On the 29th
of September 2013, Ignatius Suglo, shared his academic experience in China
with AfriqAsia Merge. The observations
recounted below were made during his one year academic trip to China.
AfriqAsia Merge : Can you briefly introduce yourself?
Student : My name is Ignatius Suglo. I`m in level 400 now in the University of Ghana. I actually started
studying Chinese about 5 years ago. Now I'm combining Chinese with English. I`m
Ghanaian, from the Northern part of Ghana.
AfriqAsia Merge : Tell us a bit about the China year abroad.
What were some of the basic information you had about the trip.
Student : Well i think with the trip, the sponsorship came from the government of
Ghana. Our host University absolved part of the fees. They gave us a partial
fee waiver and the government of Ghana Scholarship secretariat absolved the
rest.
AfriqAsia Merge: How many were you?
Student :We were 12 in all.
AfriqAsia Merge: And were you the first batch to benefit from
this initiative?
Student : Yes.
AfriqAsia Merge : Was
it your first time traveling?
Student : No. Actually, the previous semester, I was in Germany for an exchange
program with the English department. When i came back, a little over one week
we were asked to leave for China too...
AfriqAsia Merge : Did
you feel any difference when you moved to China?
Student : I must say the difference was actually vast...I remember at some
point i had to take some time off to adjust...Apart from the environment and
everything, culturally it was so different.
AfriqAsia Merge : How?
Student :....In China life is perceived as some kind of race, like everything moves
so quickly, so fast...like everybody is rushing everywhere. Everybody is
working till late in the night and everybody is stressing himself to work more
just to get themselves a better life....
In China people go to
work on holidays, even if there`s a holiday you`ll have to go to class on the
weekend to make up for it...that was one great difference i couldn`t come to
terms with.
AfriqAsia Merge :So, with respect to the Coursework and the educational environment, what were some of
the observations you made?
Student: I would say there was some
difference in the system of education. On my part, because we went there to study
Chinese, i think that was the best environment that one could have had for such a purpose. The lecturers
were good, they did all they could to help us understand anything and they were really serious with what they
were doing...
One of the
observations i made about their educational system comparing it to what i have
been exposed to in Ghana, i would say, China`s educational system is more of a
memory test. You really have to know exactly what is written in a book and
well, they call it "Bei". They`ll even use the
word..."Bei"...and this can be translated to mean "memorize".
Now there`s been a little linguistic twist to it, where they try to say that
o.k., it means "learn", "read", "understand", but
then the word simply means "to memorize", and that`s exactly what
they do.
So, it`s like well,
this is a book you`re reading for the course and people are able to memorize
the whole book and so when they are reproducing it, its word for word. So
that's why it might be perceived that the Chinese are the best students in the
world, because they are able to pass as many exams as possible or more exams
than anybody else.
So, i had a problem
with that. Even in the classroom, at a point I had to tell the lecturers to
understand that, well if you want me to retell
the idea to you, i can do it perfectly without a mistake, but if you want
me to use the same wording that was in the book, that might be very
difficult....
AfriqAsia Merge :Were the Ghanaians put together in one class?
Student: Actually there were people from the middle East, America, and other
places also.
AriqAsia Merge: China
is well advanced in technology. Is there anything that you think could help
in
the Ghanaian educational system if adopted?
Student :Yes. You know we have these social media we use, "WhatsApp"
and so on. Mainly, we use it to communicate with friends, family...but they use
it for other stuff. They have one medium
they call "kiwkiw". They put lecture notes there...you go there and
download and read, that`s it!! You don`t have to be carrying books around or
just use Facebook for sending pictures...
AfriqAsia Merge : What impact has China had on you? What have
you brought back?
Student : Being in China for one year has broadened my outlook. I really feel
like a better person. All that i need to do is make use of what I learned...
AfriqAsia Merge: How do you see Ghana -China relations in the
future?
Student : I think that in the near future, the bond should be stronger than it is
now and in the near future, we should be expecting like a big boost. We hope
that with all these collaborations, Ghanaians will seek to learn something,
like how to get about solving some simple problems so we can move ahead.
I hope Ghanaians will also
emulate that spirit of humanity and
human value in the Chinese and pick it up. I also hope that there`ll be many
more people in Ghana who`ll try to succeed without counting the cost. In Ghana
we like to say "O.k. let`s leave it to God" etc., but that doesn`t
always help.
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