It's similar in Poland / United States. The difference is that even though you could do very poorly at your post-high school exams (e.g. SAT), you could still end up going to a shitty law/med school. 

However, those professions are still highly respected, in Poland mothers traditionally wished their daughters to marry "a doctor, a lawyer or an architect". 

I guess it's a cultural issue and its changing right now as programmers and engineers are getting much more media attention and high salaries ;-)