|a1 DVD-video (47 min.) :|bsd., col., ;|c4 3/4 in.
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|aWhy Poverty?
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|aCommercially released off-air recording from BBC World News, broadcast on December 16, 2012.
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|aAccess limited to La Trobe University staff and students.
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|aDirected by, Weijen Chen; produced by, Don Edkins.
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|aWeijun Chen's film, set in Wuhan in central China, looks at the realities of Chinese education through the lives of private college tutor Wang Zehziang, high school graduate and would-be university student Wang Pan, and graduate jobseeker Wan Chao. What does an education get you? Education is the only way out of poverty, as it has been sold to the Chinese population since ancient times. China's economic boom and talk of the merits of hard work have created an expectation that studying is how to escape poverty. Yet it seems the system only leads to jobs for a few, and debt for all. In a meritocracy, education is one sure route out of poverty. But can everybody succeed in modern China? How do you choose a college when you're the first person in your family who can read? Or pay for it when 4 years of schooling costs sixty years of income? What is it like to join the "ant-tribe", the 2 million newly graduated Chinese who, every year, can't find work? And what if the only job you could find involved selling education to other students, even if you knew it was worthless?