Education in China
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This article is about education in the People's Republic of China. For
education in the Special Administrative Regions, see Education in Hong Kong and
Education in Macau. For education in the Republic of China (Taiwan), see
Education in Taiwan.
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Education in China
Ministry of Education
Minister of Education
Yuan Guiren
National education budget (2012–2013)
Budget
￥388.39 billion (3883.91亿)[1]
General details
Primary languages
Chinese
System type
National
Literacy (2015 [2])
Total
96.7 %
Male
98.2 %
Female
94.5 %
Primary
121 million (2005)[3]
Secondary
78.4 million (2005), including junior and senior secondary students.[3]
Post secondary
11.6 million (2005)[3]
This article contains Chinese text.Without proper rendering support, you may
see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofChinese characters.
Education in China is a state-run system of public education run by the
Ministry of Education. All citizens must attend school for at least nine years,
known as the nine-year compulsory education, which the government funds. It
includes six years of primary education, starting at age six or seven, and
three years of junior secondary education (middle school) for ages 12 to 15.
Some provinces may have five years of primary school but four years for middle
school. After middle school, there are three years of high school, which then
completes the secondary education. The Ministry of Education reported a 99
percent attendance rate for primary school and an 80 percent rate for both
primary and middle schools.[citation needed] In 1985, the government abolished
tax-funded higher education, requiring university applicants to compete for
scholarships based on academic ability. In the early 1980s the government
allowed the establishment of the first private school, increasing the number of
undergraduates and people who hold doctoral degrees fivefold from 1995 to
2005.[4] In 2003 China supported 1,552 institutions of higher learning
(colleges and universities) and their 725,000 professors and 11 million
students (see List of universities in China). There are over 100 National Key
Universities, including Peking University and Tsinghua University. Chinese
spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as
many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese
universities in 2006. China published 184,080 papers as of 2008.[5] China has
also become a top destination for international students.[6] As of 2013, China
is the most popular country in Asia for international students, and ranks third
overall among countries.[6]
Laws regulating the system of education include the Regulation on Academic
Degrees, the Compulsory Education Law, the Teachers Law, the Education Law, the
Law on Vocational Education, and the Law on Higher Education. See also: Law of
the People's Republic of China.
As Shanghai and Hong Kong are among the top performers in the Programme for
International Student Assessment, China's educational system has been praised
for its rigorousness, as well as its emphasis on rote memorization and test
preparation.
Contents [hide]
1
History
2
Development
3
Education policy
4
Education system
4.1
Stages
4.2
New directions
4.3
Compulsory education law
4.4
Basic education
4.5
Key schools
5
Primary education
5.1
Primary schools
5.2
Preschool education
5.3
Special education
6
Secondary education
6.1
History
6.2
Junior secondary
6.3
Senior secondary
6.3.1
Admissions & Zhongkao
6.4
Vocational and technical schools
7
International education
8
Higher education
8.1
Background
8.2
Modernization goals in the 1980s
8.2.1
Entrance examinations and admission criteria
8.2.2
Changes in enrollment and assignment policies
8.2.3
Scholarship and loan system
8.2.4
Study abroad
8.3
Educational investment
8.4
Reform in the 21st century
9
Teachers
10
Adult and online education
10.1
Role in modernization
10.2
Forms
10.3
Literacy and language reform
11
Criticism
12
Rural education
13
Education for migrant children
14
Private education
15
Overseas students
16
Gender equality
17
English education
18
See also
19
References
20
Further reading
21
External links
21.1
China Education statistics
History[edit]
Main article: History of education in China
Since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the education system in
China has been geared toward economic modernization.[citation needed] In 1985,
the national government ceded responsibility for basic education to local
governments through the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party's
"Decision on the Reform of the Educational Structure." In unveiling the
education reform plan in May 1985, the authorities called for nine years of
compulsory education and the establishment of the State Education Commission
(created the following month). Official commitment to improved education was
nowhere more evident than in the substantial increase in funds for education in
the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1986–90), which amounted to 72 percent more than
funds allotted to education in the previous plan period (1981–85). In 1986 some
16.8 percent of the state budget was earmarked for education, compared with
10.4 percent in 1984. Since 1949, education has been a focus of controversy in
China. As a result of continual intraparty realignments, official policy
alternated betweenideological imperatives and practical efforts to further
national development. But ideology and pragmatism often have been incompatible.
TheGreat Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Socialist Education Movement (1962–65)
sought to end deeply rooted academic elitism, to narrow social and cultural
gaps between workers and peasants and between urban and rural populations, and
to eliminate the tendency of scholarsand intellectuals to disdain manual labor.
During the Cultural Revolution, universal fostering of social equality was an
overriding priority.
A mean value theorem equation is displayed on a bridge in Beijing.
The post-Mao Zedong Chinese Communist Party leadership viewed education as the
foundation of theFour Modernizations. In the early 1980s, science and
technology education became an important focus of education policy. By 1986
training skilled personnel and expanding scientific and technical knowledge had
been assigned the highest priority. Although the humanities were considered
important, vocational and technical skills were considered paramount for
meeting China's modernization goals. The reorientation of educational
priorities paralleled Deng Xiaoping's strategy for economic development.
Emphasis also was placed on the further training of the already-educated elite,
who would carry on the modernization program in the coming decades. Renewed
emphasis on modern science and technology led to the adoption, beginning in
1976, of an outward-looking policy that encouraged learning and borrowing from
abroad for advanced training in a wide range of scientific fields.
Beginning at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central
Committee in December 1978, intellectuals were encouraged to pursue research in
support of the Four Modernizations and, as long as they complied with the
party's "Four Cardinal Principles" they were given relatively free rein. But
when the party and the government determined that the strictures of the four
cardinal principles had been stretched beyond tolerable limits, they did not
hesitate to restrict intellectual expression.
Literature and the arts also experienced a great revival in the late 1970s and
1980s. Traditional forms flourished once again, and many new kinds of
literature and cultural expression were introduced from abroad.
As of 2015 the government-operated primary and lower secondary (junior high)
schools in China have 28.8 million students.[7]
Development[edit]
Tsinghua University is a top university in China
Since the 1950s, China has been providing a nine-year compulsory education to
what amounts to a fifth of the world's population. By 1999, primary school
education had become generalized in 90% of China, and mandatory nine-year
compulsory education now effectively covered 85% of the population.[8] While
the central and provincial governments provide some funding for education, this
varies from province to province, and funding in the rural areas is notably
lower than in major urban municipalities. Families must supplement money
provided to school by government with tuition fees, which means that some
children have much less . However, parents place a very high value on
education, and make great personal sacrifices to send their children to school
and to university. Illiteracy in the young and mid-aged population has fallen
from over 80 percent down to five percent. The system trained some 60 million
mid- or high-level professionals and near 400 million laborers to junior or
senior high school level. Today, 250 million Chinese get three levels of school
education, (elementary, junior and senior high school) doubling the rate of
increase in the rest of the world during the same period. Net elementary school
enrollment has reached 98.9 percent, and the gross enrollment rate in junior
high schools 94.1 percent.
China's educational horizons are expanding. Ten years ago the MBA was virtually
unknown but by 2004 there were 47,000 MBAs, trained at 62 MBA schools. Many
people also apply for international professional qualifications, such as EMBA
and MPA; close to 10,000 MPA students are enrolled in 47 schools of higher
learning, including Peking University and Tsinghua University. The education
market has rocketed, with training and testing for professional qualifications,
such as computer and foreign languages, thriving. Continuing education is the
trend, once in one's life schooling has become lifelong learning.
International cooperation and education exchanges increase every year. China
has more students studying abroad than any other country; since 1979, there
have been 697,000 Chinese students studying in 103 countries and regions, of
whom 185,000 have returned after finishing their studies. The number of foreign
students studying in China has also increased rapidly; in 2004, over 110,000
students from 178 countries were studying at China's universities.
Investment in education has increased in recent years; the proportion of the
overall budget allocated to education has been increased by one percentage
point every year since 1998. According to a Ministry of Education program, the
government will set up an educational finance system in line with the public
finance system, strengthen the responsibility of governments at all levels in
educational investment, and ensure that their financial allocation for
educational expenditure grows faster than their regular revenue. The program
also set out the government's aim that educational investment should account
for four percent of GDP in a relatively short period of time.
For non-compulsory education, China adopts a shared-cost mechanism, charging
tuition at a certain percentage of the cost. Meanwhile, to ensure that students
from low-income families have access to higher education, the government has
initiated effective ways of assistance, with policies and measures as
scholarships, work-study programs, subsidies for students with special economic
difficulties, tuition reduction or exemption and state stipends.
The government has committed itself to markedly raising educational levels
generally, as evidenced in a Ministry of Education program; by 2020, of every
100,000 people, 13,500 will have had junior college education or above and some
31,000 will have had senior high school schooling; rates for illiteracy and
semi-literacy rate will fall below three percent; and average schooling
duration across the population will increase from today's eight years to nearly
11.
In the 2009 test of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA),
a worldwide evaluation of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance by
the OECD, Chinese students from Shanghai achieved the best results in
mathematics, science and reading.[9][10] The OECD also found that even in some
of the very poor rural areas the performance is close to the OECD average.[11]
However, controversy has surrounded the high scores achieved by the Chinese
students due to the unusual spread of the numerical data, with suggestions that
schools were 'gaming' students for the exams.[12] Also while averages across
the breadth of other countries are reported, China's rankings are taken from
only a few select districts.[13]
Education policy[edit]
See also: Education policy
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Before the defeat of the Kuomintang in 1949, education was effectively closed
to workers, peasants, and generally females in practical terms[citation needed]
despite Sun Yat-Sen's support of general education in principle.
However, the Marxist ideology of the post-1949 government, in reacting to the
overly literary and classical tradition of China, overstressed in turn
"practical applications" and the superior wisdom of the worker and peasant,
whose hand-skill was assumed to be the "base" to the "superstructure" of
science and learning in general.[14] This resulted in various experiments in
which peasants and industrial workers were made "teachers" overnight but were
unable to gain respect or communicate their knowledge.[citation needed]
The new Communist government created wide access to some form of education for
all, except children of people under suspicion of land ownership and political
unreliability. The possibility however of re-education and service to the
"masses" was held out to bourgeois families as long as they committed to
communism as well. This meant that even before the Cultural Revolution, there
was a continuum, in China, between the prison, the re-education camp, and the
school. Officially, the opportunity was extended to all classes to join China's
project on its Leninistterms.
In an attempt to make education more practical and accessible, Chinese
characters were simplified for quick learning and by training people in skills
they could use, including the basic medical training provided "barefoot
doctors", actually paramedics that provided medical care,midwifery and
instruction on the evils of footbinding and female infanticide in such rural
areas where those practices still existed.
