Education in China is primarily managed by the state-run
public education
State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...
system, which falls under the
Ministry of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
. All citizens must attend school for a minimum of nine years, known as nine-year
compulsory education
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at other places.
Compulsory school attendance or compulsory schooling ...
, which is funded by the government. Compulsory education includes six years of
primary education
Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first ...
, typically starting at the age of six and finishing at the age of twelve, followed by three years of junior secondary education (there is a mix up in translation with middle school and secondary school so a lot of people think middle school is the entire 6 years of secondary school when it's just the first 3). Middle schooling is followed by three years of high school, by the end of which
secondary education
Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final pha ...
is completed.
Laws in China 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.
In 2020, the Ministry of Education reported an increase of new entrants of 34.4 million students entering compulsory education, bringing the total number of students who attend compulsory education to 156 million. In 1985, the government abolished tax-funded
higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
, requiring university applicants to compete for
scholarship
A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need.
Scholarsh ...
s based on their academic capabilities. In the early 1980s, the government allowed the establishment of the first
private institution of higher learning, thus increasing the number of
undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...
s and people who hold
doctoral degree
A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...
s from 1995 to 2005.
In 2003, central and local governments in China supported 1,552 institutions of higher learning (colleges and universities), along with their 725,000 professors and 11 million students. Chinese investment in research and development has grown by 20 percent per year since 1999, exceeding $100 billion in 2011. As many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006. By 2008, China had published 184,080 papers in recognized international journals—a seven-fold increase from 1996. In 2017, China surpassed the U.S. with the highest number of scientific publications. In 2021, there were 3,012 universities and colleges (see
List of universities in China
This article is a non-comprehensive list of universities in China, which is defined as the People's Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, as well as the Hong Kong and Macau SARs.
By September 2021, there were 3,012 colleges and universit ...
) in China, and 147
National Key Universities
National Key Universities () previously referred to universities recognized as prestigious and which received a high level of support from the central government of the People's Republic of China. The term is no longer in official use by 1990s. The ...
, which are considered to be part of an elite group
Double First Class universities accounted for approximately 4.6% of all higher education institutions in China.
China has also been a top destination for international students and as of 2013, China was the most popular country in Asia for international students and ranked third overall among countries.
China is now the leading destination globally for Anglophone African students and is host of the second largest international students population in the world. There were 26 Chinese universities on lists of the global top 200 in the 2022
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...
, behind only the United States in terms of the overall representation.
Although
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
,
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...
and
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...
outperformed all other education systems in the
Programme for International Student Assessment
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-yea ...
, China's educational system has been criticized for its rote memorization and its emphasis on test preparation. However, PISA spokesman
Andreas Schleicher
Andreas Schleicher (born 7 July 1964) is a German mathematician, statistician and researcher in the field of education who is currently the director for education and skills, and special adviser on education policy to the secretary-general, at ...
says that China has moved away from learning by rote. According to Schleicher, Russia performs well in rote-based assessments, but not in PISA, whereas China does well in both rote-based and broader assessments.
History
Improving population-wide literacy was the focus of education in the early years of the People's Republic of China.
In 1949, the literacy rate was only between 20-40%.
The communist government focused on improving literacy through both formal schooling and literacy campaigns.
In the first sixteen years of communist governance, elementary school enrollment tripled, secondary school enrollment increased by a factor of 8.5, and college enrollment more than quadrupled.
Since the end of the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
(1966–76), the education system in China has been geared towards
economic modernization. In 1985, the federal government ceded responsibility for basic education to local governments through the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is a political body that comprises the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is currently composed of 205 fu ...
's "Decision on the Reform of the Educational Structure." With the education reform plan in May 1985, the authorities called for nine years of compulsory education and the establishment of the
State Education Commission
The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China is a cabinet-level department under the State Council responsible for basic education, vocational education, higher education, and other educational affairs across the country. The Min ...
(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, 16.8 percent of the
state budget
A government budget is a document prepared by the government and/or other political entity presenting its anticipated tax revenues (Inheritance tax, income tax, corporation tax, import taxes) and proposed spending/expenditure (Healthcare, Educat ...
was earmarked for education, compared to 10.4 percent in 1984. Since 1949, education has been a source of controversy in China. As a result of continual intra-party realignments, official policy has alternated between
ideological
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...
imperatives and practical efforts to further national education, though the two have often been incompatible. The
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
(1958–60) and the
Socialist Education Movement
__NOTOC__
The Socialist Education Movement (, abbreviated 社教运动 or 社教運動), also known as the Four Cleanups Movement () was a movement launched by Mao Zedong in 1963 in the People's Republic of China. Mao sought to remove reactionary e ...
(1962–65) sought to end deeply rooted
academic elitism
Elitism is the belief or notion that individuals who form an elite—a select group of people perceived as having an intrinsic quality, high intellect, wealth, power, notability, special skills, or experience—are more likely to be construc ...
, to narrow social and cultural gaps between workers and peasants and between urban and rural populations, and to eliminate the tendency of
scholar
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...
s and
intellectual
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
s to disdain
manual labor
Manual labour (in Commonwealth English, manual labor in American English) or manual work is physical work done by humans, in contrast to labour by machines and working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands (the word ''manual'' ...
. During the Cultural Revolution, universal fostering of
social equality
Social equality is a state of affairs in which all individuals within a specific society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and ...
was an overriding priority.
The post-
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
leadership views education as the foundation of the
Four Modernizations
The Four Modernizations (simplified Chinese: 四个现代化; traditional Chinese: 四個現代化) were goals first set forth by Deng Xiaoping to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology in China. Th ...
. In the early 1980s,
science and technology education became an important focus of
education policy
Education policy consists of the principles and policy decisions that influence the field of education, as well as the collection of laws and rules that govern the operation of education systems. Education governance may be shared between the local ...
