A 42-year-old high school female teacher in mainland China recently revealed several issues with the widely promoted “Hengshui Model,” including extreme schedules, discouraging students from continuing their education, hidden fees, and ineffective teaching methods. She decided to speak out after leaving the school campus, stating that she no longer wishes to participate in this education system that she believes drains ordinary students and their families.
Having worked in education for 17 years and taught in the frontlines for a long time, the female teacher shared in a video that her school has long prioritized the college entrance rate as the core indicator for educating students. In the winter, students are made to do morning exercises at 6 a.m. in freezing temperatures below zero Celsius, with some students collapsing due to acute myocardial ischemia, but the school’s immediate response is more concerned about avoiding parental complaints.
A scholar from Hunan, Su Li (pseudonym), who has long been observing China’s basic education, mentioned in an interview that for students in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) education system, it is more about exploitation than education. The system puts immense pressure on students, transforming them into exam machines as schools, under top-down pressure, prioritizes statistics over student well-being, turning the education system into a vicious cycle of competition.
The so-called “Hengshui Model” originated from Hengshui Middle School in Hebei, China, known for sending many students to prestigious universities, making it a role model for other schools. This model is sustained through strict scheduling and closed management, with students repeatedly practicing exam questions daily.
Education experts in mainland China highlighted that the proliferation of such models is directly linked to the CCP’s long-term focus on the college entrance rate as a performance metric, where schools continue to intensify their efforts under pressure, eventually narrowing their operations solely around exam scores.
The female teacher also disclosed the school’s profit-making practices, including charging students through methods such as school-specific assignments and weekly tests. While the costs are minimal, amounting to only paper expenses, the accumulated fees per semester can reach hundreds of yuan, masked as legitimate charges yet still viewed as exploitation by some educators.
In this video, the teacher emphasized how the score-driven education system has led some teachers to adopt passive teaching methods. She shared instances where teachers neglect to review assignments, letting class representatives mark correct answers, while she herself stayed up late to provide meaningful feedback, only to be questioned by colleagues about the purposefulness of her efforts.
A teacher from Ruijin Middle School in Jiangxi, Wang Xin, revealed to reporters that the severity towards students in the prestigious school she once taught at was comparable to Hengshui Middle School. Harsh disciplinary actions included punishing students by making them run under the scorching sun, resulting in students fainting from heatstroke, or smashing the phones of “disobedient” students.
Under the CCP education system, Wang Xin explained how teachers are pressured to focus on achieving high scores rather than ensuring students truly understand the material, reflecting the system’s fixation on results over the educational process. This approach not only masks teaching inadequacies but also neglects the students’ long-term learning development, ultimately exhausting their fundamental learning abilities.
Wang Xin further highlighted some teachers lacking professional competence who compensate for their teaching deficiencies by prolonging study hours. Despite students spending over 16 hours studying per day, the efficiency of learning remains limited, characterized more as mechanical repetition rather than genuine effort.
With strict time management, student life is micromanaged down to the minute. Wang Xin shared an incident where a student refrained from using the restroom during class out of fear, leading to a urinary tract infection. She believes that such a rigid system has significant long-term effects on students’ physical and mental well-being.
Retired Chinese professor Sun Wenyue (pseudonym) currently residing in Europe expressed concern over the extreme competitiveness of China’s college entrance examination mechanism, turning schools across various regions into “score-raising workshops.” The infamous “Hengshui Model,” known for suppressing human nature, deviates from the essence of education when placed in an international educational context.
He noted, “This teaching method has spread throughout the entire mainland, and many parents send their children to study in places like Thailand to avoid this draining educational environment.”