Much-vaunted educational achievements become rote-learning and a refusal to question those in authority.
Yet, despite the great success of its education system, Singapore has been reforming it to lay less stress on rote-learning and repetitive tests and more on self-expression.
ECONOMIST: The contest with China moves into the classroom and nursery
And I think that that requires more than just rote learning -- although it certainly requires good habits and discipline in school -- it also requires that in the classroom they're getting the kind of creative teaching that's so important.
Listed on the New York stock exchange since 2006, its founder Michael Yu (also known as Yu Minhong), became a multi-millionaire on the back of his blend of rote learning exercises, stand-up comedy and motivational speeches.
Delegates claimed that its emphasis on core knowledge was a throw-back to rote learning and uncreative lists of facts.
There is plenty of rote learning, discrimination against low-caste children, grade inflation and sometimes flogging.
ECONOMIST: A better education system calls for more than money
The education style is rote learning, heavy on facts and figures -- not on analysis or interaction.
China's education system - and the exams in particular - have been much criticised for enforcing rote learning and memory skills, rather than creativity.
But Japan is littered with barriers to risk-taking and innovation, from an archaic education system that fosters rote learning to bureaucratic impediments such as restrictions on firing workers.
But the traits that made it an economic powerhouse in the 20th century easy capital, big companies, rote learning, management by mandarins and stable jobs for male breadwinners are ill-suited to the 21st.
应用推荐