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Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来《闲话英伦》. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

Can I propose a topic actually?

Yeah, of course.

Alan, you speak very good Chinese. Have you ever heard of the idea of 鸡娃?

Yes...

You don't sound very sure.

I've heard of it, but it's one of those concepts that I don't think really translates into English. So if you're gonna ask me for an English translation of 鸡娃, then I probably would struggle a little bit.

It's basically like motivate your kids but like, forcefully.

Forcefully motivates your children. Okay. I'm not sure that's the particularly good translation, but I think that pretty much is what it is, isn't it?

I would say probably if we have to really translate it, I would go with the idea of a tiger mom.

Tiger mom, the sort of Asian parenting, is that not the stereotype?

It is a bit of a stereotype, but to be honest, I've lived in the UK and I've lived in China for quite some time now. I think that's a stereotype that is quite accurate in many cases.

But the thing is the whole Asian parents, especially Chinese parents, put a lot of effort, put a lot of emphasis on their kids, that kind of leads to somewhat of a misunderstanding. Sometimes our listeners would ask us, do English parents not care about their kids education, just let them run around wild?

I know. I have heard some of our fans and also some of my friends have said what does this mean? Does this mean that British parents don't care about their children, is that...? No, it's a completely different mindset.

I tell you why I would like to talk about this whole鸡娃 or parents attitude towards education in the UK, because last time I went back to the UK I was with some friends, and one of them has got a school age child whose... I say school age, this kid is about to go to college and start all that. And then you could see when family friends, when they are visiting when if they have a kid of similar age or slightly older, that's what they're gonna talk about. They're not gonna talk about holiday la, la, la. No, they're gonna talk about kids education, university application. Do you have extra credits? Do you have all of that?

Of course. That's the same for my family as well because from the sounds of it, my niece is the same age as your friend's child. And we constantly talk about university, we constantly talk about school. But it's from a very different standpoint. It's not that we don't care. I would say it's that we worry about slightly different things.

And in today's episode we're gonna explore that a little bit.

Yes.

But let's have the general tone is parents are parents no matter which culture which country they're from or they're in, they care about their kids education.

Of course, and probably a bit of disclaimer as well. Now I don't have any children and I know that you don't have any children, Lulu. So we're not experts, we're not gonna tell you how to raise your child. If you wanna listen to that, there's millions of those podcast all over the world in English and Chinese and Swahili. Every single language has those podcast has those videos. But what we're doing today is just giving you a little bit of our own personal opinion because we been in education for a number of years now.

And also being in the two cultures that we can somewhat compare what we have seen and observed.

First of all, let's talk a little bit about secondary education system, 就是整个中学的学制.

In England, it's a bit different, so for us is very straightforward. We have primary education which is age 6-12 and then 12-15, it’s junior middle school 初中, and then 15-18 is senior, the high school, and then university. In the UK it's not so.

It's a little bit different. Partly because England and Wales they have a different education system than Scotland, for example. But just to give you the quick lowdown, you have primary school which is 6-11 or 12, then you have secondary school which is 11, 12-16.

Only to 16!

Only to 16, because at the age of 16, you then go to college.

对了, 特别要提醒大家的, 英国人说的 college和美国人说的college是两回事. When Americans talk about college, it’s just another word for university, but when British people say college, this is kind of like the preparation stage for university. 是大学预科的那种学院. Do they all have to go to college?

They all have to have some form of education up until the age of 18 now. When I was that age, it was optional. So you could technically leave school at the age of 16, but not many people did, because if you only have a secondary school education it’s gonna be very, very, very difficult for you to find a job. Unless you join the army, for example.

But is college education就是一个大学预科的课程. Is it part of your compulsory education? Does government funded?

Government funded. I think you have to pay a little bit, but it's a really nominal amount.

When you go to college, you're prepared to go to university. Now some people they don't even go to university, they just finish at college. But now the government are trying to push more apprenticeships. There's something now called T levels apparently.

I think we're jumping ahead a little bit because we haven't really even talked about A level and all that.

Yeah.

So secondary education system, let me sort it out, basically instead of us 6 years of secondary education and directly going into higher education, you basically separated into secondary education and then a lead up 2 years college and then university.

That's it.

That's when parents get a little bit more focus on it, right? So when your kid goes into or about to go into college.