The Chinese Communist government to some degree provided "the goods" to the
bottom of society and for this reason received broad support before the
Cultural Revolution from many people who formerly had been at the
bottom.[citation needed] The general populace was unaware of, and indifferent
to,[citation needed] the fate of intellectuals during the Great Leap Forward
and the Hundred Flowers epochs of the late 1950s.
Other practical results of education reform prior to the Cultural Revolution of
1966 included practical instruction in the evils of opium addiction(cf. Opium
Regimes, Timothy Brook and Bobby Tadashi Wakabayashi, eds., University of
California Press, 2000). The educational system and government of China
eradicated opium, in part by education and also by harsh penalties (including
death for repeat offenders) which are still in use.
But during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), higher education in particular
suffered tremendous losses; the system was almost shut down, and a rising
generation of college and graduate students, academics and technicians,
professionals and teachers was lost. The result was a lack of trained talent to
meet the needs of society, an irrationally structured higher education system
unequal to the needs of the economic and technological boom, and an uneven
development in secondary technical and vocational education. In the post-Mao
period, China's education policy continued to evolve. The pragmatist
leadership, under Deng Xiaoping, recognized that to meet the goals of
modernization it was necessary to develop science, technology, and intellectual
resources and to raise the population's education level. Demands on education -
for new technology, information science, and advanced management expertise -
were levied as a result of the reform of the economic structure and the
emergence of new economic forms. In particular, China needed an educated labor
force to feed and provision its one billion plus population.
By 1980, achievement was once again accepted as the basis for admission and
promotion in education. This fundamental change reflected the critical role of
scientific and technical knowledge and professional skills in the Four
Modernizations. Also, political activism was no longer regarded as an important
measure of individual performance, and even the development of commonly
approved political attitudes and political background was secondary to
achievement. Education policy promoted expanded enrollments, with the long-term
objective of achieving universal primary and secondary education. This policy
contrasted with the previous one, which touted increased enrollments for
egalitarian reasons. In 1985 the commitment to modernization was reinforced by
plans for nine-year compulsory education and for providing good quality higher
education.
Deng Xiaoping's far-ranging educational reform policy, which involved all
levels of the education system, aimed to narrow the gap between China and other
developing countries. Modernizing education was critical to modernizing China.
Devolution of educational management from the central to the local level was
the means chosen to improve the education system. Centralized authority was not
abandoned, however, as evidenced by the creation of the State Education
Commission. Academically, the goals of reform were to enhance and universalize
elementary and junior middle school education; to increase the number of
schools and qualified teachers; and to develop vocational and technical
education. A uniform standard for curricula, textbooks, examinations, and
teacher qualifications (especially at the middle-school level) was established,
and considerable autonomy and variations in and among the autonomous regions,
provinces, and special municipalities were allowed.[15] Further, the system of
enrollment and job assignment in higher education was changed, and excessive
government control over colleges and universities was reduced. However the
education system of the PRC still discourages innovation and independent
thinking, causing delays in even such high-profile national projects as the
J-XX fifth-generation jet fighters.[citation needed][16]
Education system[edit]
Stages[edit]
Educational stages in China
Typical Age
Education
Levels
Compulsory
18–22
University or college
Varies
No
15–18
Senior high school (middle school)
or
Vocational school
Grades 10–12
No
12–15
Junior middle school
Grades 7–9
Yes
6–12
Primary school
Grades 1–6
Yes
To provide for its population, China has a vast and varied school system. There
are preschools, kindergartens, schools for the deaf and blind, key schools
(private, cultural and vocational schools, regular secondary schools, secondary
teachers' schools, secondary technical schools, and secondary professional
schools), and various institutions of higher learning (consisting of regular
colleges and universities, professional colleges, and short-term vocational
universities). In terms of access to education, China's system represented a
pyramid; because of the scarcity of resources allotted to higher education,
student numbers decreased sharply at the higher levels. Although there were
dramatic advances in primary education after 1949, achievements in secondary
and higher education were not as great.
Although the government has authority over the education system, the Chinese
Communist Party has played a role in managing education since 1949. The party
established broad education policies and under Deng Xiaoping, tied improvements
in the quality of education to its modernization plan. The party also monitored
the government's implementation of its policies at the local level and within
educational institutions through its party committees. Party members within
educational institutions, who often have a leading management role, are
responsible for steering their schools in the direction mandated by party
policy.
New directions[edit]
The May 1985 National Conference on Education recognized five fundamental areas
for reform to be discussed in connection with implementing the party Central
Committee's "Draft Decision on Reforming the Education System." The reforms
were intended to produce "more able people"; to make the localities responsible
for developing "basic education" and systematically implement a nine-year
compulsory education program; to improve secondary education develop vocational
and technical education; to reform and the graduate-assignment system of
institutions of higher education and to expand their management and
decision-making powers; and to give administrators the necessary encouragement
and authority to ensure smooth progress in educational reform.
The National Conference on Education paved the way for reorganization of the
Ministry of Education, which occurred in June 1985. Created to coordinate
education policy, it also assumed the role previously played by the State
Planning Commission and as a State Council commission, the new Ministry had
greater status and was in charge of all education organizations except military
ones. Although the new Ministry assumed a central role in the administration of
education, the reform decentralized much of the power it previously wielded and
its constituent offices and bureaus, which had established curriculum and
admissions policies in response to the State Planning Commission's requirements.
The Ministry of Education, with its expanded administrative scope and power,
was responsible for formulating guiding principles for education, establishing
regulations, planning the progress of educational projects, coordinating the
educational programs of different departments, and standardization educational
reforms. Simplification of administration and delegation of authority were made
the bases for improving the education system. This devolution of management to
the autonomous regions, provinces, and special municipalities meant local
governments had more decision-making power and were able to develop basic
education. State-owned enterprises, mass organizations, and individuals were
encouraged to pool funds to accomplish education reform. Local authorities used
state appropriations and a percentage of local reserve financial resources
(basically township financial revenues) to finance educational projects.
Distance education is promoted not only within the educational sector but among
basic service sectors such as agriculture and health.
Compulsory education law[edit]
The Law on Nine-Year Compulsory Education (中华人民共和国义务教育法), which took effect on
July 1, 1986, established requirements and deadlines for attaining universal
education tailored to local conditions and guaranteed school-age children the
right to receive at least nine years of education (six-year primary education
and three years secondary education). People's congresses at various local
levels were, within certain guidelines and according to local conditions, to
decide the steps, methods, and deadlines for implementing nine-year compulsory
education in accordance with the guidelines formulated by the central
authorities. The program sought to bring rural areas, which had four to six
years of compulsory schooling, into line with their urban counterparts.
Education departments were exhorted to train millions of skilled workers for
all trades and professions and to offer guidelines, curricula, and methods to
comply with the reform program and modernization needs.
Provincial-level authorities were to develop plans, enact decrees and rules,
distribute funds to counties, and administer directly a few keysecondary
schools. County authorities were to distribute funds to each township
government, which were to make up for any deficiencies. County authorities were
to supervise education and teaching and to manage their own senior middle
schools, teachers' schools, teachers' in-service training schools, agricultural
vocational schools, and exemplary primary and junior middle schools. The
remaining schools were to be managed separately by the county and township
authorities.
The compulsory education law divided China into three categories: cities and
economically developed areas in coastal provinces and a small number of
developed areas in the hinterland; towns and villages with medium development;
and economically backward areas.
By November 1985 the first category - the larger cities and approximately 20
percent of the counties (mainly in the more developed coastal and southeastern
areas of China) had achieved universal 9-year education. By 1990 cities,
economically developed areas in coastal provincial-level units, and a small
number of developed interior areas (approximately 25 percent of China's
population) and areas where junior middle schools were already popularized were
targeted to have universal junior-middle-school education. Education planners
had envisioned that by the mid-1990s all workers and staff in coastal areas,
inland cities, and moderately developed areas (with a combined population of
300 million to 400 million people) would have either compulsory 9-year or
vocational education and that 5 percent of the people in these areas would have
a college education - building a solid intellectual foundation for China.
Further, the planners expected that secondary education and university entrants
would also have increased by the year 2000.
The second category targeted under the 9-year compulsory education law
consisted of towns and villages with medium-level development (around 50
percent of China's population), where universal education was expected to reach
the junior-middle-school level by 1995. Technical and higher education was
projected to develop at the same rate.
The third category, economically backward (rural) areas (around 25 percent of
China's population ) were to popularize basic education without a timetable and
at various levels according to local economic development, though the state
would try to support educational development. The state also would assist
education in minority nationality areas. In the past, rural areas, which lacked
a standardized and universal primary education system, had produced generations
of illiterates; only 60 percent of their primary school graduates had met
established standards.
As a further example of the government's commitment to nine-year compulsory
education, in January 1986 the State Council drafted a billpassed at the
Fourteenth Session of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People's
Congress that made it illegal for any organization or individual to employ
youths before they had completed their nine years of schooling. The bill also
authorized free education and subsidies for students whose families had
financial difficulties.
Tuition-free primary education is, despite compulsory education laws, still a
target rather than a realized goal throughout China. As many families have
difficulty paying school fees, some children are forced to leave school earlier
than the nine-year goal.
The 9-year System is called "Nine Years - One Policy", or "九年一贯制" in Chinese.
It usually refers to the educational integration of the elementary school and
the middle school. After graduating from the elementary school, graduates can
directly enter into the junior middle school. The grades in schools which
implement the 9-year System are usually called Grade 1, Grade 2, and so on
through Grade 9.
Main features of 9-year System:
Continuity. Students finish education from the elementary school to the middle
school.
The principle of proximity. Students enter into the nearby school instead of
middle school entrance examination.
Unity. Schools which carry out the 9-year System practice unified management in
school administration, teaching and education.
Basic education[edit]
China's basic education involves pre-school, nine-year compulsory education
from elementary to junior high school, standard senior high school education,
special education for disabled children, and education for illiterate people.
China has over 200 million elementary and high school students, who, together
with pre-school children, account for one sixth of the total population. For
this reason the Central Government has prioritized basic education as a key
field of infrastructure construction and educational development.
In recent years, senior high school education has developed steadily. In 2004
enrollment was 8.215 million, 2.3 times that of 1988. Gross national enrollment
in senior high schools has reached 43.8 percent, still lower than that of other
developed countries.
The government has created a special fund to improve conditions in China's
elementary and high schools, for new construction, expansion and the
re-building of run-down structures. Per-capita educational expenditure for
elementary and high school students has grown greatly, teaching and research
equipment, books and documents being updated and renewed every year.
Government's aim for the development of China's basic education system is to
approach or attain the level of moderately developed countriesby 2010.
Graduates of China's primary and secondary schools test highly in both basic
skills and critical thinking skills;[17] however, due to poor health, rural
students often drop out or lag in achievement.[18]
Key schools[edit]
"Key schools," shut down during the Cultural Revolution, reappeared in the late
1970s and, in the early 1980s, became an integral part of the effort to revive
the lapsed education system. Because educational resources were scarce,
selected ("key") institutions - usually those with records of past educational
accomplishment - were given priority in the assignment of teachers, equipment,
and funds. They also were allowed to recruit the best students for special
training to compete for admission to top schools at the next level. Key schools
constituted only a small percentage of all regular senior middle schools and
funneled the best students into the best secondary schools, largely on the
basis of entrance scores. In 1980 the greatest resources were allocated to the
key schools that would produce the greatest number of college entrants.
