Another View

Sunday, December 07, 2008 04:16 AM

Opinion250 has invited Ning Ma, a Chinese student studying English at UNBC, to write a weekly article for us. We thought this would be helpful to Ning as he strives to improve his English skills, and helpful to us as we can see how others view Prince George, B.C. and Canada. Consider this an educational opportunity for all involved, and that is why we won't be inviting comment on this weekly submission. We are interested in your thoughts on things Ning should experience and write about. We are also providing the same article in Mandarin as an opportunity for Ning's family and friends to learn more about us.

Please send your ideas to talk@opinion250.com and we will be certain to pass them along to Ning.

-Elaine Macdonald

I came to UNBC three months ago and have a lot of thoughts about my experiences so far. At the beginning, I entered the school and could not find the road.

Now I am familiar with several of the university program buildings and I feel a lot of enjoyment about UNBC. Gradually I adapted to the everyday routine of going to school, studying in class, going home after school, resting and other things. My experiences have taught me that Canada and China have a lot of differences in their education systems.

China and Canada all are vast countries, but China has a population of more than one billion and the Canadian population is just thirty million. This condition makes the two countries have different education environments. Obviously the Chinese competitive social and economic pressures are much stronger than in Canada because more people will increase the demand for jobs, houses, food, and good education

In China education is exam-oriented and almost all children have a rigorous study discipline in school. I struggled with my homework, which seemed endless, during my primary school years. At junior high school (age 12-15) I usually did my homework from 5:00pm to 10:30pm every day. In high school (age 15-18) I went to a boarding-school on the advice of my parents because the school was very well-known throughout my province.

In China the reputation of the school is most important so good school make students work hard. My high school uses a quasi-military way of administration. Students must get up at 5:30am and go to bed at 10:30pm. Students have little time to rest, maybe one hour a day, but most students use this time to study. From Monday morning to Sunday noon, students must work according to a schedule of teaching, study and rest. Students can only go out of school to buy some daily necessities on Sunday afternoon. Chinese students study very hard under this strong pressure.

Chinese people view the Canadian education system as having high quality because it balances technical and life learning. In Prince George I found that, because the pressure of life islittle, many people don’t need to strive to a very high degree like in China. Almost all of the people I met are very friendly and hard-working for other things in life though, like painting and cutting grass. When I was in primary school I heard that foreign children go to school very easily and I was envious at that time. Now I found that, in fact, Canadian children did not use all their time at mathematics, physics, and chemistry on other subjects, but they learned a lot of life skills and did many exercises. Of course, this is a basic need of a human’s life and will help people in the future.

Chinese education specialists wanted to change the system by adding life skills to technical studies and the Chinese Ministry of Education promoted this about ten years ago. The plan however, was boycotted because in Chinese society competition for good schools is very, very high and students need to learn a strong work ethic. For example in my province，because the Chinese population is very high, only 23 percent of high school students can enter universities each year. However, many university students can not find a job after graduation. Therefore, Chinese parents have generally resisted the plan for life skills education because they worry about their children not working hard enough to be leading the competition for education and jobs.

In Prince George I often saw little Canadian boys playing ball and was very envious them because when I was their age I was studying all of the time. When I was in primary school I felt a little hate because my school did not give me a happy childhood and made me work very hard. Of course, hard work also gave me a good mark in my studies. Sometimes I worry that Asian students, who come to Canada and have a very strong work ethic, will become the first choice for Canadian employers. This might make finding good jobs difficult for Canadian students in the future.

I am pleased that UNBC is the second best small university in Canada. UNBC has big achievements in such a short time and I think the people of Prince George should be proud of it. But UNBC also needs to continue to struggle to grow UNBC’s reputation internationally because it is still young. I hope China will know about UNBC’s good reputation by the time I gradate because, again, in China the reputation of university is more important than marks.

UNBC should care more about the quality of international students so that when they come to they home country they will tell their friends UNBC is a very good university. This will grow the number of students at UNBC.

I like UNBC, the teachers are very nice and the school has very complete modern equipment. In particular, I like the sports center because it is one of the most modern sports centers I ever saw. I usually exercise when I am not busy. I wish UNBC will getting better and better and create more victory.

Even education in Canada and China are different, but both of them cultivate many talents. If the countries can study the merit of each other, each country’s education system will become better and better.

中国和加拿大不同的教育

来到加拿大近三个月来，对于UNBC的感受真的很多。从一开始进入学校找不到路，到现在对各个部门了如指掌，自己也感觉到对UNBC亲切了许多。自己也渐渐适应了每天上学，上课，下学，休息这样的轮回。回头看看在中国的求学之路，真的发现了加拿大和中国教育上很多的很大的不同。

中国和加拿大多都广袤的国家，但是中国有着十三亿人口，加拿大只有三千万人口，这就注定了两个国家的社会环境是不一样的。很明显中国在就业上竞争压力要比加拿大强得多。

在中国，教育是应试型教育。几乎所有的孩子从进入学校就开始了很严格的学习，我从小学一年级就开始与无尽的家庭作业做斗争。等到初中毕业时基本上每天做家庭作业就要到十点半以后.

高中我在父母的建议下去了一所全省有名的寄宿式中学，进行半军事化的学习生活，每天从早晨五点半到晚上十点半，除了吃饭和学习几乎没有任何别的时间。周一到周日上午完全要按照学校的时间表在学校内进行学习和休息，周日下午才有半天的时间走出校门买一些生活用品。所以在如此的强压下，中国的学生大多学习非常努力。

加拿大的教育在中国人眼里是素质型教育。在乔治王子，我发现这里因为生活竞争压力小所以很多人对更高等的教育的渴望比较小。但是这里的人都很勤劳，友好。我小学时就听说过外国的小孩子上学很轻松，我很羡慕。现在发现其实外国的孩子只是没有把时间完全用在数学，物理，化学这样的科目上，他们的学习是在学习生活中的技能，培养好的身体，当然这是一个人生活的基本，也是未来人生的发展打下了坚定的基础。

有关应试和素质教育的问题在中国争论了好几年了，最后得出了素质教育发展更全面的结论。然后中国教育部向社会推广素质教育，但是计划被全社会普遍抵制了。因为中国社会的竞争压力没有变，我的省每年只有百分之二十三的高中生能进入大学，然而很多大学生毕业后根本找不到工作。所以，中国的家长们普遍的抵制了这个计划，因为他们担心现在他们的孩子玩在玩的时候，会被别人的孩子超过。

以前天不太冷的时候坐公交车回家，经常看见一些小男孩在玩球。我很是羡慕，回想自己的小学，心里挺恨它的，因为它没有给我快乐的童年，当然它倒是给了我一个不错的成绩。

不过有时我也挺为加拿大的孩子担心，因为现在几乎所有的加拿大大学都可以看见来自亚洲的留学生，很多人都很努力，并且有着不错的成绩，他们其中一些人很有可能会留在加拿大生活，当他们越来越多的时候，加拿大的孩子的工作机会也可能会被冲击吧。

我很高兴UNBC在麦恺林杂志小型大学中排名第二，这是对乔治王子对UNBC多年来建设的肯定，不过我觉得UNBC还要再接再厉才行。因为UNBC的国际影响力还需要提高。

当然我很喜欢UNBC，老师很和蔼，学校硬件也很齐全，尤其是健身中心。我非常喜欢那里它是我见过的最先进设备最齐全的健身中心之一，以前不忙时我经常去那里锻炼一个多小时。祝愿UNBC越来越好创造更多的辉煌。

尽管加拿大和中国的教育体制不同，但是他们都培养了众多的人才，如果他们能互相学习，他们的教育体制会越来越好。

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