Kindergartens in county towns are divided into two categories, mainly private and supplemented by public ones. However, in the minds of most county residents, education is king. There are only two public kindergartens in the county where the author is located, and the scarce educational resources in the early childhood education stage are particularly precious in the county. Every year, the enrollment of these two public kindergartens has to pass the regional lottery to qualify for admission. At this time of the year, all kinds of parents will use all their human and financial resources to win the admission qualification of a public kindergarten for their children. It seems that for these parents who spare no effort to let their children go to public kindergartens, going to public kindergartens is like an affirmation of their identity.
In primary school, schools in county towns are mainly public, but public schools are also divided into three grades due to factors such as teachers, teaching quality and campus hardware conditions. It is this substantial difference that makes it difficult to enroll in primary education and the class size is large, which always affects the nerves of thousands of parents and education administrators in Qian Qian. Every year, educational administrators are trying to change the balance of educational resources and break the situation that one school dominates the whole school. The policies and rules that managers come up with are not worth mentioning in the county network. Parents in the county will go beyond the rules and break through the policies one by one every year, and their children will still enter the super universities one by one. The number of the best primary schools in my county has exceeded 6,000, with an average of 70 to 80 students in each class.
The implementation of nine-year compulsory education has lightened the burden of many families. The comprehensive acceptance of primary school graduates in junior high schools also enables many students to spend their adolescence completely on campus. Because junior high school faces the pressure of entering a higher school, the senior high school entrance examination determines whether you can go to high school or not. Choosing a good class and a good teacher for children's junior high school has become a critical period for parents to use the internet. Without exception, colleagues around me began to find a good teacher in junior high school in the first day of junior high school, which teacher had more exams, and then sent their children to a good teacher to make up lessons in the summer vacation after graduation from grade six. Just to get into this teacher's class and be officially admitted.
Graduation from junior high school is a small watershed in life. Some children go to high school, some children go to vocational schools, and some children go to society. Therefore, the choices made in this small critical period will make children have different lives, and the unremitting efforts of parents in the county town for vocational education also make the vocational education in the county town face the common phenomenon of difficult enrollment and poor students. In the county, the loss of students is obvious. In the past, most of the top students in county middle schools went to school in the county. Now, most of the top students go to prefecture-level cities or provincial capitals, and most of the top students left behind are former "middle students". This is called "pinching the tip" of big cities to small counties. There are two high schools and a vocational school in the county where the author lives. Being able to go to No.1 Middle School in the county is the guarantee for many parents to let their children enter a good university. It is this kind of solid thinking that for parents of students who have no senior high school entrance examination, it is their only hope to let their children choose a school to go to No.1 Middle School. The annual school selection fee of County No.1 Middle School is tens of thousands, and the quota is limited, with only 200 to 300 places per year. Every summer vacation, No.1 Middle School will announce the specific application date and specific pricing rules first. Therefore, it is also an important event in the county to apply for school selection qualification in No.1 Middle School every year. You will see that some parents come to the entrance of No.1 Middle School at several o'clock in the morning and start to line up, just to ensure that their children can go to No.1 Middle School and get the guarantee of being admitted to a good university in their minds. As an educator, the author especially lamented that in this era when reading can change the fate, is reading really the only way for Qian Qian's parents?
In the county, many training institutions have blossomed everywhere, including art classes, dance classes, eloquence classes, calligraphy classes and piano classes. Good and bad are mixed, but it still attracts many anxious parents. At the end of school, the "Don't let the children lose at the starting line" on the leaflet of the training institution still affects the parents' nerves all the time.
The author always laments when education began and its meaning is so narrow. When is the only road to success in front of children "reading"? Whenever choosing schools and teachers, parents will be so troubled.
What happened to education? Or have we misunderstood the purpose of education?