. By 1986, training skilled personnel and expanding scientific and technical knowledge had been assigned the highest priority. Although the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
were considered important, vocational and technical skills were considered paramount for meeting China's
modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
goals. The reorientation of educational priorities paralleled
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...
'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. A renewed emphasis on modern science and technology led to the adoption of an outward-looking policy that encouraged learning and borrowing from abroad for advanced training in a wide range of scientific fields, beginning in 1976.
Beginning at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central Committee in December 1978, intellectuals were encouraged to pursue
research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
in support of the Four Modernizations and, as long as they complied with the party's "
Four Cardinal Principles
The Four Cardinal Principles () were stated by Deng Xiaoping in March 1979, during the early phase of Reform and Opening-up, and are the four issues for which debate was not allowed within the People's Republic of China. The Four Cardinal Princip ...
" they were given relatively free rein. When the party and the government determined that the structures of the four cardinal principles had been stretched beyond tolerable limits, they might restrict intellectual expression.
Literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
and the
arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...
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.
, the government-operated primary and lower secondary (junior high) schools in China have 28.8 million students.
[Hornby, Lucy (]Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
).
International Schools in China Point Students to the West
"
. ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. 14 January 2013. In print on 15 January 2013 in the ''International Herald Tribune
The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...
''. Retrieved on 15 September 2015.
Development
![Old library of Tsinghua University](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Old_library_of_Tsinghua_University.JPG)
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.
The education fundings provided by the central and provincial governments varies across regions, and those in the rural areas are notably lower than those in major urban areas. Families must supplement money provided to the school by the 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 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 the 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. In the 1980s, the
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
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
MPA or mPa may refer to:
Academia
Academic degrees
* Master of Performing Arts
* Master of Professional Accountancy
* Master of Public Administration
* Master of Public Affairs
Schools
* Mesa Preparatory Academy
* Morgan Park Academy
* Mound ...
; close to 10,000 MPA students are enrolled in 47 schools of higher learning, including
Peking University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
and
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
. The education market has rocketed, with training and testing for professional qualifications, such as computer and foreign languages, thriving.
Continuing education
Continuing education (similar to further education in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland) is an all-encompassing term within a broad list of post-secondary learning activities and programs. The term is used mainly in the United ...
is the trend, once in one's life schooling has become
lifelong learning
Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated"Department of Education and Science (2000).Learning for Life: Paper on Adult Education Dublin: Stationery Office. pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons ...
.
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 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
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
program, the government will set up an educational finance system in line with the
public finance
Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achie ...
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 laid 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 ways of assistance, with policies and measures for scholarships, work-study programs and subsidies for students with special economic difficulties, tuition reduction or exemption and state stipends.
The government has committed itself to markedly raising educational levels overall, as evidenced in a Ministry of Education program; it is estimated that by 2020, of every 100,000 people 13,500 will have had a junior college education or above and some 31,000 will have had senior high school schooling. It is also estimated that illiteracy and semi-literacy rates will fall below three percent and average schooling duration across the population will increase from eight years to nearly 11.
Chinese high school students won multiple
gold medal
A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture.
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...
s every year consistently at many
International Science Olympiad
The International Science Olympiads are a group of worldwide annual competitions in various areas of the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. The competitions are designed for the 4-6 best high school students from each partic ...
Competitions like the
International Biology Olympiad
The International Biology Olympiad (IBO) is a biological olympiad for pre-university students under the age 20, and is one of the most well-known International Science Olympiads. The first IBO was held in Czechoslovakia in 1990, and it has since b ...
, the
International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics
The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) is an annual Astronomy and Astrophysics competition for high school students. It is one of the international science olympiads.
The Olympiad was founded from a dissidence inside the ...
, the
International Olympiad in Informatics
The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is an annual competitive programming and one of the International Science Olympiads for secondary school students. It is the second largest science olympiad, after International Mathematical Olympia ...
, the
International Earth Science Olympiad
The International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO), one of the thirteen International Science Olympiads, is an annual competition for secondary school students that tests their abilities in disciplines such as geology, meteorology, environmental scie ...
, the
International Mathematical Olympiad
The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...
, the
International Physics Olympiad
The International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) is an annual physics competition for high school students. It is one of the International Science Olympiads. The first IPhO was held in Warsaw, Poland in 1967.
Each national delegation is made up of at ...
and the
International Chemistry Olympiad The International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) is an annual academic competition for high school students. It is one of the International Science Olympiads. The first IChO was held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1968. The event has been held every year ...
. In a 2009 survey from the
Programme for International Student Assessment
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-yea ...
(PISA), a worldwide evaluation of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance by the
OECD
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
, Chinese students from Shanghai achieved the best results in mathematics, science and reading.
The OECD also found that even in some of the very poor rural areas the performance is close to the OECD average. While averages across the breadth of other countries are reported, China's rankings are taken from only a few select districts.
The
PISA 2018 results showed that students of
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
,
Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, Postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an Eastern China, eastern coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is o ...
and
Zhejiang
Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...
topped the rankings in reading, mathematics and science and China's school children are now the smartest in the world.
OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria said the students from the 4 Chinese provinces had "outperformed by a large margin their peers from all of the other 78 participating countries" and the 10% most socio-economically disadvantaged students in these 4 areas "also showed better reading skills than those of the average student in OECD countries, as well as skills similar to the 10% most advantaged students in some of OECD countries". He cautioned that these 4 provinces and municipalities "are far from representing China as a whole." Yet their combined populations amount to over 180 million people, and the size of each region is equivalent to a typical OECD country even if their income is well below the OECD average. "What makes their achievement even more remarkable is that the level of income of these four Chinese regions is well below the OECD average".