In early 1987 efforts had begun to develop the key school from a preparatory
school into a vehicle for diffusing improved curricula, materials, and teaching
practices to local schools. Moreover, the appropriateness of a key school's
role in the nine-year basic education plan was questioned by some officials
because key schools favored urban areas and the children of more affluent and
better educated parents.Changchun, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and other
cities, and education departments in Shanghai and Tianjin were moving to
establish a student recommendation system and eliminate key schools. In 1986
the Shanghai Educational Bureau abolished the key junior-middle-school system
to ensure "an overall level of education." Despite the effort to abolish the
"Key Schools" system, the practice still exists today under other names, and
education inequality is still being widely criticized by some government
officials and scholars.
Primary education[edit]
Primary schools[edit]
The institution of primary education in a country as vast as China has been an
impressive accomplishment. In contrast to the 20 percent enrollment rate before
1949, in 1985 about 96 percent of primary school age children were enrolled in
approximately 832,300 primary schools. This enrollment figure compared
favorably with the recorded figures of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when
enrollment standards were more egalitarian. In 1985 the World Bank estimated
that enrollments in primary schools would decrease from 136 million in 1983 to
95 million in the late 1990s and that the decreased enrollment would reduce the
number of teachers needed. Qualified teachers, however, would continue to be in
demand.
Under the Law on Nine-Year Compulsory Education, primary schools were to be
tuition-free and reasonably located for the convenience of children attending
them; students would attend primary schools in their neighborhoods or villages.
Parents paid a small fee per term for books and other expenses such as
transportation, food, and heating. Previously, fees were not considered a
deterrent to attendance. Under the education reform, students from poor
families received stipends, and state enterprises, institutions, and other
sectors of society were encouraged to establish their own schools. A major
concern was that scarce resources be conserved without causing enrollment to
fall and without weakening of the better schools. In particular, local
governments were told not to pursue middle-school education blindly while
primary school education was still developing, or to wrest money, teaching
staff, and materials from primary schools.
Children usually entered primary school at seven years of age for six days a
week, which after regulatory changes in 1995 and 1997 were changed to five and
a half and five days, respectively. The two-semester school year consisted of
9.5 months, and began on September 1 and March 1, with a summer vacation in
July and August and a winter vacation in January and February. Urban primary
schools typically divided the school week into twenty-four to twenty-seven
classes of forty-five minutes each, but in the rural areas, the norm was
half-day schooling, more flexible schedules, and itinerant teachers. Most
primary schools had a five-year course, except in such cities as Beijing and
Shanghai, and later other major cities, which had reintroduced six-year primary
schools and accepted children at six and one-half years rather than seven.
The primary-school curriculum consisted of Chinese, mathematics, physical
education, music, drawing, and elementary instruction in nature,history, and
geography, combined with practical work experiences around the school compound.
A general knowledge of politics and moral training, which stressed love of the
motherland, love of the party, and love of the people (and previously love of
Chairman Mao), was another part of the curriculum. A foreign language, often
English, is introduced in about the third grade. Chinese and mathematics
accounted for about 60 percent of the scheduled class time; natural science and
social science accounted for about 8 percent. Putonghua (common spoken
language) was taught in regular schools and pinyin romanization in lower grades
and kindergarten. The Ministry of Education required that all primary schools
offer courses on morality and ethics. Beginning in the fourth grade, students
usually had to perform productive labor two weeks per semester to relate
classwork with production experience in workshops or on farms and relate it to
academic study. Most schools had after-hour activities at least one day per
week to involve students in recreation and community service.
By 1980 the percentage of students enrolled in primary schools was high, but
the schools reported high dropout rates and regional enrollment gaps (most
enrollees were concentrated in the cities). Only one in four counties had
universal primary education. On the average, 10 percent of the students dropped
out between each grade. During the 1979–83 period, the government acknowledged
the "9-6-3" rule, that is, that nine of ten children began primary school, six
completed it, and three graduated with good performance. This meant that only
about 60 percent of primary students actually completed their five-year program
of study and graduated, and only about 30 percent were regarded as having
primary-level competence. Statistics in the mid-1980s showed that more rural
girls than boys dropped out of school.
Within the framework of the Law on Nine-Year Compulsory Education and the
general trend toward vocational and technical skills, attempts were made to
accommodate and correct the gap between urban and rural education. Urban and
key schools almost invariably operated on a six-day full-time schedule to
prepare students for further education and high-level jobs. Rural schools
generally operated on a flexible schedule geared to the needs of the
agricultural seasons and sought to prepare students for adult life and manual
labor in lower-skilled jobs. They also offered a more limited curriculum, often
only Chinese, mathematics, and morals. To promote attendance and allow the
class schedule and academic year to be completed, agricultural seasons were
taken into account. School holidays were moved, school days shortened, and
full-time, half-time, and spare-time classes offered in the slack agricultural
seasons. Sometimes itinerant teachers were hired for mountain villages and
served one village in the morning, another village in the afternoon.
Rural parents were generally well aware that their children had limited
opportunities to further their education. Some parents saw little use in having
their children attend even primary school, especially after the establishment
of the agricultural responsibility system. Under that system, parents preferred
that their children work to increase family income - and withdrew them from
school - for both long and short periods of time.
Preschool education[edit]
Preschool education, which began at age three, was another target of education
reform in 1985. Preschool facilities were to be established in buildings made
available by public enterprises, production teams, municipal authorities, local
groups, and families. The government announced that it depended on individual
organizations to sponsor their own preschool education and that preschool
education was to become a part of the welfare services of various government
organizations, institutes, and state- and collectively operated enterprises.
Costs for preschool education varied according to services rendered. Officials
also called for more preschool teachers with more appropriate training.
Special education[edit]
The 1985 National Conference on Education also recognized the importance of
special education, in the form of programs for gifted childrenand for slow
learners. Gifted children were allowed to skip grades. Slow learners were
encouraged to reach minimum standards, although those who did not maintain the
pace seldom reached the next stage. For the most part, children with severe
learning problems and those with handicaps and psychological needs were the
responsibilities of their families. Extra provisions were made for blind and
severely hearing-impaired children, although in 1984 special schools enrolled
fewer than 2 percent of all eligible children in those categories. The China
Welfare Fund, established in 1984, received state funding and had the right to
solicit donations within China and from abroad, but special education has
remained a low government priority.
Today, China has 1,540 schools for special education, with 375,000 students;
more than 1,000 vocational training institutes for disabled people, nearly
3,000 standard vocational training and education institutes that also admit
disabled people; more than 1,700 training organizations for rehabilitating
hearing-impaired children, with over 100,000 trained and in-training children.
In 2004, 4,112 disabled students entered ordinary schools of higher learning.
Of disabled children receiving special education, 63.6 percent of total
recruitment numbers and 66.2 percent of enrollment were in ordinary schools or
special classes thereof.
Secondary education[edit]
History[edit]
Lists of newly admitted students - complete with their home communities, test
scores, and any extra points they derived due to their ethnicity or family size
- posted outside of Linxia High School
Secondary education in China has a complicated history. In the early 1960s,
education planners followed a policy called "walking on two legs," which
established both regular academic schools and separate technical schools for
vocational training. The rapid expansion of secondary education during the
Cultural Revolution created serious problems; because resources were spread too
thinly, educational quality declined. Further, this expansion was limited to
regular secondary schools; technical schools were closed during the Cultural
Revolution because they were viewed as an attempt to provide inferior education
to children of worker and peasant families.
In the late 1970s, government and party representatives criticized what they
termed the "unitary" approach of the 1960s, arguing that it ignored the need
for two kinds of graduates: those with an academic education (college
preparatory) and those with specialized technical education (vocational).
Beginning in 1976 with the renewed emphasis on technical training, technical
schools reopened, and their enrollments increased.
In the drive to spread vocational and technical education, regular
secondary-school enrollments fell. By 1986 universal secondary education was
part of the nine-year compulsory education law that made primary education (six
years) and junior-middle-school education (three years) mandatory. The desire
to consolidate existing schools and to improve the quality of key middle
schools was, however, under the education reform, more important than expanding
enrollment.
Junior secondary[edit]
Junior secondary education is more commonly known as (junior) middle school
education, it consists the last three years of nine years compulsory education.
Students who live in rural areas are often boarded into townships to receive
their education.[19]
Senior secondary[edit]
Guangdong Experimental High School, one of the key high schools based in
Guangzhou, China.
Senior secondary education often refers to three years high school (or called
senior middle school) education, as from grade 10 to grade 12. Normally,
students who have finished six years of primary education will continue three
more years of academic study in middle schools as regulated by theCompulsory
education law at the age of twelve. This, however, is not compulsory for senior
secondary education, where junior graduates may choose to continue a three-year
academic education in academic high schools, which will eventually lead to
university, or to switch to a vocational course in vocational high schools.
Generally, high school years usually have two semesters, starting in September
and February. In some rural areas, operation may be subject to agricultural
cycles. The number of lessons offered by school on a weekly basis is very
subjective, and largely depends on the school's resources. In addition to
normal lessons, periods for private study and extracurricular activity are
provided as well. The academic curriculum consists of Chinese, Mathematics,
English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology,Geography, History, Ideology & Political
Science, Music, Fine Arts, PE, Technology, Computing etc. Some schools may also
offer vocational subjects. Generally speaking, Chinese, Mathematics and English
are considered as three main subjects as they will definitely be examined
inGaokao. In most provinces, students also need to be examined in either
natural sciences, which incorporate Physics, Chemistry and Biology, or social
sciences, which incorporate Geography, History and Ideology & Political Science.
In China, a senior high school graduate will be considered as an educated
person, although the majority graduates will go onto universities or vocational
colleges. Given the fact that the intensity of the competition for limited
university places is unimaginable, most high schools are evaluated by their
academic performance in Gaokao by parents and students.
Admissions & Zhongkao[edit]
Main article: Senior High School Entrance Examination
Zhongkao (中考), the Senior High School Entrance Examination, is the academic
examination held annually in China to distinguish junior graduates. Generally
speaking, students will be tested in Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics,
Chemistry, Political Science and PE. However, the scoring system may change,
and vary between different areas.
Admission for senior high schools, especially selective high schools, is
somewhat similar to the one for universities in China. Students will go through
an application system where they may choose the high schools at which they wish
to study in an order to their preference before the high schools set out their
entrance requirements. Once this is completed and the high schools will
announce their requirements based on this information and the places they will
offer in that year. For instance, if the school offers 800 places in that year,
the results offered by the 800th intake student will be the standard
requirements. So effectively, this ensures the school selects the top
candidates in all the students who have applied to said school in that academic
year. However, the severe competition only occurs in the very top high schools,
normally, most students will have sufficient results for them to continue their
secondary education if they wish to.