Yes and no. I would say and I think we talked about this in one of our earlier episodes, there's a huge difference between school and college. So when you go to college, you don't wear school uniform, call your teachers by their first names. They become tutors rather than teachers or become lecturers. It's a stage where the child is becoming more independent. I would say parents do worry about their university, but there's much more of an onus on the child themselves to make the decision and to prepare to go to university themselves.

So it's not really that common or not really that generally acceptable for parents to just tell their college kids and just say no, you have to study math. No, you have to study accounting.

No. That is quite rare in the UK I would say, probably some parents do that. But in most of the cases that I know about, it's the parents who acting more as advisor, they advise in the child what to study.

I see. So finishing secondary education at the age of 16, there is a test, right?

The GCSEs. (General Certificate of Secondary Education)

Is it important?

It's very important that is technically among the last compulsory tests that you have to do. They are important. But if you're going up towards university, it's a stepping stone, so you get good GCSE results, you get to a good college, then you do your A levels, so on and so forth.

So you need a good GCSE to go into a good college. I see.

And then when you're in college, you are studying for your A level which is basically like a university entrance test.

It is. Except that for A levels you choose the subjects that you want to study.

Was it three or four, I think?

I believe it's three now, but I'm not too sure. It's been a long time.

Too much of an ancient history for you. Showing your age now.

But I think for normally three, I'm not sure I think for some people they can take an extra, it's like in America they can take AP, advanced placement.

I think you can pretty much take as many as you want, but obviously only got so many hours.

I think it's actually pretty good for the kids because then they can focus on things that are actually interested in instead of taking Chinese kids need to take all sorts of subjects.

Yes, but again there's also a debate in the UK about whether or not some subjects should be still made compulsory at that level. So for example studying maths, there's a huge debate of ...

You don't have to study maths?

At the moment. After the age of 16 you don't have to.

Wow, so you really can just choose, what did you choose?

I studied history, German, English literature, and ancient history.

That's four.

Yes. But back when I did it, there was also something called the AS level.

Getting very confusing.

It gets bit complicated.

But all of these are文科课程. You really didn't have to take anything like math, chemistry.

No. Because I didn't like math or chemistry, so I didn't study them.

中国虽然有文理分科, 但是语数外还是要上的. Yeah, so that's A level and A level is something that kids and also their parents they do focus on a lot and they because that how well they do in A level would directly determine whether they can get good university or not.

Again, yes or no. The thing is ...

I start to see a pattern ...

You are starting to think of it in ...

Very Chinese way?

Pretty much. When you go to university, they're not just looking at your scholastic achievement, they're not just looking at what grade she got. They're also looking at experiences and in particular looking at work experience or internships.

That I have to say I'm a bit surprised by, because this could be going back years because I was under the impression I was talking to people who are doing this whole 留学 application thing, and it seems especially for international students, I think. American universities they care more about extracurricular whilst British universities focus more on the grades, the scores. It's not just the scores.

I'm talking about kind of home students here. I would say international students it's slightly different. But for home students, they are looking at whether or not you have well rounded experiences and all round skills. And that's why it's important to get good grades. You won't get into Oxford or Cambridge if you have like really bad grades, but even if you have very good grades, you might not be able to get into Oxford or Cambridge.

So it's grades and also work experience.

And how well you do at the interview.

Yeah, but we can maybe go a little bit more into that in the next episode of this topic. But to finish this episode off, I just wanna say that then kids are still under quite a lot of pressure because they have to do well in GCSE and then in A level. Although they don't have to do all of the subjects, but still they have to do well in school at the same time they need work experience, which can show, I suppose leadership like collaboration coordination that all sorts of thing.

Yeah, I would say whether or not... whatever the country you come from, education can be stressful and I would say there's no such system where it's all very relaxed. It's like you can do whatever you want.

And then you grow up, fain stupid.

Exactly, that it does not work like that. And that's one of the things that always makes me laugh when I hear from Chinese friends of mine when they say British school children is so relaxed. Well, yes, in some aspects, but in other aspects not so much.

Not if you want a bright future and do well.

Exactly. Sure it's the same for all of us. We can have a very relaxing time, but we're not gonna do very much.

Okay, and on that note, we're gonna wrap up our first episode of this topic here. In the second episode we're gonna go into whether kids or their family would pay for tutors, for example, cram schools and how much money does average British family actually spend on kids.

So until next time.

We'll see you next time.

Bye.