The world focused attention these past days on the Boston bombings. And as China grieved over the Chinese student who died in the blasts and for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake, discussions among many on Chinese social media platforms and around tea tables also centered on the three campus murders that had jolted the education community and society in general.
What shocked many was that in at least two cases, the primary suspects were the victims’ roommates.
The incidents brought into focus the pressures exerted by the system on students; often a good degree is the only way for students, and their pushy parents, to inch up social and financial ladders. And, many think, the pressure of doing well academically is so high, that it might lead high-strung students with their heads and beings immersed in books to react violently to even small, trivial incidents – as was apparently clear in the recent incidents.
A rethink on the education model was also discussed in the state media.
In the first case, on April 16, Huang Yang, a medical science graduate student at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, was poisoned to death. Soon after came the news of an undergraduate student at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics was allegedly murdered by his roommate. The third murder was discovered when the decaying corpse of a student was found in a dorm room of Nanchang Hangkong University.
The sequenced of events in the case of the two roommates at Nanjing Aeronautics and Astronautics University was telling.
According to the official version of events, around 9 p.m., on the night of the crime, a student identified only by the last name Yuan was playing a video game in his dorm room. “His roommate, identified only by the last name Jiang, having forgotten his keys, knocked on the door. Yuan didn’t open the door for a time, and, when he eventually let Jiang in, the two students got into a heated argument that led to a physical fight. Yuan, in the heat of the moment, grabbed a fruit knife on a bookcase and stabbed Jiang in the chest. Jiang died at the hospital,” the International Business Times reported.
In the second case, Huang Yang, 28, a third-year graduate student at Fudan University, allegedly poisoned by his roommate.
Fang Ming, a spokesman for Fudan University, told state media there was no academic competition between Huang and Lin, his room partner. Though both medical students, they did not have the same major and worked as interns at different hospitals, he said.
Huang Hongji, director of the Shanghai Youth Research Institute, characterised Huang Yang’s killing as an extremely particular case.
According to official statistics, cases of theft accounted for 80 percent of crimes in Shanghai from January 2012 to April 2013, with murder and intentional injury taking up just five percent.
“But it is time to rethink our higher education system,” Huang said.
The typical college student of this era, born after the 80s and early 90s, is an only child, inclined to be spoiled and selfish, he said.
Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, echoed his opinions, saying Chinese have come to value “success” more than moral education.
Xiong told a Xinhua reporter that though the education system isn’t wholly to blame for the poisonings, it needs to be improved.
“Our education focuses too much on professional education and ignores moral education. If a student lacks an understanding of their duties to society, he or she might use extreme methods to solve some difficulties in life,” Xiong said.