There are other official rules of admission in certain top high schools. If a
prestigious senior high school wants to admit 800 students a year, the
admissions office ranks students’ scores from highest to lowest and then
selects their first 700 students. The other 100 positions are provided to
students who don't meet the requirement standard but still want to study at
that school. These prospects need to pay extra school fees. A student can’t
perform badly in zhongkao, if their scores are close to the requirement
standard, they could still study in that top school if they can afford the
expenses. Those who study in that high school must also place maximum 2 points
below the standard requirement. Usually, 0.5 points is a standard. For
instance, if you are 2 points below the standard requirement, you pay four
times as much as the student who gets 0.5 points below the standard
requirement. The admissions of the 100 students which are required to pay the
school fees usually do not get the same admission letters as normal students
receive, but they can still study and live with normal students in the same
high school with the same teacher.
Vocational and technical schools[edit]
The "Law on Vocational Education" was issued in 1996. Vocational education
embraces higher vocational schools, secondary skill schools, vestibule schools,
vocational high schools, job-finding centers and other adult skill and social
training institutes. To enable vocational education to better accommodate the
demands of economic re-structuring and urbanization, in recent years the
government has remodeled vocational education, oriented towards obtaining
employment, and focusing on two major vocational education projects to meet
society's ever more acute demand for high quality, skilled workers. These are
cultivating skilled workers urgently needed in modern manufacture and service
industries; and training rural laborers moving to urban areas. To accelerate
vocational education in western areas, the Central Government has used
government bonds to build 186 vocational education centers in impoverished
western area counties.
Both regular and vocational secondary schools sought to serve modernization
needs. A number of technical and "skilled-worker" training schools reopened
after the Cultural Revolution, and an effort was made to provide exposure to
vocational subjects in general secondary schools (by offering courses in
industry, services, business, and agriculture). By 1985 there were almost 3
million vocational and technical students.
Under the educational reform tenets, polytechnic colleges were to give priority
to admitting secondary vocational and technical school graduates and providing
on-the-job training for qualified workers. Education reformers continued to
press for the conversion of about 50 percent of upper secondary education into
vocational education, which traditionally had been weak in the rural areas.
Regular senior middle schools were to be converted into vocational middle
schools, and vocational training classes were to be established in some senior
middle schools. Diversion of students from academic to technical education was
intended to alleviate skill shortages and to reduce the competition for
university enrollment.
Although enrollment in technical schools of various kinds had not yet increased
enough to compensate for decreasing enrollments in regular senior middle
schools, the proportion of vocational and technical students to total
senior-middle-school students increased from about 5 percent in 1978 to almost
36 percent in 1985, although development was uneven. Further, to encourage
greater numbers of junior-middle-school graduates to enter technical schools,
vocational and technical school graduates were given priority in job
assignments, while other job seekers had to take technical tests.
In 1987 there were four kinds of secondary vocational and technical schools: 1)
technical schools that offered a four-year, post-junior middle course and two-
to three-year post-senior middle training in such fields as commerce, legal
work, fine arts, and forestry; 2) workers' training schools that accepted
students whose senior-middle-school education consisted of two years of
training in such trades as carpentry and welding; 3) vocational technical
schools that accepted either junior-or senior-middle-school students for one-
to three-year courses in cooking,tailoring, photography, and other services;
and 4) agricultural middle schools that offered basic subjects and agricultural
science.
These technical schools had several hundred different programs. Their narrow
specializations had advantages in that they offered in-depth training, reducing
the need for on-the-job training and thereby lowering learning time and costs.
Moreover, students were more motivated to study if there were links between
training and future jobs. Much of the training could be done at existing
enterprises, where staff and equipment was available at little additional cost.
There were some disadvantages to this system, however. Under the Four
Modernizations, technically trained generalists were needed more than highly
specialized technicians. Also, highly specialized equipment and staff were
underused, and there was an overall shortage of specialized facilities to
conduct training. In addition, large expenses were incurred in providing the
necessary facilities and staff, and the trend in some government technical
agencies was toward more general technical and vocational education.
Further, the dropout rate continued to have a negative effect on the labor pool
as upper-secondary-school technical students dropped out and as the percentage
of lower-secondary-school graduates entering the labor market without job
training increased. Occupational rigidity and the geographic immobility of the
population, particularly in rural areas, further limited educational choices.
Although there were 668,000 new polytechnic school enrollments in 1985, the
Seventh Five-Year Plan called for annual increases of 2 million mid-level
skilled workers and 400,000 senior technicians, indicating that enrollment
levels were still far from sufficient. To improve the situation, in July 1986
officials from the State Education Commission, State Planning Commission, and
Ministry of Labor and Personnel convened a national conference on developing
China's technical and vocational education. It was decided that technical and
vocational education in rural areas should accommodate local conditions and be
conducted on a short-term basis. Where conditions permitted, emphasis would be
placed on organizing technical schools and short-term training classes. To
alleviate the shortage of teachers, vocational and technical teachers' colleges
were to be reformed and other colleges and universities were to be mobilized
for assistance. The State Council decision to improve training for workers who
had passed technical examinations (as opposed to unskilled workers) was
intended to reinforce the development of vocational and technical schools.
Expanding and improving secondary vocational education has long been an
objective of China’s educational reformers, for vocational schools are seen as
those which are best placed to address (by providing trained workers) the
rising needs of the nation’s expanding economy, especially its manufacturing
and industrial sectors. Without an educated and trained work force, China
cannot have economic, hence social and national, development. Yet, given a
finite, and often quite limited, pot of money for secondary schools, an
allocation competition/conflict necessarily exists between its two sub-sectors:
general education and vocational/technical education. Regardless, an
over-enrollment in the latter has been the overall result of the mid-1980s
reforms. Yet firms that must seek workers from this graduate pool have remained
unimpressed with the quality of recruits and have had to rely on their own
job-training programs that provide re-education for their newly hired workers.
The public, also, has not been very enthusiastic over vocational secondary
education which, unlike general education, does not lead to the possibility of
higher education. The public’s perception is that these schools provide little
more than a dead end for their children. Also, vocational institutions are more
expensive to run than their counterparts in general education, and they have
not had sufficient money to modernize their facilities, as China’s modernizing
national economy demands. By mid-decade of the 21st Century, therefore,
academics and policy-makers alike began to question the policy that pours funds
into vocational schools that do not do their intended function.
International education[edit]
Shanghai American School Puxi Campus
As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy (ISC)[20] listed
China as having 481 international schools.[21] ISC defines an 'international
school' in the following terms "ISC includes an international school if the
school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or
secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking
country, or if a school in a country where English is one of the official
languages, offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country’s
national curriculum and is international in its orientation."[21] This
definition is used by publications including The Economist.[22] There were
177,400 students enrolled in international schools in 2014.[23]
2013 Nicholas Brummitt, managing director of ISC, reported that there were 338
international schools in Mainland China as of 2013, with 184,073 students.
Slightly more than half of the international schools are in the major
expatriate areas of China: Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong Province, while the
remainder are in other areas.[7] Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou have the most
international schools while significant numbers also exist in Shenzhen and
Chengdu.[24]
Many international schools in Beijing and Shanghai, in accordance with Chinese
law, are only permitted to enroll students having citizenship in areas other
than Mainland China.[7] This is because Mainland Chinese students are required
to have a certain curriculum, and schools that do not include this curriculum
are not permitted to enroll Mainlanders.[24] Mainlander children who hold
foreign passports are permitted to attend these schools.[25] Students from Hong
Kong, Macau, and Taiwan may attend international schools for foreigners.[26] As
of 2014, 19 international schools in Beijing are restricted to non-Mainlanders.
There are also schools using international curricula that accept both
Mainlander and non-Mainlander students.[24]
By 2004 increased international business operations resulted in an increase of
foreigner children. Many of the original post-1949 international schools used
International Baccalaureate and North American curricula. By 2004 many
international schools in Beijing and Shanghai using the British curricula had
opened.[26] The number of international schools in 2013 is an increase from 22
international schools in 2001, with a total of 25 times fewer students.[7] By
the 2010s many Mainland Chinese parents began sending their children to
international schools which accept Mainland students to increase their
children's chances of going overseas.[7][23]
Higher education[edit]
Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan
Main article: Higher education in China
By the end of 2004, China had 2,236 schools of Higher Learning, with over 20
million students; the gross rate of enrollment in schools of higher learning
reached 19 percent. Postgraduate education is the fastest growing sector, with
24.1 percent more students recruited and 25.9 percent moreresearchers than the
year before. This enrollment growth indicates that China has entered the stage
of popular education. The UNESCO world higher education report of June 2003
pointed out that the student population of China's schools of higher learning
had doubled in a very short period of time, and was the world's largest.
Particular attention has been paid to improving systems in recent reforms. Many
industrial multiversities and specialist colleges have been established,
strengthening some incomplete subjects and establishing new specialties, e.g.,
automation, nuclear power, energy resources, oceanography,nuclear physics,
computer science, polymer chemistry, polymer physics, radiochemistry, physical
chemistry and biophysics. A project for creating 100 world class universities
began in 1993, which has merged 708 schools of higher learning into 302
universities. Merging schools of higher learning has produced far-reaching
reform of higher education management, optimizing of educational resources
allocation, and further improving teaching quality and school standards. More
than 30 universities have received help from a special national fund to support
their attainment of world elite class.
Between 1999 and 2003, enrollment in higher education increased from 1.6
million to 3.82 million. In 2004, the total enrollment in ordinary schools of
higher learning was 4.473 million, 651,000 more than in 2003. Schools of higher
learning and research institutes enrolled 326,000 postgraduate students, 57,000
more than the previous year. In 2010 China is expecting 6.3 million students to
graduate from College or University, with 63% likely to enter the work
force.[27]
The contribution to China's economic construction and social development made
by research in the higher education sector is becoming ever more evident. By
strengthening cooperation among their production, teaching and research,
schools of higher learning are speeding up the process in turning sci-tech
research results into products, giving rise to many new and hi-tech enterprises
and important innovations. Forty-three national university sci-tech parks have
been started or approved, some of which have become important bases for
commercializing research.
Background[edit]
The quality of Higher education at various times in modern China has changed at
various times, reflecting the changes in political policies implemented by the
central government. Following the founding of the PRC, in 1949, the Chinese
government's educational focus was largely on political "re-education". In
periods of political upheaval, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution, ideology was stressed over professional or technical competence.