Education policy
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. Thus, modernizing education was critical to modernizing China, which included; devolution of educational management from the central to the local level as 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
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
, 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. Further, the system of enrollment and job assignment in higher education was changed, and excessive government control over colleges and universities was reduced. According to Macau-based PLA watcher Antony Wong Dong, 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
J-XXConiglio 2006, P.44 J-X,Chang 2002 and XXJ are names applied by Western intelligence agencies to describe programs by the People's Republic of China to develop one or more fifth-generation fighter aircraft. General He Weirong, Chief of Staf ...
fifth-generation jet fighter
A fifth-generation fighter is a jet fighter aircraft classification which includes major technologies developed during the first part of the 21st century. , these are the most advanced fighters in operation. The characteristics of a fifth-gene ...
s.
At a national education conference held in Beijing on 10 September 2018,
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
general secretary
Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...
emphasized the importance of teaching
Chinese socialism to the country's youth, in order to foster support for the Communist Party and its policies.
Education system
Compulsory education law
The Law on Nine-Year Compulsory Education (中华人民共和国义务教育法), which took effect on 1 July 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 key
secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
s. County authorities were to distribute funds to each township government, which was to make up for any deficiencies. County authorities were to supervise education and teaching and to manage their own senior high schools, teachers' schools, teachers' in-service training schools, agricultural vocational schools, and exemplary primary and junior high 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, 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-high-school education. Education planners 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. Furthermore, the planners expected that secondary education and university entrants would 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
Universal access to education is the ability of all people to have equal opportunity in education, regardless of their social class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnic background or physical and mental disabilities. The term is used both in colleg ...
was expected to reach the junior-high-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
According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education.
Universal basic education
Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED ...
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
bill
Bill(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
* Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
* Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
* Bill, a bird or animal's beak
Plac ...
passed 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 elementary school, graduates can directly enter into the junior high school. The grades in schools that implement the 9-year System are usually called Grade 1, Grade 2, and so on through Grade 9.
Main features of the 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 that carry out the 9-year System practice unified management in school administration, teaching and education.
Basic education
China's basic education involves pre-school, nine-year
compulsory education
Compulsory education refers to a period of education that is required of all people and is imposed by the government. This education may take place at a registered school or at other places.
Compulsory school attendance or compulsory schooling ...
from
elementary
Elementary may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Elementary'' (Cindy Morgan album), 2001
* ''Elementary'' (The End album), 2007
* ''Elementary'', a Melvin "Wah-Wah Watson" Ragin album, 1977
Other uses in arts, entertainment, an ...
to
junior high school
A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary 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 countries
A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...
by 2010.
Graduates of China's primary and secondary schools test highly in both basic skills and
critical thinking
Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis ...
skills;
however, due to poor health, rural students often drop out or lag in achievement.
Key schools
"Key schools" is a term for institutions with a record of academic achievements which were given priority in the assignment of teachers, equipment, and funds. Many of these key schools were shut down during the Cultural Revolution, reappeared in the late 1970s and, in the early 1980s, and became an integral part of the effort to revive the lapsed education system. Because educational resources were scarce, key schools 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 in 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
Changchun (, ; ), also romanized as Ch'angch'un, is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a , comprising 7 districts, 1 county and 3 c ...
,
Shenyang
Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...
,
Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...
,
Xiamen
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...
, and other cities, and education departments in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
and
Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...
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.
Training schools
Training schools, also called training centers, are a type of
private education
An independent school is independent in its finances and governance. Also known as private schools, non-governmental, privately funded, or non-state schools, they are not administered by local, state or national governments. In British Eng ...
offered by companies that teach students in China who are typically from 3–12 years old. These schools exist to improve student performance in academic subjects such as
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
math
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, and
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
. Training schools can range from a one-room operation with only one teacher to very large corporations with hundreds of thousands of students.
Primary education
Primary schools
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
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
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. Yet qualified teachers 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 the 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 1 September and 1 March, 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
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
and
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
, 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
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
,
physical education
Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorati ...
,
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
,
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
, and elementary instruction in
nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
,
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
, and
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
, combined with practical work experiences around the school compound. General knowledge of politics and moral training, which stressed the love of the motherland, love of the political party, and love of the people (and previously love of Chairman Mao), was another part of the curriculum. A foreign language, often
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, is introduced in about the
third grade
Third grade (also called grade three, equivalent to Year 4 in England) is a year of primary education in many countries. It is the third school year of primary school. Students are usually 8–9 years old.
Examples of the American syllabus
*I ...
. Chinese and mathematics accounted for about 60 percent of the scheduled class time;
natural science
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
and
social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...
accounted for about 8 percent.
Putonghua
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...
(commonly spoken language) was taught in regular schools and
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
romanization in lower grades and kindergarten. The Ministry of Education required that all primary schools offer courses on
morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
and
ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
. 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 were 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 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
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, and
morals
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
. 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 The household responsibility system ( zh, s=家庭联产承包责任制, t=家庭聯產承包責任制, p=jiātíng liánchǎn chéngbāo zérènzhì), or contract responsibility system, was a practice in China, first adopted in agriculture in 1979 ...
. 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
Preschool education
A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school ...
, 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
The 1985 National Conference on Education also recognized the importance of
special education
Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...
, in the form of programs for
gifted children and 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
History
![5878-Linxia-High-School-admission-results-posted-outside-the-gate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/5878-Linxia-High-School-admission-results-posted-outside-the-gate.jpg)
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-high-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
Junior secondary education is more commonly known as middle school or junior high school education, it consists of the last three years of compulsory education. Students who live in rural areas are often boarded into townships to receive their education.
Senior secondary
![SS Frontgate](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/SS_Frontgate.JPG)
Senior secondary education often refers to three years of
high school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...
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 the
Compulsory education law at the age of twelve. This 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, the operation may be subject to agricultural cycles. The number of lessons offered by a school every week 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
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
,
Biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
,
Geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
,
History
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
Ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
&
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
,
Music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
,
Fine Art
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
s,
PE,
Technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...
,
Computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...
