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Power devalues education

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-08 07:50

The values of education are destroyed by the misuse of political power, which can easily alter the fate of a person, says an article in China Youth Daily. Excerpts:

Five years ago, Wang Jiajun successfully went on to college while her classmate Luo Caixia failed to make the grade. But, in fact, the one that should have entered college is Luo, and not Wang.

The secret is that Wang impersonated her classmate Luo's identity so that she could enter college with the scores that rightfully belonged to her classmate. According to reports, the identity theft was possible only because Wang has a powerful father, who is head of a local public security department.

The counterfeiting of identity has caused a lot of trouble for Luo. She had to re-take the national college entrance examination a year later and she had the certificates revoked for the wrong identity number upon her graduation.

It was by sheer chance that Luo finally learnt the secret of her identity being stolen by her classmate. Luo was picked by Wang and her father just because she had no powerful family background. Had it not for Luo, somebody else would have been targeted for this counterfeiting. The horrible thing is that Luo wasn't aware of being cheated of her rightful dues until she encountered problems with the identity theft five years later.

It reminds us of the latest news that tens of thousands of middle school seniors decided not to sit for this year's national college entrance examination. Some believe that they dropped the test mainly because of poverty and gloomy job prospects. Besides, they might have decided against the test because of the fact that education can now hardly change the fate of a person whereas political power can lead a man to fortune. No wonder it is said that a man with a resourceful father working in the government is better off than a man who studies hard in school.

When the political power prevails over all else in deciding individual fate and societal direction in a country, knowledge, education and personal efforts would seem to be useless.

(China Daily 05/08/2009 page8)