• 
• • Warwick Mansell
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 February 2011 17.01 GMT
  18-year-old Jessie Tang thinks Chinese pupils' success at school is 'mostly down to the parents'. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

  It seems a hugely under-researched phenomenon within English education. But Jessie Tang thinks she has the answer.

  "It's mostly the parents. Chinese parents tend to push their children a lot, and have really high expectations. I think it's maybe because they did not have the opportunities that we have these days. They want us to take advantage of them."

  Jessie, 18, an A-level student at Watford grammar school for girls, whose father arrived in England from Hong Kong, was being asked about what seems an amazing success story buried and barely commented upon within English schools' results.

  The statistics relate to the achievement of pupils of Chinese ethnicity, revealed last autumn in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on inequality in Britain.

  This showed not only that British Chinese youngsters are the highest performing ethnic group in England at GCSE, which has been known for years. It also showed that this group seemed to be singularly successful in achieving that goal of educational policy-makers everywhere: a narrow performance gap between those from the poorest homes, and the rest.

  Further evidence of the success of pupils of Chinese heritage came through the world's most well-known international testing study, Pisa. This found 15-year-olds from Shanghai, China, easily outperforming those of all other nationalities.

  The domestic statistics show that, at GCSE, children of Chinese ethnicity – classed simply as "Chinese" in the data – who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) perform better than the national average for all pupils, rich and poor.

  Not only that, but FSM Chinese pupils do better than those of most other ethnic backgrounds, even when compared with children from better-off homes (those not eligible for free school meals).

  A detailed look at the figures makes this clearer. Some 71% of Chinese FSM pupils achieved five good GCSEs, including English and maths, in 2009. For non-FSM Chinese pupils, the figure was 72%.

  Every other ethnic group had a gap of at least 10 percentage points between children who do not count as eligible for free meals, and those who do. The gap for white pupils stood at 32 percentage points.

  In 2010, the picture changed slightly, with the gap between Chinese FSM pupils (68%) and their non-FSM peers (76%) increasing to eight points. But it still compared very favourably with the equivalent gulf among white pupils, which was 33 percentage points.

  In primary schools, the picture is similar. Remarkably, in 2009, in English key stage 2 tests, Chinese FSM pupils outperformed not just their counterparts from other ethnic groups – easily outstripping white children – but even Chinese pupils not eligible for free meals.

  Michael Gove, the education secretary, told his party conference last autumn that the performance of FSM pupils as a whole was a "reproach to our conscience". So what do Chinese pupils have going for them that other children do not?

  Anyone investigating this subject will be struck by the limited research available. Only one academic team seems to have looked into British Chinese pupils' experience in detail in recent years.

  The team, who interviewed 80 Chinese pupils, 30 Chinese parents and 30 teachers in 2005, identified several factors behind the success, although they stress that not all British Chinese pupils achieve. One explanation, though, shines through their findings.

  Becky Francis, a visiting professor at King's College London, director of education at the Royal Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: "Our main argument is that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of differentiating themselves not just within their own group, but from other ethnic groups as well."

  Recent coverage of Amy Chua's book on "tiger parenting", Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother, has also focused attention on parenting styles promoting achievement in children of Chinese ethnicity.

  The argument that Chinese families put especial value on education is sensitive territory, of course, as most parents would profess a commitment to helping their child do well. Academics also stress that the numbers of pupils classed as "Chinese" are small – only 2,236 took GCSEs last year, from a total cohort of nearly 600,000 – and results should be interpreted cautiously.

  However, there is tentative evidence, both from interviews with parents and from analyses of background values existing in Chinese culture, that family commitment to education is particularly strong.

  Some 13 of the 30 British Chinese parents interviewed said their children were also being educated at Chinese "supplementary schools". These offer tuition in Chinese language and culture at the weekends.

  Several of the parents also said they paid for tutoring outside school hours. Researchers found that among British Chinese families this was not related to social class: a number of working-class parents paid for this, too.

  Asked to respond to the question "Is education important?", all 80 pupils agreed. High parental expectations also seem to have been a factor in many – though not all – children's experiences.