During the early stages of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969), tens of
thousands of college students joined Red Guard organizations, which persecuted
many university faculty members as "counter-revolutionaries" and effectively
closed China's universities. When universities reopened in the early 1970s,
enrollments were reduced from pre-Cultural Revolution levels, and admission was
restricted to individuals who had been recommended by their work unit (danwei),
possessed good political credentials, and had distinguished themselves in
manual labor. In the absence of stringent and reasonably objective entrance
examinations, political connections became increasingly important in securing
the recommendations and political dossiers necessary to qualify for university
admission. As a result, the decline in educational quality was profound. Deng
Xiaoping reportedly wrote Mao Zedong in 1975 that university graduates were
"not even capable of reading a book" in their own fields when they left the
university. University faculty and administrators were demoralized by the
political aspects of the university system.
Efforts made in 1975 to improve educational quality were unsuccessful. By 1980
it appeared doubtful that the politically oriented admission criteria had
accomplished even the purpose of increasing enrollment of worker and peasant
children. Successful candidates for university entrance were usually children
of cadres and officials who used personal connections that allowed them to
"enter through the back door." Students from officials' families would accept
the requisite minimum two-year work assignment in the countryside, often in a
suburban location that allowed them to remain close to their families. Village
cadres, anxious to please the parents/officials, gladly recommended these
youths for university placement after the labor requirement had been met. The
child of an official family was then on his or her way to a university without
having academic ability, a record of political activism, or a distinguished
work record.
After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, steps were taken to improve educational
quality by establishing order and stability, calling for an end to political
contention on university campuses, and expanding university enrollments. This
pressure to maintain quality and minimize expendituresled to efforts both to
run existing institutions more efficiently and to develop other college and
university programs. As a result, labor colleges for training agro-technicians
and factory-run colleges for providing technical education for workers were
established. In addition, eighty-eight institutions and key universities were
provided with special funding, top students and faculty members, and other
support, and they recruited the most academically qualified students without
regard to family background or political activism.
Modernization goals in the 1980s[edit]
Representatives of Xi'an universities ready to welcome new students at booths
set up outside of the city's train station throughout the late summer
The commitment to the Four Modernizations required great advances in science
and technology. Under the modernization program, higher education was to be the
cornerstone for training andresearch. Because modernization depended on a
vastly increased and improved capability to trainscientists and engineers for
needed breakthroughs, the renewed concern for higher education and academic
quality - and the central role that the sciences were expected to play in the
Four Modernizations - highlighted the need for scientific research and
training. This concern can be traced to the critical personnel shortages and
qualitative deficiencies in the sciences resulting from the unproductive years
of the Cultural Revolution, when higher education was shut down. In response to
the need for scientific training, the Sixth Plenum of the Twelfth National
Party Congress Central Committee, held in September 1986, adopted a resolution
on the guiding principles for building asocialist society that strongly
emphasized the importance of education and science.
Reformers realized, however, that the higher education system was far from
meeting modernization goals and that additional changes were needed. The
Provisional Regulations Concerning the Management of Institutions of Higher
Learning, promulgated by the State Council in 1986, initiated vast changes in
administration and adjusted educational opportunity, direction, and content.
With the increased independence accorded under the education reform,
universities and colleges were able to choose their own teaching plans and
curricula; to accept projects from or cooperate with other socialist
establishments for scientific research and technical development in setting up
"combines" involving teaching, scientific research, and production; to suggest
appointments and removals of vice presidents and other staff members; to take
charge of the distribution of capital construction investment and funds
allocated by the state; and to be responsible for the development of
international exchanges by using their own funds.
The changes also allowed the universities to accept financial aid from work
units and decide how this money was to be used without asking for more money
from departments in charge of education. Further, higher education institutions
and work units could sign contracts for the training of students.
Higher education institutions also were assigned a greater role in running
inter-regional and inter-departmental schools. Within their state-approved
budgets, universities secured more freedom to allocate funds as they saw fit
and to use income from tuition and technical and advisory services for their
own development, including collective welfare and bonuses.
There also was a renewed interest in television, radio, and correspondence
classes (see distance learning and electronic learning). Some of the courses,
particularly in the college-run factories, were serious, full-time enterprises,
with a two- to three-year curriculum.
Entrance examinations and admission criteria[edit]
Main article: National Higher Education Entrance Examination
National examinations to select students for higher education (and positions of
leadership) were an important part of China's culture, and, traditionally,
entrance to a higher education institution is considered prestigious. Although
the examination system for admission to colleges and universities has undergone
many changes since the Cultural Revolution, it remains the basis for recruiting
academically able students. When higher education institutions were reopened in
early 1970s, candidates for entrance examinations had to be
senior-middle-school graduates or the equivalent, generally below twenty-six
years of age. Work experience requirements were eliminated, but workers and
staff members needed permission from their enterprises to take the examinations.
Each provincial-level unit was assigned a quota of students to be admitted to
key universities, a second quota of students for regular universities within
that administrative division, and a third quota of students from other
provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities who would be admitted
to institutions operated at the provincial level. Provincial-level
administrative units selected students with outstanding records to take the
examinations. Additionally, preselection examinations were organized by the
provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities for potential
students (from three to five times the number of places allotted). These
candidates were actively encouraged to take the examination to ensure that a
sufficient number of good applicants would be available. Cadres with at least
two years of work experience were recruited for selected departments in a small
number of universities on an experimental basis. Preferential admission
treatment (in spite of lower test scores) was given to minority candidates,
students from disadvantaged areas, and those who agreed in advance to work in
less developed regions after graduation.
In December 1977, when uniform national examinations were reinstated, 5.7
million students took the examinations, although university placement was
available for only the 278,000 applicants with the highest scores. In July
1984, about 1.6 million candidates (30,000 fewer than in 1983) took the
entrance examinations for the 430,000 places in China's more than 900 colleges
and universities. Of the 1.6 million examinees, more than 1 million took the
test for placement in science and engineering colleges; 415,000 for places in
liberal arts colleges; 88,000 for placement in foreign language institutions;
and 15,000 for placement in sports universities and schools. More than 100,000
of the candidates were from national minority groups. A year later, there were
approximately 1.8 million students taking the three-day college entrance
examination to compete for 560,000 places. Liberal arts candidates were tested
on politics, Chinese, mathematics, foreign languages, history, and geography.
Science and engineering candidates were tested on politics, Chinese,
mathematics, chemistry, andbiology. Entrance examinations also were given in
1985 for professional and technical schools, which sought to enroll 550,000 new
students.
Other innovations in enrollment practices, included allowing colleges and
universities to admit students with good academic records but relatively low
entrance-examination scores. Some colleges were allowed to try an experimental
student recommendation system - fixed at 2 percent of the total enrollment for
regular colleges and 5 percent for teachers' colleges - instead of the
traditional entrance examination. A minimum national examination score was
established for admission to specific departments at specially designated
colleges and universities, and the minimum score for admission to other
universities was set by provincial-level authorities. Key universities
established separate classes for minorities. When several applicants attained
the minimum test score, the school had the option of making a selection, a
policy that gave university faculty and administrators a certain amount of
discretion but still protected admission according to academic ability.
In addition to the written examination, university applicants had to pass a
physical examination and a political screening. Less than 2 percent of the
students who passed the written test were eliminated for reasons of poor
health. The number disqualified for political reasons was known, but publicly
the party maintained that the number was very small and that it sought to
ensure that only the most able students actually entered colleges and
universities.
By 1985 the number of institutions of higher learning had again increased - to
slightly more than 1,000. The State Education Commission and the Ministry of
Finance issued a joint declaration for nationwide unified enrollment of adult
students - not the regular secondary-school graduates but the members of the
work force who qualified for admission by taking a test. The State Education
Commission established unified questions and time and evaluation criteria for
the test and authorized provinces, autonomous regions, and special
municipalities to administer the test, grade the papers in a uniform manner,
and determine the minimum points required for admission. The various schools
were to enroll students according to the results. Adult students needed to have
the educational equivalent of senior-middle-school graduates, and those
applying for release or partial release from work to study were to be under
forty years of age. Staff members and workers were to apply to study
job-related subjects with review by and approval of their respective work
units. If employers paid for the college courses, the workers had to take
entrance examinations. In 1985 colleges enrolled 33,000 employees from various
enterprises and companies, approximately 6 percent of the total college
enrollment.
In 1985 state quotas for university places were set, allowing both for students
sponsored by institutions and for those paying their own expenses. This policy
was a change from the previous system in which all students were enrolled
according to guidelines established in Beijing. All students except those at
military school or police academy, those who had financial difficulties, and
those who were to work under adverse conditions after graduation had to pay for
their own tuition, accommodations, and miscellaneous expenses.
Changes in enrollment and assignment policies[edit]
The children enrollment and graduate assignment system also was changed to
reflect more closely the personnel needs of modernization. By 1986 the state
was responsible for drafting the enrollment plan, which took into account
future personnel demands, the need to recruit students from outlying regions,
and the needs of trades and professions with adverse working conditions.
Moreover, a certain number of graduates to be trained for the People's
Liberation Army were included in the state enrollment plan. In most cases,
enrollment in higher education institutions at the employers' request was
extended as a supplement to the state student enrollment plan. Employers were
to pay a percentage of training fees, and students were to fulfill contractual
obligations to the employers after graduation. The small number of students who
attended colleges and universities at their own expense could be enrolled in
addition to those in the state plan.
Accompanying the changes in enrollment practices were reforms (adopted 1986) in
the faculty appointment system, which ended the "iron rice bowl" employment
system and permitted colleges and universities to decide which academic
departments, which academic majors, and how many teachers they needed. Teachers
in institutions of higher learning were hired on a basis, usually for two to
four years at a time. The teaching positions available on basis were teaching
assistant, lecturer, associate professor, and professor. The system was tested
in eight major universities in Beijing and Shanghai before it was instituted
nationwide at the end of 1985. University presidents headed groups in charge of
appointing professors, lecturers, and teaching assistants according to their
academic levels and teaching abilities, and a more rational wage system, geared
to different job levels, was inaugurated. Universities and colleges with
surplus professors and researchers were advised to grant them appropriate
academic titles and encourage them to work for their current pay in schools of
higher learning where they were needed. The new system was to be extended to
schools of all kinds and other education departments within two years.
Under the 1985 reforms, all graduates were assigned jobs by the state; a
central government placement agency told the schools where to send graduates.
By 1985 Tsinghua University and a few other universities were experimenting
with a system that allowed graduates to accept job offers or to look for their
own positions. For example, of 1,900 Tsinghua University graduates in 1985,
1,200 went on to graduate school, 48 looked for their own jobs, and the
remainder were assigned jobs by the school after consultation with the
students. The college students andpostgraduates scheduled to graduate in 1986
were assigned primarily to work in forestry, education, textiles, and the
armaments industry. Graduates still were needed in civil engineering, computer
science, and finance.
Scholarship and loan system[edit]
In July 1986 the State Council announced that the stipend system for university
and college students would be replaced with a new scholarship and loan system.