, etc. Some schools may also offer vocational subjects. Generally speaking,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
are considered as three main subjects as they will definitely be examined in
Gaokao
The National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), commonly known as the gaokao (), is a standardized college entrance exam held annually in mainland China. It is required for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the und ...
. In most provinces, students also need to be examined in either natural sciences, which incorporate
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
and
Biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, or social sciences, which incorporate
Geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
,
History
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
, and
Ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
&
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
.
In China, a senior high school graduate will be considered as an educated person, although the majority of graduates will go on to universities or vocational colleges. Given that the competition for limited university places is extremely intense, most high schools are evaluated by their academic performance in
Gaokao
The National College Entrance Examination (NCEE), commonly known as the gaokao (), is a standardized college entrance exam held annually in mainland China. It is required for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the und ...
by parents and students.
Admissions and Zhongkao
Zhongkao (中考), the
Senior High School Entrance Examination
The Senior High School Entrance Examination, or commonly known as ''Zhongkao'' (Chinese: 中考, ), is the academic examination held annually in the mainland of the People's Republic of China to distinguish junior high school graduates. This exam ...
, is the academic examination held annually in China to distinguish junior graduates. Most commonly, students will be tested in
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
,
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
and
PE. Scoring systems vary across regions.
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. 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 the students who do not meet the required 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 required standard, they could still study in that top school if they can afford the expenses. Those who study in that high school must place a maximum of two points below the standard requirement. Usually, 0.5 points is a standard. For instance, if a student is two points below the standard requirement, they pay four times as much as the student who gets 0.5 points below the standard requirement. The admissions of the 100 students who 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
The "Law on Vocational Education" was issued in 1996.
Vocational education
Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an ind ...
embraces higher vocational schools, secondary skill schools, vestibule schools, vocational high schools, job-finding centers, and other adult skills 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 manufacturing 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 the industry, services, business, and agriculture). By 1985 there were almost 3 million vocational and technical students.
Under the educational reform tenets,
polytechnic college
An institute of technology (also referred to as: technological university, technical university, university of technology, technological educational institute, technical college, polytechnic university or just polytechnic) is an institution of te ...
s 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 high schools were to be converted into vocational secondary 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 high schools, the proportion of vocational and technical students to total senior-high-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-high-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, which offered a four-year, post-junior high course and two- to three-year post-senior high training in such fields as
commerce
Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
,
legal work,
fine arts
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
, and
forestry
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...
;
2. Workers' training schools, which accepted students whose senior-high-school education consisted of two years of training in such trades as carpentry and welding;
3. Vocational technical schools, which accepted either junior-or senior-high-school students for one- to three-year courses in
cooking
Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...
,
tailoring
A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century.
History
Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...
,
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
, and other services; and
4. Agricultural secondary schools, which offered basic subjects and
agricultural science
Agricultural science (or agriscience for short) is a broad multidisciplinary field of biology that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. Profession ...
.
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
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
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. Under the
Four Modernizations
The Four Modernizations (simplified Chinese: 四个现代化; traditional Chinese: 四個現代化) were goals first set forth by Deng Xiaoping to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology in China. Th ...
, technically trained generalists were needed more than highly specialized
technician
A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skill and technique, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles.
Specialisation
The term technician covers many different speciali ...
s. 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
Employment is a relationship between two party (law), parties Regulation, regulating the provision of paid Labour (human activity), labour services. Usually based on a employment contract, contract, one party, the employer, which might be a co ...
rigidity and the geographic im
mobility
Mobility may refer to:
Social sciences and humanities
* Economic mobility, ability of individuals or families to improve their economic status
* Geographic mobility, the measure of how populations and goods move over time
* Mobilities, a contemp ...
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, the 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 decided 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 workforce, China cannot have economic, hence social and national, development. Yet, given a finite, and often quite limited, a pot of money for secondary schools, and 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.
Private education
In 2021, 56,000,000 students attended 190,000 privately operated schools, with 12,000 of them having primary and/or junior high school levels. These students represent about 20% of all students in China. By 2021, the Chinese central government was nationalizing some for-profit private schools.
International education
![ShanghaiAmericanSchoolPuxi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/ShanghaiAmericanSchoolPuxi.jpg)
As of January 2021, SICAS –Study In China Admission System listed China as having 300 international schools.
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."
This definition is used by publications including ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
''. There were 177,400 students enrolled in international schools in 2014.
[Ge, Celine.]
China's booming international school business untouched by slowdown
." ''South China Morning Post
The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...
''. Monday 7 September 2015. Retrieved on 15 September 2015.
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 is in other areas.
[ ]Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
, Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
, and Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
have the most international schools while significant numbers also exist in Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...
and Chengdu
Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...
.[International Schools in China: The Changing Landscape]
Archive
. ''Australia China Connections
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
'' (澳中连接). May/June 2014
Print
Archive
. p. 33 (PDF 18/31). Retrieved on 15 September 2015.
Many international schools in Beijing and Shanghai, in accordance with Chinese law, are only permitted to enroll students who have citizenship in areas other than Mainland China.[ 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.][ Mainlander children who hold foreign passports are permitted to attend these schools. 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.][
By 2004, increased international business operations resulted in an increase of foreign children. Many of the original post-1949 international schools used ]International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...
and North American curricula. By 2004 many international schools in Beijing and Shanghai using the British curricula had opened.[International schools follow foreign businesses to China]
." ''South China Morning Post
The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...
''. Saturday, 11 September 2004. Retrieved on 20 October 2015. The number of international schools in China grew from 22 schools in 2001 to 338 schools in 2013; over the same period, enrollment in international schools rose 25 times to 184,073 students.[ By the 2010s, many Mainland Chinese parents began sending their children to international schools that accept Mainland students to increase their children's chances of going overseas.][
There is an increasing number of international universities representation in China in recent years, including but not limited to ]CEIBS
China Europe International Business School (CEIBS; ) is a business school located in Shanghai, China.
