School+in+China



// **__The things we know about schools in China:__** // // The children learn characters or phrases rather than an alphabet. // // The children in China go to school on Saturday and/or Sunday (sometimes only having one hour to play with their toys). // // Sometimes the mothers go to school with them to make sure that their child is working hard. // // The children attend school for up to 9 to 12 hours a day // // (1 to 4 hours more than their parents work, 3 to 6 more hours than us). //

// 25% of children in China do not finish primary school because the lack of money in the families and in the school system. // // The school system is based on rote-learning. // // The children have to work so hard because they want to get good marks, then they can get into a good high school and university and get a good job. The reason that they have to work so hard is // // because they are competing with 1,000 million people, whereas we only have 4 million people. //



//The children may have table cloths on their school desks and keep them looking beautiful.// // They do not have titles on most of their books, they have a picture inst ead. // // They have their names on their pencil cases, like us. // // They have wooden floors in their classrooms. We are lucky because we have carpet. // // They have wooden chairs and desks, while ours are plastic. // // The schools in China have special rooms for singing. // // They display the motto of the school above the blackboard. We have a projector and a whiteboard. // // Some of the schools don’t have a uniform. // // Some of the children were able to wear a red necktie to show that they had done well in their // // schooling. // // Their art is not displayed in the classroom. Their walls are just plain brown wood or concrete. // // Their windows are quite small, which makes the classrooms dark and gloomy. // // In China, school begins with 10 minutes of exercise. //