  One pupil is quoted saying: "My parents expect me to get the best grades. And if I don't, then they'll continuously nag at me to do better ... Like if I get a B, they'll be like, 'Why didn't you get an A?'"

  A paper presented at last year's British Educational Research Association conference, covering performance across all ethnic groups, found no link between the occupation of Chinese pupils' parents and their GCSE scores, unlike for children from all other ethnicities.

  Ramesh Kapadia, a visiting professor at London University's Institute of Education, who presented the paper, says: "I think within Chinese society, there is an emphasis on practice. Children are told: 'If you want to learn something, practise, practise and practise it again and you will get better'. It may be that this helps to motivate pupils when the rewards can seem a long way away."

  There is a mixed picture overall, though, as to how far this school success is being translated into employment prospects. The Equality and Human Rights Commission report found that British Chinese men and women were twice as likely to be in professional jobs as their white British counterparts. But average earnings remained around 11% lower throughout the population than for those classed as "white Christian".

  Whether the Chinese experience can be replicated among other pupils is debatable. Some might see evidence that Chinese families emphasise hard work, and the results that follow, as simple proof that all can succeed, given the right attitude.

  However, Francis says such a view should be treated cautiously, the team's 2005 paper arguing that "Chinese constructions of ethnic identity and education are very specific". Much research has shown links, generally, between poverty and underachievement.

  Jessie, whose father works in a takeaway restaurant and whose mother, originally from Malaysia, works at Heathrow airport, has 12 GCSEs including six A*s and an offer to read music at Royal Holloway, London. She attended a Chinese supplementary school from the age of five. She says many Chinese families are keen on their children pursuing careers in medicine, so she is "rebelling a bit", but wanted to pursue a subject she enjoys.

  The Department for Education was unable to point to any particular study it has commissioned to look at British Chinese pupils' success. Given the scale of that success, it seems surprising that the phenomenon has not been investigated further

Amy Chua's theories seem to bear fruit. But they run counter to the doctrine of modern Western parenting

Mother knows best; but which mothers know best of all? According to Amy Chua, a professor at Yale University, the answer is obvious and irrefutable: Chinese mums. Professor Chua has produced a book which seeks to prove her point, entitled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and last week she trailed it with an essay in The Wall Street Journal, provocatively headlined: "Why Chinese mothers are superior".

American parents were duly provoked by Chua's contention that they were hopelessly lacking in the effort they put into educating their children out of school hours, and in instilling discipline: well over a thousand comments hurtled in, many accusing her of racism, and some pointing out that if the American way was so deficient, why didn't she take herself and her high-achieving family back to China?

To be fair to Chua, she admitted to using the term "Chinese mother" loosely: "I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify. Conversely, I know of some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers." But then she went on: "All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practise their [musical] instruments 30 minutes a day. At the most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough."

That the Chinese style of parenting helps produce the most extraordinary results can't be doubted. Last month the OECD produced its annual assessment of global academic performance, based on its own independent testing of 15-year-olds in reading, maths and science. China came top. British children, by the way, came 25th in reading, 28th in maths, and 16th in science. Ten years ago Britain came seventh, eighth and fourth in those categories. These results throw a very cold shower of water over the claims by the New Labour government that the vast extra sums of public expenditure they devoted to the infrastructure of the state education system had improved our international competitiveness.

Last week I discussed these figures on BBC Radio 4's World Tonight programme with Sir Richard Sykes, the former rector of Imperial College; he is convinced that British exams have become "dumbed down", compared to those of countries such as India and China, and that as a result we were living in some sort of fool's paradise.

I also interviewed some pupils from Westminster School, who had been on an exchange trip to China. Although Westminster is one of the highest-performing schools in the UK, these pupils were stunned by the dedication and sheer hard work they had witnessed on their exchange. "It's a completely different culture and attitude towards work," one of them told me. The word "culture" was well chosen: that is where family life plays a dominant role, and where what goes on in schools flows naturally from the home environment.

This is also where Amy Chua's theories seem to bear fruit; and their validity can be seen in some remarkable statistics produced last year by our very own Equalities and Human Rights Commission. The Commission had sought to discover the extent to which educational outcomes in this country were a function of economic circumstances, and of race. Accordingly it divided up results under ethnic categories, but also by whether pupils were eligible for free school meals.