Established under an agreement between the Chinese government and the European Commission in Shanghai in November 1994, CEIBS was the first bu ...
and Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
Center Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. Columbia Global Centers Beijing opened in 2009 and Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
Institute Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
opened in 2010. Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
Global is planning to have presence in both Beijing and Shanghai. Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
established an academic center in Peking University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
. Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
established an EMBA program with Fudan University
Fudan University () is a national public research university in Shanghai, China. Fudan is a member of the C9 League, Project 985, Project 211, and the Double First Class University identified by the Ministry of Education of China. It is als ...
in 2002 which has since been constantly ranked as one of the best in the world.
Higher education
Higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
in China is the largest in the world. By the end of 2021, there were over 3,000 colleges and universities, with over 44.3 million students enrolled in mainland China and 240 million Chinese citizens having received high education. The gross rate of enrollment in schools of higher learning reached 58.42 percent in 2020.
In 2015, a tertiary education
Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...
development initiative called Double First Class University Plan
The World First Class University and First Class Academic Discipline Construction (), together known as Double First Class (), is a tertiary education development initiative designed by the People's Republic of China central government in 2015 ...
designed by the People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
government, which aims to comprehensively develop elite Chinese universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
into world-class institutions through developing and strengthening their individual faculty departments by the end of 2050. In 2017, the full list of Double First Class University Plan was published. 140 universities have been included in the plan and approved as Double First Class Universities, making up less than 5% of the total number of universities and colleges in China.
Background
The quality of higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
in modern China has changed at various times, reflecting shifts in the 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 upheavals, such as the Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...
and the Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
, 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
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard le ...
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
A work unit or ''danwei'' () is the name given to a place of employment in the People's Republic of China. The term ''danwei'' remains in use today, as people still use it to refer to their workplace. However, it is more appropriate to use ''danwei ...
(''danwei''), possessed good political credentials, and had distinguished themselves in manual labor
Manual labour (in Commonwealth English, manual labor in American English) or manual work is physical work done by humans, in contrast to labour by machines and working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands (the word ''manual'' ...
. 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
Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...
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 workers 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 the academic ability, a record of political activism, or a distinguished work record.
After the death of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
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 expenditure
An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is a ...
s led 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
The commitment to the Four Modernizations
The Four Modernizations (simplified Chinese: 四个现代化; traditional Chinese: 四個現代化) were goals first set forth by Deng Xiaoping to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology in China. Th ...
required great advances in science and technology. Under the modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
program, higher education was to be the cornerstone for training
Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or Physical fitness, fitness that relate to specific practicality, useful Competence (human resources), competencies. Training has specific goals of improving on ...
and research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
. Because modernization depended on a vastly increased and improved capability to train scientist
A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...
s and engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
s 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
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any othe ...
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 a socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
society that strongly emphasized the importance of education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
and science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
.
Reformers realized 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
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
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 budget
A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmenta ...
s, universities secured more freedom to allocate funds as they saw fit and to use the income from tuition
Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spending (by governments and other public bo ...
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
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
and electronic learning
Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, edtech, it often refers ...
). Some of the courses, particularly in the college-run factories, were serious, full-time enterprises, with a two- to three-year curriculum
In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...
.
Entrance examinations and admission criteria
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
A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a predete ...
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 the 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, the 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
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
and engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
colleges; 415,000 for places in liberal arts
Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...
colleges; 88,000 for placement in foreign language
A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at schoo ...
institutions; and 15,000 for placement in sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...
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
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
, Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, foreign languages
A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at school ...
, history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
, and geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
. Science and engineering candidates were tested on politics, Chinese, mathematics, chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
, and biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
. Entrance examinations also were given in 1985 for professional and technical schools, which sought to enroll 550,000 new students.
Other innovation
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...
s 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' college
A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...
s - 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 A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance.
Lists of current ministries of finance
Named "Ministry"
* Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan)
* Ministry of Finance and Eco ...
issued a joint declaration for nationwide unified enrollment of adult students - not the regular secondary-school graduates but the members of the workforce 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
An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is a ...
.
Changes in enrollment and assignment policies
The children enrollment and graduate assignment system also were changed to reflect more closely the personnel needs of modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
. 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
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...
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 contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
ual 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
"Iron rice bowl" () is a Chinese term for an occupation with guaranteed job security. The Chinese term can be compared to the similar (but not identical) English concept of a "job for life". Traditionally, people considered to have such position ...
" employment system and permitted colleges and universities to decide which academic department
An academic department is a division of a university or school faculty devoted to a particular academic discipline. This article covers United States usage at the university level. In the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, univers ...
s, which academic major
An academic major is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits. A student who successfully completes all courses required for the major qualifies for an undergraduate degree. The word ''major'' (also called ''conce ...
s, 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
A teaching assistant or teacher's aide (TA) or education assistant (EA) or team teacher (TT) is an individual who assists a teacher with instructional responsibilities. TAs include ''graduate teaching assistants'' (GTAs), who are graduate school ...
, lecturer
Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...
, associate professor
Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''.
Overview
In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...
, and professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
. 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
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
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 and postgraduate
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree.
The organization and stru ...
s scheduled to graduate in 1986 were assigned primarily to work in forestry
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...
, education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, textiles
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
, and the armaments
A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...
industry. Graduates still were needed in civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...
, computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
, and finance
Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
.
Scholarship and loan system
In July 1986 the State Council announced that the stipend
A stipend is a regular fixed sum of money paid for services or to defray expenses, such as for scholarship, internship, or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from an income or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work pe ...
system for university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
and college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
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
Discipline refers to rule following behavior, to regulate, order, control and authority. It may also refer to punishment. Discipline is used to create habits, routines, and automatic mechanisms such as blind obedience. It may be inflicted on ot ...
codes. Students eligible for financial aid were to apply to the schools and the China Industrial and Commercial Bank
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC; ) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational Chinese banks, bank.
