70 percent aspired to be the monitor.
In China's schools, each class usually has a committee, headed by a monitor, whose members are chosen from outstanding students to help teachers administer the class. The committee is appointed by the head teacher or be elected by fellow students.
A monitor or other class committee members have the authority to keep order when the teacher is absent and to punish troublemakers or recommend teachers to punish them, and often get preferential treatment from teachers.
Sociologists and experts believe the widespread obsession reflects the culture of "power worship" in the world's most populous country.
The Chinese have traditionally valued official rank. A saying in the Analects of Confucius, the collection of the words and acts of Confucius, famously goes, "He who excels in study can follow an official career."
The tradition still exists. China's 2011 national civil service examination to select government employees attracted 1.3 million qualified applicants, but only one in every 65 is expected to get a civil service job.
Some pupils surveyed by the newspaper described class official posts as "awesome" because class officials "govern people."
Her plan to run away was foiled when police in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, noticed the fifth-grader and took her home.
Duo Duo's attempt to join China's army of street children was prompted by her failure to become class monitor - an ambition that her father describes as an "obsession."
Despite getting good grades since starting school and being a class representative in several disciplines, she was not satisfied and had always wanted to be the monitor.
But competition for the post was keen.
"We would have liked her to become the monitor, but we are worried that she is kind of obsessed," Duo Duo's father says.
However, her ambition is not exceptional in China's primary schools. A survey by Beijing-based newspaper Legal Evening News last month found 90 percent of 180 interviewed first-grade students wanted to be "officials" in their classes, and 70 percent aspired to be the monitor.
In China's schools, each class usually has a committee, headed by a monitor, whose members are chosen from outstanding students to help teachers administer the class. The committee is appointed by the head teacher or be elected by fellow students.
A monitor or other class committee members have the authority to keep order when the teacher is absent and to punish troublemakers or recommend teachers to punish them, and often get preferential treatment from teachers.
Sociologists and experts believe the widespread obsession reflects the culture of "power worship" in the world's most populous country.
The Chinese have traditionally valued official rank. A saying in the Analects of Confucius, the collection of the words and acts of Confucius, famously goes, "He who excels in study can follow an official career."
The tradition still exists. China's 2011 national civil service examination to select government employees attracted 1.3 million qualified applicants, but only one in every 65 is expected to get a civil service job.
Some pupils surveyed by the newspaper described class official posts as "awesome" because class officials "govern people."
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