Snooker player Ding Junhui made his name famous overnight early this month winning the China Open, an event attracting some of the world's top players. The 18-year-old, who quit school to focus solely on snooker when he was in the first grade of junior middle school (probably 12 or 13 years old) has sparked a debate in China as to whether his success at the cost of his wider education should be applauded. The following are two excerpts from media articles.

Success a bad example

An article by Li Hongbing in the East China News of the People's Daily doubts if Ding's success should be applauded.

It seems as if the Chinese are very keen on stories about geniuses. Ding's recent success has incited suggestions that sports elites can be produced with the financial support of families or enterprises.

Strangely, few media have noticed that Ding's father actually broke the law in making his son a dropout in grade one of junior middle school. According to China's Law on Compulsory Education, parents or supervisors of children of educational age should send their children to school for nine years of compulsory education. A regulation on details of the law's implementation stipulates that measures should be taken by the city or district governments and educational departments and township-level governments in rural areas to make sure that dropouts are sent back to school.

With Ding's success, such a "minor" violation of the law would probably be ignored by the public. However, it causes concern that other parents may copy the "Ding pattern".

Actually, following the success of piano genius Lang Lang, many Chinese parents have copied the educational mode of Lang's father, who quit his job, poured all his money into supporting his son's piano-study and employs extreme strictness in bringing up his son.

No matter how successful Ding and Lang are now, they are still "bad examples" for Chinese parents. Parents who push their children hard always focus on examples they like, successes such as Lang and Ding. However, they forget that in both cases more than pushing is involved. There are also many other elements at work, for example, rarely seen talent, strong will and the good luck required to meet famous teachers early on. Thousands of parents have pushed their children hard, but only a few of these youngsters really achieve something outstanding. For the unsuccessful ones, their ordeal simply fades into public oblivion.

Tolerance needed

An article by Chen Guang in the Shanghai-based Youth Daily calls for tolerance of Ding's remarks made after winning the China Open that education is of no use while playing snooker can bring in money.

Ding's words have reminded us of Bill Gates and made us think about the patterns of success.

In fact, as long as Ding is serious with his profession and achieves remarkable things, we should pay him due respect, even though he has a limited education. After all, society needs diversified development and it is a fortunate thing for both individuals and society to see citizens succeed in various respects. The understanding that only through good examination results can one succeed has long been outdated.

We have seen in Ding's words his honesty. It is not necessary for the media to criticize Ding's unconventional words; instead, they should play up his fine characteristics of perseverance and strong will.