Founded as a limited company on 1 January 1984, ICBC is a State-owned enterprise, state-owned commercial bank. ...
for low-interest
In finance and economics, interest is payment from a borrower or deposit-taking financial institution to a lender or depositor of an amount above repayment of the principal sum (that is, the amount borrowed), at a particular rate. It is distinct ...
loan
In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...
s. Three categories of students eligible for aid were established: top students encouraged to attain all-around excellence; students specializing in education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, forestry
Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. Th ...
, sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...
, and marine navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...
; and students willing to work in poor, remote, and border regions or under harsh conditions, such as in mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...
and engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...
. 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 loans would be paid off by his or her employer, such as a school, in a lump sum
A lump sum is a single payment of money, as opposed to a series of payments made over time (such as an annuity).
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development distinguishes between "price analysis" and "cost analysis" by whether th ...
. And the money was to be repaid to the employer by the student through five years of payroll
A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...
deductions.
Study abroad
In addition to loans, another means of raising educational quality, particularly in science
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
, was to send students abroad to study. A large number of Chinese students studied in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
before educational links and other cooperative programs with the Soviet Union were severed in the late 1950s (see Sino-Soviet split
The Sino-Soviet split was the breaking of political relations between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union caused by doctrinal divergences that arose from their different interpretations and practical applications of Marxism–Len ...
). In the 1960s and 1970s, China continued to send a small number of students abroad, primarily to Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an universities. In October 1978 Chinese students began to arrive in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
; their numbers accelerated after normalization of relations between the two countries in January 1979, a policy consistent with modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
needs. Although figures vary, more than 36,000 students, including 7,000 self-supporting students (those who paid their own way, received scholarship
A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need.
Scholarsh ...
s 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 a 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
Specialization or Specialized may refer to:
Academia
* Academic specialization, may be a course of study or major at an academic institution or may refer to the field in which a specialist practices
* Specialty (medicine), a branch of medical ...
. 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
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 other modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
programs, the capital was critically short. Another concern was whether or not the Chinese economy
The China, People's Republic of China has an upper middle income Developing country, developing Mixed economy, mixed socialist market economy that incorporates economic planning through Industrial policy, industrial policies and strategic Five- ...
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
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
workforce 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 workforce, 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
A siphon (from grc, σίφων, síphōn, "pipe, tube", also spelled nonetymologically syphon) is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in a ...
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. 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.
Reform in the 21st century
In 1998 the Chinese government proposed to expand the university enrollment of professional and specialized graduates and to 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
Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an ind ...
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 higher unemployment
Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for Work (human activity), w ...
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 stratification
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). As ...
pattern among institutions, stratified by geography, source of funding, administrative unit, as well as by functional category (e.g., comprehensive, law, medical, etc.)." Thus, although recent reform has arguably improved over-all educational quality, they have created new, different issues of equity
Equity may refer to:
Finance, accounting and ownership
* Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them
** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business
** Home equity, the dif ...
and efficiency that will need to be addressed as the century proceeds.
In the spring of 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.
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
Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.
Conce ...
and marketization has led to further inequality in educational opportunity.
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 enrollment before College Entrance Examination in 2007, some of the top Chinese colleges began to follow them using a new method to choose students besides a 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 chances to get admitted by the top colleges. In 2010, there were several critical reforms in the education field. On 31 January, the education ministry in Guangdong province began to implement parallel voluntary admission in the college entrance recruiting system, which is an efficient way to decrease the risk of getting into a college for the majority of students. On 20 November, the education ministry of China canceled the additional Olympics points in the 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, the 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.
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
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, and Cambridge University
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, which are "revered" among many middle-class parents. Since 1999, the number of Chinese applicants to top schools overseas has increased tenfold.[ Also accessible at ]
International Herald Tribune
''. 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. After 2005, the number of overseas students from China not only showed a growth trend, but also presented a lowering trend of age.
With more students going abroad for university, increasing numbers of affluent families are "opting out" of the conventional public school system, which is heavily oriented towards preparing for the Chinese college admissions test. These families, who can afford tuition at a foreign university and may prefer a more "western" education for their children, are sending their children to private schools, special programs within Chinese public schools, or schools abroad. Some of the prestige of American higher education is the result of weaknesses in the PRC's education system, which stifles creativity in favor of rote memorization.
As a result of the growing mismatch between university degrees and job opportunities in China, university students are also increasingly undertaking extracurricular educational training during their time in university. These include university clubs, volunteering activities, and internships. Furthermore, the Chinese state has promoted entrepreneurship among university students by running business training, setting up "business incubators" on campuses, and offering special benefits for student entrepreneurs. As a result of this development, university life in China has become associated with various aspects of "self-development" in addition to formal classroom learning.
Overseas students
The number of foreigners wanting to study in China has been rising by approximately 20% annually since the reform and opening
The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed " Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of C ...
period began.
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 300,000 students, 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. , China is the most popular country in Asia for international students, and the second most popular education powerhouse in the world after the United States.
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. 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
The People's Republic of China has an upper middle income developing mixed socialist market economy that incorporates economic planning through industrial policies and strategic five-year plans.
—Xu, Chenggang. "The Fundamental Institutio ...
is improving more quickly than had been predicted, i.e. sizable economic growth by 2015 has been predicted as opposed to 2050. China has already drawn the attention of the West
West is a cardinal direction or compass point.
West or The West may also refer to:
Geography and locations
Global context
* The Western world
* Western culture and Western civilization in general
* The Western Bloc, countries allied with NATO ...
for its growth rates, and the 2008 Olympic Games and Shanghai Expo 2010
Expo 2010, officially the Expo 2010 Shanghai China, was held on both banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China, from 1 May to 31 October 2010. It was a major World Expo registered by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), in the t ...
have intensified this positive attention. Another factor that draws students to China is the considerably lower cost of living
Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living. Changes in the cost of living over time can be operationalized in a cost-of-living index. Cost of living calculations are also used to compare the cost of maintaining a c ...
in China compared to most western countries. Finally, major cities in China such as Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
and The Bund (Shanghai), Shanghai already have a strong international presence. Nevertheless, unlike in many Western countries, possibilities to legally engage in internships and part-time work are limited and remain within a grey area although national legislation has tried to clarify the matter.
