To Boost Test Scores, Chinese Students Hooked to IV Drips

What’s the Latest Development?

A grim photo recently taken at a Chinese high school in Hubei Province shows about 50 students connected to intravenous drips of amino acids while preparing for college entrance exams. Following the advice of the school, students agreed to accept the protein injections to ‘enhance their physical fitness and replenish their energy’. One Chinese news source criticized the school for promoting a procedure that can over-burden the liver and kidney with protein and cause chills or fever accompanied by nausea or vomiting. “The logic in this is to treat students as ‘examination livestock’,” said the source, “eventually, to be slaughtered.”

What’s the Big Idea?

Besides a case of tiger parenting gone completely awry, the photo demonstrates the corruption seemingly ingrained at all levels of Chinese government. By boosting the high-school’s enrollment rate at universities, principles and local government officials can gain promotions while securing more educational resources. The same Chinese news source ended on a harshly critical note: “What is saddest is that we are instilling the idea and behavior in our children that it is somehow lawful, reasonable and ethical to inject a drug so long it’s called ‘nutrient’ or ‘supplementary.’ This harms not just the child’s health, but also the meaning of education itself.”

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