Meanwhile in China, people are bashing the education system hard as well, saying it "Teaching to the test" (a Wikipedia term [0]), "Serving political purpose" and "Like a factory".
In my opinion, a successful education system is the one which can produce people who are capable of learn new knowledge my themselves, resolve problems by themselves and create new things by themselves.
So maybe, reading 800 Chinese words in a very young age is impressive, but there is more important things to do.