Rankings and reputation
Currently, China has around 3,012 colleges and universities
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
. The quality of universities and higher education in China is internationally recognized as the country has the world's second highest number of universities in some rankings. Regardless of different rankings about universities in China, the Ministry of Education of China does not advocate or recognize any ranking conducted by a third party. In the 2020 CWTS Leiden Ranking edition, China surpassed the U.S. with the number of universities including in the ranking for the first time (204 vs.198). China has dominated the QS BRICS University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, THE's Emerging Economies University Rankings, claiming seven of the top 10 spots for both rankings. China is also the most-represented nation overall. In 2020, China tops the QS World University Rankings#Asia, QS Asia University Rankings list with over 120 universities including in the ranking, and five Chinese universities appear in the Asia Top 10, which is more than any country. There were 22 Chinese universities on lists of the global top 200 in the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities, ARWU, behind only the United States in terms of the overall representation.
According to Times Higher Education, THE China Subject Ratings 2020 conducted by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Time Higher Education World University Rankings, Chinese universities are on a par with their counterparts in the US, the UK, and Germany across 89 subjects ahead of others like France, South Korea, and Russia. The country scores above the global average of B score, with 46 percent of its universities’ grades were A+, A, or A−, only slightly behind the US (49 percent). The QS ranking by subjects 2021indicated that universities in China now have a record number in the top 50 universities in the world across all 51 subjects in five broad discipline areas: “Arts and Humanities”, “Natural Sciences”, “Social Sciences and Management”, “Engineering & Technology”, and “Life Sciences and Medicines”.
This reflects the continual development of Chinese higher education and research quality of universities over time. Regardless of different rankings about universities in China, the Ministry of Education of China does not advocate or recognize any ranking conducted by a third party.
Leading universities in the Double First Class University Plan
The World First Class University and First Class Academic Discipline Construction (), together known as Double First Class (), is a tertiary education development initiative designed by the People's Republic of China central government in 2015 ...
such as Peking University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
, Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, have already gained College and university rankings, international reputation for outstanding teaching and research facilities. China has signed agreements with almost 54 countries such as Germany, Great Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and Russia on mutual recognition of higher education qualifications and academic degrees. Many Chinese universities such as United International College now offer degrees English Medium Medical Schools (China), in English enabling students with no knowledge of the Chinese language to study there.
Adult education
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 modernization
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
goals. Adult, or "nonformal," education is an alternative form of higher education that encompasses radio, television, and correspondence education, correspondence universities, 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
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...
(1966–76) - and to raise the cultural, scientific, and general education levels of workers on the job. The primary purpose of adult education is to provide a second chance for those who are poor in society or who have lost access to education for other reasons in order to achieve social justice and equal access to education. In the 1960s, the idea of "lifelong education" was raised, and began the transition of Chinese education. Adult education begins focusing on the cultivation of social responsibility to develop lifelong education theory.
History of adult education
In 1949, the common program formulated by the first session of the Chinese people's political consultative conference (CPPCC) clearly confirmed that China needed to put emphasis on the education of the working class. It addressed the serious situation of illiteracy, which was then more than 80 percent of the population. The period from 1949 to 1966 marked the beginning and development of adult education in new China. From 1966 to 1976, adult education could not be carried out normally due to the impact of the ten-year "cultural revolution". Since 1978, when China entered the new era of modernization, adult education has been rapidly restored and developed.
Forms
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 Renminbi, 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
According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education.
Universal basic education
Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED ...
. 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 mass media, 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. The 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
The continuing campaigns to eradicate illiteracy also were a part of basic education
According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), basic education comprises the two stages primary education and lower secondary education.
Universal basic education
Basic education featured heavily in the 1997 ISCED ...
. 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 the literacy rate particularly difficult. In general, language reform was intended to make writing and the Standard Chinese, standard 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
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...
(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, although some people taught only in simplified characters were cut off from the wealth of Chinese literature written in traditional characters. Any idea of replacing the ideographic script with the romanized script was soon abandoned by government and education leaders.
The third area of change involved the proposal to use the pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
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, the use of pinyin was not as widespread as the use of Putonghua.
Literacy campaigns and the differences in funding actually increased the differences in literacy rates in the city and the countryside. Retaining literacy was as much a problem as acquiring it, particularly among the rural population. Literacy rates declined between 1966 and 1976. The 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.
Types
With the development of the education system in China, the government gradually began to pay attention to adult education, instituting three types of adult education: Adult college entrance examinations, higher education self-taught examinations, and open education and network education (distance education).
There is only one college entrance exam every year, typically in the middle of October. Adult college entrance classes are usually held on weeknights or weekends.
Adult self-taught exams are open to all adults and does not require a certificate of formal schooling to participate. The only requirement is possession of a valid ID card. Candidates can take the exam by studying various subjects on their own or enroll in courses which are organized by universities or junior colleges.
Compared with traditional academic education, open education is a new teaching model that combines traditional face-to-face teaching, textbook autonomous learning, and online real-time courses and online classes.
Network education is taught through a network course. The study style is convenient, suits adults with busy jobs and do not have a fixed time to attend a class. Enrollment time is relatively loose, divided into spring and autumn admission. The examination time is also quite open, every month having an entrance examination.
Online education
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 National College Entrance Examination, 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.
Private education
The government supports private educational organizations, as well as private for-profit educational providers. The first "Law on Promotion of Private Education" came into effect on 1 September 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 levels, 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.
In January 2017, State Council of China stated that the China Communist party's leadership over private schools should be strengthened, CCP's organizations should be established in private schools, and the party organizations of private schools should play a political core role and firmly control the private schools' school orientation: Training socialist builders and successors.
