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Follows five Chinese students through their final high-pressure year at an elite high school in Sichuan Province, where a class of 1,800 teenagers is competing for 59 spots in China’s top two universities.
As the world's attention turns to the 2008 Beijing Olympics,
WIDE ANGLE reports on how the next generation of Chinese leaders is
being molded. "China Prep" follows five Chinese students through
their final high-pressure year at an elite high school in Sichuan
Province. Eighteen hundred students vie for spots in Beijing's top
two universities. Last year only 59 made it. Studying seven days a
week, the students' lives are regimented almost every minute of the
day as they prepare for the end-of-year exam that can determine
their fate. For many students from poor or rural backgrounds, a
strong performance on the test is the only way to climb the social
ladder and excel without connections. Competition is fierce and the
majority of high school seniors will be relegated to vocational
schools. We meet Zhang Lie, who wants to study law and become a
Chinese Communist Party member like her father; Mei Jiachin, a
genius mathematician from a farming family; Chen Zhibo, a misfit
science student with big plans to become China's Bill Gates; and
Gao Mengjia, a dedicated student who loves money and aspires to be
a hedge fund manager. Nicknamed the "I want" generation by the
Chinese press, these only children - the sole focus of their
parents' and grandparents' nurturing under China's one-child policy
- will be the new class of corporate managers, lawyers and civil
servants who are expected to propel 21st-century China to surpass
the United States as the largest economy in the world. How do the
ambitions of these teenagers reflect the realities of today's and
tomorrow's China? Who among them will be most likely to succeed -
the daughter of the Party official or the farmer's son? Who will be
the boss?
At the conclusion of the film, WIDE ANGLE host Aaron Brown will
speak with Vanessa Fong, author of Only Hope: Coming of Age
Under China's One-Child Policy and assistant professor at
Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. They discuss the
unique pressures on China's students and how China's education
system is preparing students for an increasingly global
workforce.