Calls to reduce English as a core subject in China’s education system have resurfaced after a famous maths teacher urged the country to end “worshipping foreign things”. The controversy has revived a long-running debate over the role of English in Chinese schools. Tang Jiafeng, a maths teacher known for coaching students through the national postgraduate entrance exam, said on social media that children, parents and schools had devoted disproportionate amounts of time and resources to English, a subject he argued had little relevance to the jobs most people eventually did. “I publicly call for English to be stripped of its status as a core subject,” Tang wrote. “No country in the world places English in such a supreme position as we do.” He argued that Chinese children were being pushed to cram in English before they had even mastered their own language. “English is just a tool. It is enough to know how to use it,” Tang said. “The history of Chinese people worshipping foreign things and fawning over foreigners should end!”
His remarks came after history was reduced in weight as a subject in local exam reforms, a decision he said left him “heavy-hearted”. History lessons helped students remember the hardships of earlier generations and develop sound values, Tang said, adding that if any subject deserved to be assigned less weight, it should be English rather than history. At present, English is a core subject in China’s basic education system, alongside Chinese and mathematics. In the traditional 750-point structure of the national college entrance examination, each of the three subjects is worth 150 points. While the weighting and assessment of other subjects have been reshaped in recent years as part of reforms, the three subjects have stayed central to China’s exam-oriented education system.
Not everyone agreed with Tang. Former Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin said those who denounced English learning as “worshipping foreign things” and sought to remove it as a core subject were “extreme”, “narrow-minded” and using nationalist rhetoric to portray their position as patriotic and morally justified. Hu said English should remain a core subject because it could give students access to international knowledge and opportunities across a range of fields. Weakening English in basic public education could undermine educational equality, he added, saying that wealthier families would still be able to pay for private English education while students from less privileged backgrounds would lose access to the same opportunities. “Basic education should leave everyone room to advance as far as they possibly can,” Hu said. “This is not about ‘worshipping foreign things’, it is about educational equality at the starting point of real life,” Hu said, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
