<p>Thanks for the replies guys. American primary and secondary education are definitely lagging, but our universities are still wonderful. But as to the claim that Chinese students on average do better than American <a href=“World education rankings - Google Sheets”>World education rankings - Google Sheets;
This chart only includes Shanghai, Hong-kong, and Macao for some reason, and yes, the students in Shanghai and Hong-Kong are indeed leaps and bounds above the average American student, but I wonder how the statistics would be if every Chinese 15 year old student were factored in, including those not from big cities or urban areas, who are less likely to have access to world-class education. I’m not somebody who blindly defends all things American out of ignorance and patriotism, but, correct me if I’m wrong, we’re so exposed to the excellence of the best Chinese students that we automatically assume all of them do that well, which may not be the case. The fact that population creates competition is definitely true, but what about the students in more rural areas, who weren’t tested in this ranking so we can’t find a true comparison of the “average” Chinese student. We see so many above average and exemplary Chinese students because of the fact that there’s so many of them so there’s a higher chance that one of them will win an international competition or be recognized for performing groundbreaking research or something like that. What I’m trying to say is, could our perception of Chinese students be because we’re always seeing the cream of the crop, or are they truly all that brilliant on average. If anybody finds something about a national ranking of China and not just these cities I’d love to see it. </p>
<p>Ok, now about Asian education systems. Being Asian, the whole emphasis on memorization thing is definitely true of other Asian countries, not just China. Also, I don’t know if it’s just in my country, but most, if not all, students have to attend weekend and afterschool tutoring sessions lest they fall behind their classmates, even though this is not legally required or anything. Just thought that was interesting.</p>