Children need to be guided and told repeatly that academic excellence leads to a better lifestyle and better opportunities. Its frustrating for the parents to be consistently behind their children, making sure that their homework is done every night. For the parents who are persistent, the rewards and pride of seeing their children succeed in careers and happiness is priceless.

Pass it on,

Dr Anthony

Yepod    

This article titled “Hidden tigers: why do Chinese children do so well at school?” was written by Warwick Mansell, for The Guardian on Monday 7th February 2011 17.01 UTC

It seems a hugely under-researched phenomenon within English education. But Jessie Tang thinks she has the answer.

“It’s mostly the parents. Chinese parents tend to push their children a lot, and have really high expectations. I think it’s maybe because they did not have the opportunities that we have these days. They want us to take advantage of them.”

Jessie, 18, an A-level student at Watford grammar school for girls, whose father arrived in England from Hong Kong, was being asked about what seems an amazing success story buried and barely commented upon within English schools’ results.

The statistics relate to the achievement of pupils of Chinese ethnicity, revealed last autumn in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on inequality in Britain.

This showed not only that British Chinese youngsters are the highest performing ethnic group in England at GCSE, which has been known for years. It also showed that this group seemed to be singularly successful in achieving that goal of educational policy-makers everywhere: a narrow performance gap between those from the poorest homes, and the rest.

Further evidence of the success of pupils of Chinese heritage came through the world’s most well-known international testing study, Pisa. This found 15-year-olds from Shanghai, China, easily outperforming those of all other nationalities.

The domestic statistics show that, at GCSE, children of Chinese ethnicity – classed simply as “Chinese” in the data – who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) perform better than the national average for all pupils, rich and poor.

Not only that, but FSM Chinese pupils do better than those of most other ethnic backgrounds, even when compared with children from better-off homes (those not eligible for free school meals).

A detailed look at the figures makes this clearer. Some 71% of Chinese FSM pupils achieved five good GCSEs, including English and maths, in 2009. For non-FSM Chinese pupils, the figure was 72%.

Every other ethnic group had a gap of at least 10 percentage points between children who do not count as eligible for free meals, and those who do. The gap for white pupils stood at 32 percentage points.

In 2010, the picture changed slightly, with the gap between Chinese FSM pupils (68%) and their non-FSM peers (76%) increasing to eight points. But it still compared very favourably with the equivalent gulf among white pupils, which was 33 percentage points.

In primary schools, the picture is similar. Remarkably, in 2009, in English key stage 2 tests, Chinese FSM pupils outperformed not just their counterparts from other ethnic groups – easily outstripping white children – but even Chinese pupils not eligible for free meals.

Michael Gove, the education secretary, told his party conference last autumn that the performance of FSM pupils as a whole was a “reproach to our conscience”. So what do Chinese pupils have going for them that other children do not?

Anyone investigating this subject will be struck by the limited research available. Only one academic team seems to have looked into British Chinese pupils’ experience in detail in recent years.

The team, who interviewed 80 Chinese pupils, 30 Chinese parents and 30 teachers in 2005, identified several factors behind the success, although they stress that not all British Chinese pupils achieve. One explanation, though, shines through their findings.

Becky Francis, a visiting professor at King’s College London, director of education at the Royal Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: “Our main argument is that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of differentiating themselves not just within their own group, but from other ethnic groups as well.”

Recent coverage of Amy Chua’s book on “tiger parenting”, Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother, has also focused attention on parenting styles promoting achievement in children of Chinese ethnicity.

The argument that Chinese families put especial value on education is sensitive territory, of course, as most parents would profess a commitment to helping their child do well. Academics also stress that the numbers of pupils classed as “Chinese” are small – only 2,236 took GCSEs last year, from a total cohort of nearly 600,000 – and results should be interpreted cautiously.

However, there is tentative evidence, both from interviews with parents and from analyses of background values existing in Chinese culture, that family commitment to education is particularly strong.

Some 13 of the 30 British Chinese parents interviewed said their children were also being educated at Chinese “supplementary schools”. These offer tuition in Chinese language and culture at the weekends.

Several of the parents also said they paid for tutoring outside school hours. Researchers found that among British Chinese families this was not related to social class: a number of working-class parents paid for this, too.

Asked to respond to the question “Is education important?”, all 80 pupils agreed. High parental expectations also seem to have been a factor in many – though not all – children’s experiences.

One pupil is quoted saying: “My parents expect me to get the best grades. And if I don’t, then they’ll continuously nag at me to do better … Like if I get a B, they’ll be like, ‘Why didn’t you get an A?’”

A paper presented at last year’s British Educational Research Association conference, covering performance across all ethnic groups, found no link between the occupation of Chinese pupils’ parents and their GCSE scores, unlike for children from all other ethnicities.

Ramesh Kapadia, a visiting professor at London University’s Institute of Education, who presented the paper, says: “I think within Chinese society, there is an emphasis on practice. Children are told: ‘If you want to learn something, practise, practise and practise it again and you will get better’. It may be that this helps to motivate pupils when the rewards can seem a long way away.”

There is a mixed picture overall, though, as to how far this school success is being translated into employment prospects. The Equality and Human Rights Commission report found that British Chinese men and women were twice as likely to be in professional jobs as their white British counterparts. But average earnings remained around 11% lower throughout the population than for those classed as “white Christian”.

Whether the Chinese experience can be replicated among other pupils is debatable. Some might see evidence that Chinese families emphasise hard work, and the results that follow, as simple proof that all can succeed, given the right attitude.

However, Francis says such a view should be treated cautiously, the team’s 2005 paper arguing that “Chinese constructions of ethnic identity and education are very specific”. Much research has shown links, generally, between poverty and underachievement.

Jessie, whose father works in a takeaway restaurant and whose mother, originally from Malaysia, works at Heathrow airport, has 12 GCSEs including six A*s and an offer to read music at Royal Holloway, London. She attended a Chinese supplementary school from the age of five. She says many Chinese families are keen on their children pursuing careers in medicine, so she is “rebelling a bit”, but wanted to pursue a subject she enjoys.

The Department for Education was unable to point to any particular study it has commissioned to look at British Chinese pupils’ success. Given the scale of that success, it seems surprising that the phenomenon has not been investigated further.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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