Education in China and Germany
In recent years, more and more students go abroad for study. Germany is one of the
most important destinations for Chinese students. "There are currently 26,000 Chinese
students in Germany, making up one-tenth of its international student population."
(China Daily, 2007) Also, Germany is one of the main countries whose students come
to China for study. "According to China's Ministry of Education, there are currently
1,280 German students in China, making Germany the seventh largest contributor of
study-abroad students." (China Daily, 2007) However, there are more differences than
similarities between the educational systems of China and Germany.
The educational systems of China and Germany are similar in a number of ways. In
the first place, curriculums are similar. "In Germany, the curriculum usually focuses
on mostly academic subjects, even in vocational schools, with a limited offering of
physical education, sports, art, music and computer technology."(Resource
Booklet,
2008) Similarly, in China, schools always arrange lots of academic subjects, but only
have sports, art and music once every two weeks. Also, their school day both start at
7:30 or 8:00 in the morning and the schools day per year is 220 or so and the school
year is ten months long.
In spite of these similarities, the educational systems of China and Germany differ
greatly. One of the major differences is the schedule or time in school. "German
children only attend school in the morning. There is no provision for serving lunch.
There is a lot more homework, and very few extracurricular activities."(How to
Germany, 2008) While in China, it is absolutely different. Schools start at 7:30 or
8:00, after 4 lessons, students have a 90-minute break. They come back to school at
1:30pm, after a whole afternoon study, they go home at 5:00pm. In addition,