students must strive to be the best and set aside virtually everything else in favor of excelling in the classroom. That attitude exists because it’s how China’s education system is tuned. Anyone who wants to go to a good college needs to study hard and score high on the gaokao exam. Any skills you might have developed outside of the classroom are irrelevant in terms of college admission, which means that from a student’s point of view, outside activities are just a waste of time if your goal is to get into a school like Tsinghua.
But Jack Ma is arguing that as China’s economy develops, what is being rewarded is individual drive and entrepreneurial spirit. As he has pointed out, Alibaba has become one of the world’s most successful companies despite the fact that he was not a particularly strong student (in fact, he failed the college entrance exam three times). And in fact with the exception of Baidu’s Robin Li, many of China’s top internet executives achieved their success despite not having been “top three”-type students.
source : https://www.techinasia.com/jack-ma-what-told-son-education
this sounds similar to sri lankas education system
we got a lot to learn from jack ma