Among both white and black children, there was a dramatic difference in outcomes: for example, only 15 per cent of white boys eligible for free school meals gained five or more A* to C grades at GCSE, compared with 51 per cent among those not eligible. However, among Chinese boys and girls, those eligible for free school meals did every bit as well as those not so poor; equally perplexing for those who believe that relative poverty is the biggest determinant of educational attainment, Chinese pupils on free school meals, both boys and girls, had far better results overall than white pupils who were not eligible.

Game, set and match to Professor Chua? I imagine that many British parents who read the extracts from her book in last weekend's Sunday Times might well say they would rather have lower-achieving children than follow the recipe set out in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. For Chua began by stating: "Here are some of the things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do: attend a sleep-over; watch TV or play computer games; get any grade less than A; not be the number one student in every subject except gym and drama; not play the piano or the violin."

Such a regime runs completely counter to the presiding doctrine of modern Western parenting, at least among the middle classes, which is to do nothing that might damage their children's sense of self-esteem; and given that it's not possible for every child to be "the number one student in every subject", aren't Chua's methods setting children up for potentially crushing loss of self-esteem when another child comes top?

She, of course, denies it: "Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem ... For their part, many Chinese secretly believe that they care more about their children and are willing to sacrifice much more for them than Westerners, who seem perfectly content to let their children turn out badly."

That seems a bit harsh – no parents, except for the most derelict, are content to see their child turn out "badly". Yet Chua is pressing her finger on a very sensitive point: could it be that much of the laissez-faire parenting of the modern West uses the idea of enlightened liberality to give an intellectual justification for what is actually a form of laziness?

After all, the kind of discipline and perseverance which Amy Chua practised with her own daughters required an extraordinary amount of effort on her part – and also a certain amount of conflict with her husband, a non-Chinese, who might well have thought that she should have been spending more time with him, and less standing over their daughters while they practised the violin for three hours in the evening.

Most Western parents would say that all they want is for their children to "be happy": and if the little darlings are browbeaten in this way, they surely can't be enjoying themselves – and might grow up to hate their parents for forcing them to play the violin. Who knows? Happiness is the most ephemeral of phenomena and certainly not something which can be achieved at will. Besides, as Freud observed, neurosis is the mother of creativity.

As for the "Chinese mother", I can't pretend that I am sorry not to have had one myself. My own mother was extremely indulgent, and sublimely indifferent to whatever exam results I achieved; my father was more "Chinese", which was probably necessary for the balance between unconditional affection and discipline.

Perhaps Amy Chua's children are grateful, too, that one of their parents is not "Chinese": at least they had someone to run to for sympathy, when mother's strictures became intolerable. On the other hand, if it's results you want, then the Chinese mother does indeed know best.

 "Dominic Lawson on The Independent" www.theindependent.co.uk

Yorkshire teacher Alan Hemsworth is retiring after 40 years at the same school, putting him in a unique position to offer views on an education system in flux

•   Anushka Asthan  The Observer,  25.07.2010.
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Teacher Alan Hemsworth began his career at King James’s School in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in September 1971. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Alan Hemsworth walked into King James's School in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, in September 1971 to begin a career as a German teacher. He was 23.

Margaret Thatcher was education secretary. The old system of grammar schools and secondary moderns was in the process of being scrapped and a new breed of comprehensives was rising in their place.

He probably did not expect still to be there 39 years later – after the winter of discontent, Thatcher's rise and fall, the end of the cold war, Black Wednesday, the death of Princess Diana, New Labour, 9/11, the Iraq war, the election of a black US president, eight prime ministers and 19 secretaries of state. But he was – until Friday, when he finally retired.

He bows out at a time when education is rarely out of the news. Britain's schools are a top priority for the coalition government, which showed off its academies bill and "free schools" plan before being mired in controversy over proposals to axe the rebuilding of classrooms and other infrastructure. And there has been a fierce debate about the quality of teaching – amid allegations that too many "bad" teachers are being allowed to remain in post.

EDUCATION REFORMS