The new system, to be tested in selected institutions during the 1986-87
academic year, was designed to help students who could not cover their own
living expenses but who studied hard, obeyed state laws, and observed
discipline codes. Students eligible for financial aid were to apply to the
schools and the China Industrial and Commercial Bank for low-interest loans.
Three categories of students eligible for aid were established: top students
encouraged to attain all-around excellence; students specializing in education,
agriculture,forestry, sports, and marine navigation; and students willing to
work in poor, remote, and border regions or under harsh conditions, such as
inmining and engineering. In addition, free tuition and board were to be
offered at military school, and the graduates were required to join the army
for at least five years in relevant positions. For those who worked in an
approved rural position after graduation, student's loans would be paid off by
his or her employer, such as a school, in a lump sum. And the money was to be
repaid to the employer by the student through five years of payroll deductions.
Study abroad[edit]
In addition to loans, another means of raising educational quality,
particularly in science, was to send students abroad to study. A large number
of Chinese students studied in the Soviet Union before educational links and
other cooperative programs with the Soviet Union were severed in the late 1950s
(see Sino-Soviet split). In the 1960s and 1970s, China continued to send a
small number of students abroad, primarily toEuropean universities. In October
1978 Chinese students began to arrive in the United States; their numbers
accelerated after normalization of relations between the two countries in
January 1979, a policy consistent with modernization needs. Although figures
vary, more than 36,000 students, including 7,000 self-supporting students
(those who paid their own way, received scholarships from host institutions, or
received help from relatives and "foreign friends"), studied in 14 countries
between 1978 and 1984. Of this total, 78 percent were technical personnel sent
abroad for advanced study. As of mid-1986 there were 15,000 Chinese scholars
and graduates in American universities, compared with the total of 19,000
scholars sent between 1979 and 1983.
Chinese students sent to the United States generally were not typical
undergraduates or graduate students but were mid-career scientists, often
thirty-five to forty-five years of age, seeking advanced training in their
areas of specialization. Often they were individuals of exceptional ability who
occupied responsible positions in Chinese universities and research
institutions. Fewer than 15 percent of the earliest arrivals were degree
candidates. Nearly all the visiting scholars were in scientific fields.
Educational investment[edit]
Many of the problems that had hindered higher educational development in the
past continued in 1987. Funding remained a major problem because science and
technology study and research and study abroad were expensive. Because
education was competing with othermodernization programs, capital was
critically short. Another concern was whether or not the Chinese economy was
sufficiently advanced to make efficient use of the highly trained technical
personnel it planned to educate. For example, some observers believed that it
would be more realistic to train a literate work force of low-level technicians
instead of research scientists. Moreover, it was feared that using an
examination to recruit the most able students might advance people who were
merely good at taking examinations. Educational reforms also made some people
uncomfortable by criticizing the traditional practice of rote memorization and
promoting innovative teaching and study methods.
The prestige associated with higher education caused a demand for it. But many
qualified youths were unable to attend colleges and universities because China
could not finance enough university places for them. To help meet the demand
and to educate a highly trained, specialized work force, China established
alternate forms of higher education - such as spare-time, part-time, and radio
and television universities.
China could not afford a heavy investment, either ideologically or financially,
in the education of a few students. Since 1978 China's leaders have modified
the policy of concentrating education resources at the university level, which,
although designed to facilitate modernization, conflicted directly with the
party's principles. The policies that produced an educated elite also siphoned
off resources that might have been used to accomplish the compulsory nine-year
education more speedily and to equalize educational opportunities in the city
and the countryside. The policy of key schools has been modified over the
years. Nevertheless, China's leaders believe an educated elite is necessary to
reach modernization goals. Corruption has been increasingly problematic for
rural schools. Because the educational funding is distributed from the top
down, each layer of bureaucracy has tended to siphon off more than its share of
funding, leaving too little for the bottom rural level.
Families have had to cover for government indifference by making personal
investments in their children's education. However the Chinese economy may not
be able to effectively absorb the resulting influx of college graduates, who
may need to settle for lower paying jobs, if they can find those.[28]
Reform in the 21st century[edit]
In 1998 the Chinese government proposed expand university enrollment of
professional and specialized graduates and develop world class universities.
Restructuring, through consolidations, mergers and shifts among the authorities
which supervise institutions, was aimed at addressing the problems of small
size and low efficiency. Higher vocational education was also restructured, and
there was a general tendency there to emphasize elite institutions. This rapid
expansion of mass higher education has resulted in not only a strain in
teaching resources but also in higher unemployment rates among graduates. The
creation of private universities, not under governmental control, remains slow
and its future uncertain. The restructuring of higher education, in the words
of one academic "has created a clearly escalating social stratificationpattern
among institutions, stratified by geography, source of funding, administrative
unit, as well as by functional category (e.g., comprehensive, law, medical,
etc.)."[29] Thus, although recent reform has arguably improved over-all
educational quality, they have created new, different issues of equity and
efficiency that will need to be addressed as the century proceeds.
In the spring 2007 China planned to conduct a national evaluation of its
universities. The results of this evaluation are used to support the next major
planned policy initiative. The last substantial national evaluation of
universities, which was undertaken in 1994, resulted in the 'massification' of
higher education as well as a renewed emphasis on elite institutions.[30]
Academics praised the fin du siècle reforms for budging China's higher
education from a unified, centralized, closed and static system into one
characterized by more diversification, decentralization, openness and dynamism,
stimulating the involvement of local governments and other non-state sectors.
At the same time they note that this decentralization and marketization has led
to further inequality in educational opportunity.[31]
Chinese policies on College Entrance Examination have been influenced by the
recruitment systems of western countries and the traditional culture of
imperial examinations. Since Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University
started independent enrolment before College Entrance Examination in 2007, some
of the top Chinese colleges began to follow them using a new method to choose
students besides unified examination system. In accordance with university
regulations, those colleges appoint their own staff and are responsible for
selecting students. Students can get admitted by taking a specific exam or
interview before the College Entrance Examination. In this way, students have
more chance to get admitted by the top colleges. In 2010, there were several
critical reforms in the education field. In January 31, the education ministry
in Guangdong province began to implement parallel voluntary admission in
college entrance recruiting system, which is an efficient way to decrease the
risk of getting into a college for the majority of students. In November 20,
the education ministry of China cancelled the additional Olympics points in
College Entrance Exam policy. It is fairer for the high school students, and
efficiently reduces the heavy academic burdens for students. As the economic
development of China, private school system has been gradually built up. Many
private preschools began to use bilingual teaching. Furthermore, some public
colleges and universities cooperated with investors to run secondary college by
using public running and being sponsored by private enterprises, which promotes
the development of education. On the other hand, the Technical and Vocational
Education in China has developed rapidly, and become the focus of the whole
society.
Harvard degrees have long been respected in China. This monumentwas presented
to Harvard University by its Chinese graduates in 1936.
Nowadays, as the educational level of Chinese has increased, getting into
college is no longer a remarkable achievement among the Chinese students.
Instead, having a degree of an ordinary Chinese university already can’t
satisfy the increasingly competitive society. Chinese parents and students have
begun to place a high value on overseas education, especially at top American
and European institutions such as Harvard University, Oxford University, and
Cambridge University, which are "revered" among many middle-class parents.[32]
Since 1999, the number of Chinese applicants to top schools overseas has
increased tenfold.[32][33] Much of the interest in overseas schools has been
attributed to the release of how-to parenting books such as Harvard Girl, which
spawned a "national obsession" with admissions to overseas schools.[33][34]
After 2005, the number of overseas students from China not only showed a growth
trend, but also presented a lowering trend of age.
Some of the prestige of an American higher education is the result of
weaknesses in the PRC's education system, which stifles creativity in favor of
rote memorization.[35]
See also: Article about college graduate's difficulty launching their
professional careers
Teachers[edit]
In 1985, the government designated September 10 as Teachers' Day, the first
festival day for any profession and indicative of government efforts to raise
the social status and living standards of teachers.
The government has started the Nationwide Program of Network for Education of
Teachers to improve the quality of teaching. It aims to modernize teachers'
education through educational information, providing support and services for
lifelong learning through the teachers' education network, TV satellite
network, and the Internet and to greatly improve the teaching quality of
elementary and high school faculty through large-scale, high-quality and
high-efficiency training and continuous education.
As required by state law, local governments are implementing teacher
qualification systems and promoting in-service training for large numbers of
school principals, so as to further improve school management standards.
Currently, in schools of higher learning, professors and assistant professors
account for 9.5 percent and 30 percent respectively. Young and middle-aged
teachers predominate; teachers under age 45 account for 79 percent of total
faculty, and under age 35 for 46 percent. Teachers in higher education
constitute a vital contingent inscientific research, knowledge innovation and
sci-tech. Of all academicians in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 40.7 percent
(280) are in the higher education sector; for the Chinese Academy of
Engineering the corresponding figure is 35.3 percent (234).
Among the most pressing problems facing education reformers was the scarcity of
qualified teachers, which has led to a serious stunting of educational
development. In 1986 there were about 8 million primary- and middle-school
teachers in China, but many lacked professional training. Estimates indicated
that in order to meet the goals of the Seventh Five-Year Plan and realize
compulsory 9-year education, the system needed 1 million new teachers for
primary schools, 750,000 new teachers for junior middle schools, and 300,000
new teachers for senior middle schools. Estimates predict, however, that the
demand for teachers will drop in the late 1990s because of an anticipated
decrease in primary-school enrollments.
To cope with the shortage of qualified teachers, the State Education Commission
decreed in 1985 that senior-middle-school teachers should be graduates with two
years' training in professional institutes and that primary-school teachers
should be graduates of secondary schools. To improve teacher quality, the
commission established full-time and part-time (the latter preferred because it
was less costly) in-service training programs. Primary-school and preschool
in-service teacher training programs devoted 84 percent of the time to subject
teaching, 6 percent topedagogy and psychology, and 10 percent to teaching
methods. In-service training for primary-school teachers was designed to raise
them to a level of approximately two years' postsecondary study, with the goal
of qualifying most primary-school teachers by 1990. Secondary-school in-service
teacher training was based on a unified model, tailored to meet local
conditions, and offered on a spare-time basis. Ninety-five percent of its
curricula was devoted to subject teaching, 2 to 3 percent to pedagogy and
psychology, and 2 to 3 percent to teaching methods. There was no similar
large-scale in-service effort for technical and vocational teachers, most of
whom worked for enterprises and local authorities.
By 1985 there were more than 1,000 teacher training schools - an indispensable
tool in the effort to solve the acute shortage of qualified teachers. These
schools, however, were unable to supply the number of teachers needed to attain
modernization goals through 1990. Although a considerable number of students
graduated as qualified teachers from institutions of Higher Learning, the
relatively low social status and salary levels of teachers hampered
recruitment, and not all of the graduates of teachers' colleges became
teachers. To attract more teachers, China tried to make teaching a more
desirable and respected profession. To this end, the government designated
September 10 asTeachers' Day, granted teachers pay raises, and made teachers'
colleges tuition free. To further arrest the teacher shortage, in 1986 the
central government sent teachers to underdeveloped regions to train local
schoolteachers.
