BEIJING â€" The parents at my son’s elite, state elementary school here in Beijing spoke eloquently about the difficulty of choosing a high school in my latest Letter from China. These parents are cosmopolitan, educated Chinese. Some have overseas passports, and quite a few spent years living abroad; they value aspects of both places. All want the best for their kids, but here’s the crunch: they aren’t always sure what the best is when it comes to education.
How do they choose amid competing and very different value systems? It’s less, perhaps, to do with ideology â€" though the state-run system here is heavily ideological in parts â€" than with issues like happiness. Will my child be happy with the long hours of homework each day that Chinese education traditionally demands? Creativity is another major issue: will rote learning be good for my child, or will it take up time better spet on exploring and “blue-sky thinkingâ€? Identity: if my child already has a mixed identity by parentage or having lived overseas, which part do I encourage? Will more, or less, discipline be good for my child? Should my child grow up feeling more Chinese, or more Western?
Somehow, elementary was easy. Choosing a high school feels much more serious.
In different permutations, these concerns are shared by international parents around the world, whether in Beijing or Berlin, Mumbai or Milan. Sometimes a local spouse may have strongly-held opinions that hold sway. But high school leads straight to college, and somehow the choice represents a forking road on which we all fear taking the wrong turn.
International schools that represent a broadly Western education based on liberal values are growing in popularity around the world, according to a recent report by Knight Frank, a real estate consultancy, the 2013 “Global Corporate Lettings†r! eport. That found that in 2012 there was a net increase of 7.7 percent of students attending such schools.
Yet they can be very expensive, often beyond the means of all but a business elite, the independently wealthy or those employed by major corporations on cozy “expat packages.†For the self-employed, artists and other creative-thinking, curious types moving around the world seeking inspiration and cross-cultural fertilization, it’s rarely an option.
In the end, for the cosmopolitan Chinese and non-Chinese parents at my son’s school, it may be a question of how much they want their children to be part of the culture, with all its positives and negatives. Still, perhaps here it’s easier to opt for the fully local option than in some places. After all, these days, having really good Chinese is a draw everywhere, and Chinese people are thinking about that too.
