Education 'Involution' in China

Involution, derived from work of Clifford Geertz, is now widely cited to describe the current dilemma faced by the young generation in China (see BBC News for an overview). Speaking of education, a surge in family education spending overwhelmed parents as well as school students who aim to excel in the mainstream education system. Such phenomena stirred up wide-spread criticism on parents, teachers, schools, extracurricular institutions and the government, literally everyone involved in education, as well as a sense of nostalgia for the less competitive past. Among them, a popular view equated Involution to Theater Effect and appealed people to ‘sit down’, which seemed to be embodied in recent policies constraining online education and extracurricular activities. Well intended should this advocacy and policies be though, they seem to be expediencies at best and may even induce detrimental consequences.