Liberal Arts And Science -Separation Or Not?
China, like many nations in the world allows students to select whether to pursue a liberal arts or a science focus early in their high school career. Vice Minister of Education, Zhang Xinsheng, recently raised questions about the wisdom of this policy. “It is better to delay the separation of sciences and arts education in high school. Personally, I think students should learn both sciences and arts subjects in senior high school.” The Chinese government will decide before August this year whether to end the practice of students deciding to go in either sciences or the arts streams in Chinese high schools.
Currently, Chinese students decide which stream to pursue in either their first or second year of high school. According to surveys conducted by the Ministry of Education, about 54% of people support the end of the separation of these two streams. In Beijing, applicants to science and engineering programs represented 67.6 % of those taking the national college entrance examination.
It is unclear what would result from ending the separation of students and how it would impact their career choices or needs of China. Some students most probably fear if they are strong in science and weak in the liberal arts or vice versa, delaying the separation will impact their grades as well as effect being accepted to college.
Posted in Curriculum, Students, Teaching | 
Tags: career choices, chinese students, high schools, minister of education, two streams
i choose to study science.i want to study liberal arts,too.but i don’t have so much time.homework is too much,besides,i have to prepare for some science competition.if i win a prize in the competition,i can enter my favorite university easier.all the things i study are not about knowledge,in my opinion,they are about my grades,my future life.someone says the government must change the system of entrance to university.however,i don’t know how can they change it.china has such a big population,things are complicated.it’s hard to figure out a new system to replace the old but rather fair system.