Because urban teachers continued to earn more than their rural counterparts and
because academic standards in the countryside had dropped, it remained
difficult to recruit teachers for rural areas. Teachers in rural areas also had
production responsibilities for their plots of land, which took time from their
teaching. Rural primary teachers needed to supplement their pay by farming
because most were paid by the relatively poor local communities rather than by
the state.
Adult and online education[edit]
See also: Adult education, Continuing education, Distance education, and
Lifelong learning
The participation of big investors in online education has made it a new
hotspot for investment in the education industry. Students of remote and
under-developed areas are the biggest beneficiaries of online education, but
online universities offer students who failed university entrance examinations
and working people the chance of lifelong education and learning.
The Ministry of Education has approved 68 ordinary schools of higher learning
and the Central Radio and TV University to pilot modern distance education. By
the end of 2003, these schools had established 2,027 off-campus learning
centers around China, offering 140 majors in ten disciplines, and had a total
enrollment of 1.373 million.
The gradual spread of broadband technology has also helped online education.
The China Education and Research Network (CERNET), started in 1994, is now
China's second largest Internet network, covering all major cities of China.
The high-speed connection between it and the China Education Broadband
Satellite Net, opened in 2000, established a "space to earth" transmission
platform for modern distance education, and provided an all-round network
supporting environment for distance education.
Adult education is both dynamic and diverse. Schools of higher learning for
adults include radio and TV, worker, farmer, correspondence and evening
universities, management and education colleges; adult secondary schools
include vocational, high and skills training schools; worker elementary and
farmer elementary schools comprise the adult elementary sector.
Role in modernization[edit]
Because only 4 percent of the nation's secondary education graduates are
admitted to universities, China has found it necessary to develop other ways of
meeting the demand for education. Adult education has become increasingly
important in helping China meet its modernizationgoals. Adult, or "nonformal,"
education is an alternative form of higher education that encompasses radio,
television, and correspondenceuniversities, spare-time and part-time
universities, factory-run universities for staff and workers, and county-run
universities for peasants, many operating primarily during students' off-work
hours. These alternative forms of education are economical. They had sought to
educate both the "delayed generation" - those who lost educational
opportunities during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) - and to raise the
cultural, scientific, and general education levels of workers on the job.
Forms[edit]
Schools have been established by government departments, businesses, trade
unions, academic societies, democratic parties, and other organizations. In
1984 about 70 percent of China's factories and enterprises supported their own
part-time classes, which often were referred to as workers' colleges. In
Beijing alone, more than ninety adult-education schools with night schools
enrolled tens of thousands of students. More than 20,000 of these students
graduated annually from evening universities, workers' colleges, television
universities, and correspondence schools - more than twice the number
graduating from regular colleges and universities. The government spent 200
yuan (¥) to ¥500 per adult education student and at least ¥1,000 per regular
university student. In 1984 approximately 1.3 million students enrolled in
television, correspondence, and evening universities, about a 30 percent
increase over 1983.
Spare-time education for workers and peasants and literacy classes for the
entire adult population were other components of basic education. Spare-time
education included a very broad range of educational activities at all levels.
Most spare-time schools were sponsored by factories and run for their own
workers; they provided fairly elementary education, as well as courses to
upgrade technical skills. Most were on-the-job training and retraining courses,
a normal part of any industrial system. These schools continually received
publicity in the domestic media as a symbol of social justice, but it was
unclear whether they received adequate resources to achieve this end.
China's educational television system began in 1960 but was suspended during
the Cultural Revolution in 1966. In 1979 the Central Radio and Television
University was established in Beijing with branches in twenty-eight
provincial-level universities. Many Central Radio and Television University
students were recent senior-middle school graduates who scored just below the
cut-off point for admission to conventional colleges and universities.
Full-time (who take four courses) and part-time students (two courses) had at
least two years' work experience, and they return to their jobs after
graduation. Spare-time students (one course) studied after work. Students whose
work units granted them permission to study in a television university were
paid their normal wages; expenses for most of their books and other educational
materials were paid for by the state. A typical Central Radio and Television
University student spent up to six hours a day over a three-year period
watching lectures on videotapes produced by some of the best teachers in China.
These lectures were augmented by face-to-face tutoring by local instructors and
approximately four hours of homework each evening. The major problem with the
system is that there were too few television sets. In 1987 the Central
Television and Radio University had its programs produced, transmitted and
financed by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television. The State
Education Commission developed its curriculum and distributed its printed
support materials. Curriculum included both basic, general-purpose courses in
science and technology and more specialized courses. The Central Television and
Radio University offered more than 1,000 classes in Beijing and its suburbs and
14 majors in 2- to 3-year courses through 56 working centers. Students who
passed final examinations were given certificates entitling them to the same
level of remuneration as graduates of regular, full-time colleges and
universities. The state gave certain allowances to students awaiting jobs
during their training period.
Literacy and language reform[edit]
The Hanyu Pinyin Romanization is commonly used as a means of teaching literacy
and the standard ("Putonghua") pronunciation
The continuing campaigns to eradicate illiteracy also were a part of basic
education. Chinese government statistics indicated that of a total population
of nearly 1.1 billion in 1985, about 230 million people were illiterate or
semiliterate. The difficulty of mastering written Chinese makes raising
theliteracy rate particularly difficult. In general, language reform was
intended to make writing and thestandard language easier to learn, which in
turn would foster both literacy and linguistic unity and serve as a foundation
for a simpler written language. In 1951 the party issued a directive that
inaugurated a three-part plan for language reform. The plan sought to establish
universal comprehension of a standardized common language, simplify written
characters, and introduce, where possible, romanized forms based on the Latin
alphabet. In 1956 Putonghua (Modern Standard Chinese) was introduced as the
language of instruction in schools and in the national broadcast media, and by
1977 it was in use throughout China, particularly in the government and party,
and in education. Although in 1987 the government continued to endorse the goal
of universalizing putonghua, hundreds of regional and local dialects continued
to be spoken, complicating interregional communication.
A second language reform required the simplification of ideographs because
ideographs with fewer strokes are easier to learn. In 1964 the Committee for
Reforming the Chinese Written Language released an official list of 2,238
simplified characters most basic to the language. Simplification made literacy
easier[citation needed], although some people (especially in Hong Kong which is
still using traditional Chinese) taught only in simplified characters were cut
off from the wealth of Chinese literature written in traditional characters.
Any idea of replacing ideographic script with romanized script was soon
abandoned, however by government and education leaders.
A third area of change involved the proposal to use the pinyin romanization
system more widely. Pinyin (first approved by the National People's Congress in
1958) was encouraged primarily to facilitate the spread of putonghua in regions
where other dialects and languages are spoken. By the mid-1980s, however, the
use of pinyin was not as widespread as the use of putonghua.
Retaining literacy was as much a problem as acquiring it, particularly among
the rural population. Literacy rates declined between 1966 and 1976. Political
disorder may have contributed to the decline, but the basic problem was that
the many Chinese ideographs can be mastered only through rote learning and can
be often forgotten because of disuse.[citation needed]
Criticism[edit]
Although Shanghai and Hong Kong regularly perform highly in international
assessments, Chinese education has both native and international detractors;
common areas of criticism include its rigor; its emphasis on memorization and
standardized testing;[36] and the gap in quality of education between students
of rural and urban areas. Jonathan Kaiman of The Guardian writes that Chinese
parents and educators "see their own system as corrupt, dehumanising,
pressurised and unfair"; he went on to discuss the country's college admission
exam (called thegaokao), writing that "many parents consider the gruelling
nine-hour test a sorting mechanism that will determine the trajectory of their
children's lives."[37] In The New York Times, Helen Gao called China's
educational system "cutthroat" and wrote that its positive reputation among
admirers is largely built on a myth:[38]
"While China has phenomenally expanded basic education for its people,
quadrupling its output of college graduates in the past decade, it has also
created a system that discriminates against its less wealthy and well-connected
citizens, thwarting social mobility at every step with bureaucratic and
financial barriers. A huge gap in educational opportunities between students
from rural areas and those from cities is one of the main culprits. Some 60
million students in rural schools are 'left-behind' children, cared for by
their grandparents as their parents seek work in faraway cities. While many of
their urban peers attend schools equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and
well-trained teachers, rural students often huddle in decrepit school buildings
and struggle to grasp advanced subjects such as English and chemistry amid a
dearth of qualified instructors. 'Rural students stand virtually no chance when
competing academically with their urban counterparts,' Jiang Nengjie, a friend
and independent filmmaker who made a documentary on the left-behind children,
told me."
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Lara Farrar argued that the disabled are
"shortchanged" in Chinese schools, with very little chance of acceptance into
higher educational institutions.[39]
Rural education[edit]
See also: Rural boarding schools in China
Reflecting the fact that most of China's population live in the countryside,
95.2 percent of all elementary schools, 87.6 percent of junior high schools and
71.5 percent of senior high schools are in rural areas, with 160 million
students at the compulsory education stage. The 1995-2000 "National Project of
Compulsory Education in Impoverished Areas" involved the allocation of 3.9
billion special funds from the central finance and 10 billion yuan raised by
local governments to improve schooling conditions in impoverished areas. In
2004, various special funds allocated by the central finance for compulsory
education in rural areas reached 10 billion yuan, a 72.4 percent increase on
the 2003 figure of 5.8 billion.
The China Agricultural Broadcast and Television School has nearly 3,000 branch
schools and a teaching and administrative staff of 46,000. Using radio,
television, satellite, network, audio and video materials, it has trained over
100 million people in applicable agricultural technologies and over 8 million
persons for work in rural areas. After 20 years in development, it is the
world's largest distance learning organ for rural education.
In a Ministry of Education program covering the next five years, the government
will implement measures to realize its aims of nine-year compulsory education
in China's western region and the basic elimination of young and middle-aged
illiteracy and the popularization of high level, high quality nine-year
compulsory education in east and central rural areas. At the same time,
government is to promote the development of modern distance learning for rural
elementary and high schools, and further improve rural compulsory education
management systems.
Education for migrant children[edit]
Following the large-scale movement of Chinese rural population to the cities
the children of these migrant workers either stay as left-behind children in
the villages or they migrate with their parents to the cities. Although
regulations by the central government stipulate that all migrant children have
the right to attend a public school in the cities[40] public schools
nevertheless effectively reject these children by setting high thresholds such
as school fees and exams or by requesting an urban registration (Hukou).
Providing an alternative, private entrepreneurs established since the 1990s
semi-official private schools that offered schooling to migrant children for
lower fees. However, this system contributed to the segregation between urban
and migrant children. Furthermore, these schools often have a poor teaching
quality, provide only school certificates of limited value and sometimes even
do not comply with safety regulations.[41] Since the beginning of the 2000s,
some local governments thus started campaigns to close these private schools
but nevertheless in many cities these schools still exist.[42] Although Chinese
scholars have conducted case-study research on migrant children and their
schools[43][44] there is a lack in studies with a nationwide scope.
