ChiComs to Allow Foreign-run Schools

(Shanghai, China) According to this story, the Chinese communists have revised their policy of banning Westerners from educating their children. Last September, Chinese kindergartners and high school students began attending the nation's first Western-run school, although the ban continues for grade-school and middle-school students.

"We are the beginning of competitive private education in China," said Fritz Libby, a Walnut Creek native whose Global Education Information Consulting Co. helped negotiate and finance the school, known as Shanghai Dulwich International School.

Of course, Chinese authorities have placed certain restrictions on the curriculum. The subjects of Taiwan, the Falun Gong, and sensitive political issues will not be allowed.

Since there are about 230 million students enrolled in kindergarten through ninth grade, this first step in allowing Western educators in the country is viewed as opening a potentially huge education market.

My take is that it appears that the problems of American education have to be dwarfed by the massive number of Chinese that need to be educated. If you add in the high school and university students to the 230 million kindergarten through high schoolers, the total number of students exceeds the entire population of the United States.