Private education[edit]
The government supports private educational organizations, as well as private
for-profit educational providers.[45] The first "Law on Promotion of Private
Education" came into effect on September 1, 2003.
Development of private schools means an increase in overall education supply
and a change in the traditional pattern of public-only schools, so as to meet
educational needs. At the end of 2004, there were more than 70,000 private
schools of all types and level, with a total enrollment of 14.16 million,
including 1,279 private institutes of higher learning, with a total enrollment
of 1.81 million.
Private schools have pioneered cooperation with foreign partners in the running
of schools and many foreign universities have entered China this way, which has
both improved the quality of China's education resources and opened new
channels for students' further studies.[46]
Overseas students[edit]
The number of foreigners wanting to study in China has been rising by
approximately 20% annually since the reform and opening period began.[47]
According to official government figures 195,503 overseas students from 188
countries and regions came to study on the mainland in 2007 although the number
is believed to be somewhere around the 300,000 region, because the government’s
figures do not include students studying at private language schools. This
makes China the world’s sixth-largest study abroad destination.
According to reports, South Korea, Japan, The United States, Vietnam and
Thailand were the five biggest source countries, and the number of students
from European source countries is increasing.[48] Currently the Chinese
government offers over 10,000 scholarships to foreign students, though this is
set to rise by approximately 3,000 within the next year.
International students are increasingly studying in China. China's economy is
improving more quickly than had been predicted, i.e. sizable economic growth by
2015 has been predicted as opposed to 2050.[49] China has already drawn the
attention of the West for its growth rates, and the 2008 Olympic Games and
Shanghai Expo 2010 have intensified this positive attention. Another factor
that draws students to China is the considerably lower cost of living in China
compared to most western countries. Finally, major cities in China such as
Beijing and Shanghaialready have a strong international presence.
Currently China has around 1,000 colleges and universities. Leading
universities such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan
University, have already gained international reputation for outstanding
teaching and research facilities. China has signed agreements with almost 40
countries such as France, Great Britain, the United States, Russia, etc., to
recognize select diplomas.[citation needed] Many Chinese universities such as
United International College now offer degrees in English enabling students
with no knowledge of Chinese language to study there.
Gender equality[edit]
Main article: Women in the People's Republic of China
Although gender inequality in the context of education has lessened
considerably in the last thirty years, the rapid economic growth China
experienced during that time created uneven growth across regions of the
country. Language barriers among minority populations, as well as drastic
differences in regional laws governing school attendance, contribute to the
differing levels of gender equality in education.[50]
Photo After Performance
A 2010 statement by UNESCO stated that in China it is "necessary to articulate
a strategy to improve girls' and women's participation, retention and
achievement in education at all levels," and that education should be "seen as
an instrument for the empowerment of women."[51]
English education[edit]
Main article: English education in China
China’s first contact with the English language occurred between the Chinese
and English traders, and the first missionary schools to teach English were
established in Macau in the 1630s. However, the emphasis of English education
only emerged after 1979 when the Cultural Revolution ended, China adopted the
Open Door Policy, and the United States and China established strong diplomatic
ties. An estimate of the number of English speakers in China is over 200
million and rising, with 50 million secondary schoolchildren now studying the
language.[52]
In China, most schoolchildren are taught their first English lesson at the age
of 10. Despite the early learning of English, there is widespread criticism of
the teaching and learning of the language. Schools in China are evaluated and
financed based on test results. This causes teaching to be geared towards the
skills tested. Students focus on rote-memorization (written and oral
repetition) as the main learning strategy. These methods, which fit very well
with the Chinese way of learning, have been criticized as fundamentally flawed
by Western educationalists and linguists.[53] Furthermore, newly learned words
are seldom put into use. This arises because everyone in China communicates
through Mandarin and English is perceived to be of little use in the country.
This is further reinforced through the national Band 4 examination where 80% of
the test was the writing component, 20% was devoted to listening, and speaking
was excluded entirely. According to a national survey, only half of the
teachers consider that vocabulary should be learned through conversation or
communication. A far smaller percentage support activities such as role playing
or vocabulary games.[53]
See also[edit]
Allegations of corruption in the construction of Chinese schools
China Open Resources for Education (CORE)
Chinese university ranking
Culture of China
Digital divide in China
Education inequality in China
Higher education in China
History of science and technology in China
Imperial examination
International Research And Training Centre For Rural Education(INRULED)
List of universities in China
National College Entrance Examination
OpenCourseWare in China
Scouting and Guiding in Mainland China
Two Million Minutes (documentary film)
Education in China by province
Bohunt Chinese School
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^ "China's Book in Higher Education graphic in The New York Times based on
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Further reading[edit]
General studies and education under Mao, 1949–1976
Suzanne Pepper, Radicalism and Education Reform in 20th-Century China: The
Search for an Ideal Development Model(Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1996)
John F. Cleverley, The Schooling of China : Tradition and Modernity in Chinese
Education (North Sydney, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin; 2nd, 1991)
Howard Gardner, To Open Minds: Chinese Clues to the Dilemma of Contemporary
American Education (New York: Basic Books, 1989). The observations of a leading
American educationist who visited China in the 1980s and ascribed the
effectiveness of Chinese education to underlying cultural attitudes and
political choices.
Julia Kwong, Chinese Education in Transition: Prelude to the Cultural
Revolution (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1979)
Shi Ming Hu, Eli Seifman, eds., Toward a New World Outlook: A Documentary
History of Education in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1976 (New York:
AMS Press, 1976)
Education after 1976
M. Agelasto & B. Adamson. 1998. Higher Education in Post-Mao China. ISBN
962-209-450-3 Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong Press, 490 pp.
Emily Hannum and Albert Par, eds.,. Education and Reform in China. London ; New
York: Routledge, Critical Asian Scholarship, 2007. xx, 282 pp. ISBN
0-415-77095-5 Google Book [3]. Comprehensive collection of articles on finance
and access under reform; schools, teachers, literacy, and educational quality
under market reforms after the death of Mao in 1976.)
Jing Lin, Education in Post-Mao China (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993)
Xiufang Wang. Education in China since 1976. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co.,
2003. ISBN 0-7864-1394-8, ISBN 978-0-7864-1394-2. Google Book [4]
Xiulan Zhang, ed.,. China's Education Development and Policy, 1978-2008. Leiden
; Boston: Brill, Social Scientific Studies in Reform Era China, 2011. xix, 480
p.p. ISBN 978-90-04-18815-0Google Book [5] Translations of articles by
specialists in the PRC on policy making; early childhood education; basic
education; special education; vocational education; ethnic minority education;
private education.
Ruth Hayhoe, China's Universities and the Open Door (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe,
1989)
Jonathan Unger, Education under Mao: Class and Competition in Canton Schools,
1960–1980 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982)
Topical studies
Heidi A. Ross, China Learns English: Language Teaching and Social Change in the
People's Republic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993)
Geoff Dyer and Khozem Merchant. Graduate shortage 'may hinder Chinese economy.'
October 6, 2005. Financial Times.
China Luring Scholars to Make Universities Great, The New York Times, October
28, 2005
M. Agelasto. 2001. University in Turmoil: The Political Economy of Shenzhen
University ISBN 962-86141-1-8 Hong Kong.
M. Agelasto. 2001. Educational Disengagement: Undermining Academic Quality at a
Chinese University ISBN 962-86141-2-6Hong Kong.
Cunzhen Yang & Trevor Gale, "Policy Analysis: On Chinese Higher Education Entry
Policy" (2004). (Archive)
Hasmath, R. (2011) "The Education of Ethnic Minorities in Beijing", Ethnic and
Racial Studies 34(11): 1835–1854.
Hasmath, R. (2008) “The Big Payoff? Educational and Occupational Attainments of
Ethnic Minorities in Beijing”,European Journal of Development Research 20(1):
104-116.
Li JIN. "Constructivism-Application in Oral English Teaching to Non-English
Majors." (Archive) Global Partners in Education Journal. April 2011, Vol.1
No.1, pp. 13–20.
Ming, Zheng Fu and Douglas A. Abbott. "Preschool Education in China."
International Journal of Early Childhood (ISSN 0020-7187), v24 n2 p50-52 1992.
ERIC# EJ467507. See profile at ERIC. Available at Springer Link.
Perez-Milans, Miguel. 2013. Urban Schools and English Language Education in
Late Modern China: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography. New York & London:
Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-50222-1.
Rui Yang, "Internationalising Chinese Higher Education: A Case Study of One
Major Comprehensive University".
Yu ZHANG, "Private Education in China: Issues and Prospects"[dead link]
(Archive) Perspectives, Volume 4, No. 4, Dec. 31, 2003.
Chan, Lai, "Marketization of higher education in China : implications for
national development" dissertation University of Hong Kong, 2001.
Lai, Fung-yi, "Marketization of higher education : a case study of Guangzhou,
China" dissertation University of Hong Kong, 2001, re. South China University
of Technology.
China's Vocational Universities. ERIC Digest. by Ding, Anning.
Borjigin, Monkbat. "A case study of Language education in the Inner Mongolia "
(Archive; Japanese title: 内モンゴル自治区における言語教育について ). Journal of Chiba University
Eurasian Society (千葉大学ユーラシア言語文化論集) 16, 261-266, 2014-09-25. Chiba University
Eurasian Society (千葉大学ユーラシア言語文化論講座). See profile at Chiba University
Repository. See profile at CiNii. - In English with a Japanese abstract.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Education in China.
Ministry of Education
Vocational Training and Employment in China
Vocational Education in China, UNESCO-UNEVOC
Education in China, webdossier by Education Worldwide, a portal of the German
Education Server
Rural China Education Foundation
Center on Chinese Education- Teachers College, Columbia University
Centre of Research on Education in China, Faculty of Education, The University
of Hong Kong
For China, a Reverse Brain Drain in Science? by Peter N. Spotts, The Christian
Science Monitor, May 1, 2009
"Education," China Digital Times [6]. Annotated aggregation of current Chinese
media coverage.
United International College, a liberal arts college in China.
China Education statistics[edit]
UN Human Development Report
Nation Master
World Bank
UNESCO Institute of Statistics
Ministry Of Education
Education Statistics China - UNICEF
UNICEF
Global Education Digest 2003 - Comparing Education Statistics Across the World
Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) Directorate for
Education, Statistics, Data and Indicators
Education at a glance 2007
OECD Education Database - provides internationally comparable data on key
aspects of education systems. The database covers: enrollments, graduates and
new entrants by sex, age and level of education, teaching staff and expenditure.
Unesco Database - education data from 1970 to 1998 by subject, region, country
& year
World Education Indicators - 16 most commonly used education on education
UNESCO Education for All movement
Country Reports: China - source of statistical information
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