Information and communications technology (ICT)
In 2010, the Government of China released its medium and long term national Information and communications technology, ICT in education master plans, which stated explicitly that ICT would have a historic impact on the development of education and called for a strong emphasis on Educational technology, ICT in education. In order to realize the scientific and orderly development of ICT in education, China has developed a holistic and top-down approach. The Ten Year Development Plan for ICT in Education 2011-2020 was formalized in 2012. It states that by 2020, all adults will have access to quality education resources in an ICT-enabling environment, an ICT support service system for the learning society will take shape, and all regions and schools at all levels will have broadband internet access.
In order to considerably enhance Internet coverage and transmission capacity, China has accelerated its drive to upgrade infrastructure, including the China Education and Research Network (CERNet) and China Education Broadband Satellite (CEBSat), which are the two main education networks.
To enhance the impact of ICT in education and teaching, China has placed a strong focus on developing quality digital educational resources. In particular, China has launched the “one teacher, one quality lesson, and one class one quality teacher” initiative, which has led to the creation of quality digital teaching resources for 3.26 million teachers. In tandem, the Chinese Government has encouraged higher education institutions to develop Massive open online course, MOOCs, and private companies to develop basic digital resources to supplement formal educational materials.
To enhance the modernization of education governance, China has promoted ICT in education administration through the establishment of a national data center and the implementation of the national service system for education decision-making. China has also set up a national data center supporting the administration through a unique online identity number for each student, each teacher, and each school.
In an effort to promote the widespread application of ICT in teaching, China has carried out full-scale capacity training for teachers. China has launched a capacity improvement project targeting primary and secondary school teachers’ capacity to use ICT, helping them to integrate ICT into their teaching. ICT training for education administrators has also been stepped up, so as to enhance their ICT leadership capability.
Teachers
In 1985, the government designated 10 September 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
Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated"Department of Education and Science (2000).Learning for Life: Paper on Adult Education Dublin: Stationery Office. pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons ...
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 in scientific 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 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.
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 to pedagogy, 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 were 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
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
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 10 September as Teachers' 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.
School uniforms
Many schools in China require the use of a school uniform until college. Students have uniforms for both sportswear and their daily uniform, both of which will change depending on the season. Uniforms can also differ in design depending on the school, making it easy for people to identify which school a student attends. Proponents of school uniforms argue that the uniforms are a unique form of culture, remove the pressure of students comparing clothing, and allow the faculty and others to identify students and their respective schools. In an article for ''China Daily'', Yuan Can stated that while student uniforms were previously regarded as a sign of progress, in current society the uniform's style is seen instead as a sign of identity and belonging.
Issues
Although cities like Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
regularly perform highly in international assessments, Chinese education has both native and international detractors; common areas of criticism include its intense rigor; its emphasis on memorization and standardized testing; and the Education inequality in China, gap in quality of education between regions and genders.
Stress on memorization and rigour
In 2014, Jonathan Kaiman of ''The Guardian'' wrote that Chinese parents and educators "see their own system as corrupt, dehumanizing, pressurized and unfair"; he went on to discuss the country's college admission exam (called the ''gaokao''), writing that "many parents consider the grueling nine-hour test a sorting mechanism that will determine the trajectory of their children's lives."
Regional inequality
In 2014, Helen Gao of ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called China's educational system "cutthroat" and wrote that its positive reputation among admirers is largely built on a myth: 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 2014, Lara Farrar argued in ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' that the disabled are "shortchanged" in Chinese schools, with very little chance of acceptance into higher educational institutions.
Reflecting the fact that most of China's population lives 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
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
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 the east and central rural areas. At the same time, the government is to promote the development of modern distance learning for rural elementary and high schools and further improve rural compulsory education management systems.
Gender inequality
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.
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 Feminism in China, empowerment of women."
Academic censorship
Academic publications and speeches in China are subjected to the Censorship in China, censorship of Chinese authorities.
English education
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. The state emphasis of English education 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 school children now studying the language.
In China, most school children 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.
Furthermore, newly learned words are seldom put into use. This arises because everyone in China communicates through Mandarin or a regional Chinese dialect, and English is perceived to be of little use in the country. This has been further reinforced through the national Band 4 examination where 80% of the test is the writing component, 20% is devoted to listening, and speaking is 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.
According to research completed by The Daily Telegraph, The Telegraph in 2017, less than 1 percent of people in China speak English conversationally.
Education for migrant children
Following the large-scale movement of the Chinese rural population to the cities the children of these migrant workers either stay as Left-behind children in China, 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 public schools nevertheless effectively reject these children by setting high thresholds such as school fees and exams or by requesting an urban registration (Hukou system, Hukou). Providing an alternative, private entrepreneurs established since the 1990s semi-official private schools that offered schooling to migrant children for lower fees. 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. 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. Although Chinese scholars have conducted case-study research on migrant children and their schools there is a lack in studies with a nationwide scope.
Studies among left-behind children in China found that they had lower self-esteem and more mental health problems than children overall. Teachers of left-behind children often lack the resources, understanding, or opportunity to communicate to family or guardians the need for them to provide support and attention. Analysis for the 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report found that children with absent mothers had lower grades in mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, Chinese, and English. Children with one or both parents absent had more symptoms of Depression (mood), depression than those with present parents. Analysis from rural Gansu province (2000 and 2015) found that children with absent fathers had 0.4 fewer years of education.
See also
* Allegations of corruption in the construction of Chinese schools
* Career and Life Planning Education
* China Open Resources for Education (CORE)
* Chinese university ranking (Chinese Academy of Management Science), Chinese university ranking
* Culture of China
* Digital divide 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
This article is a non-comprehensive list of universities in China, which is defined as the People's Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, as well as the Hong Kong and Macau SARs.
By September 2021, there were 3,012 colleges and universit ...
* National College Entrance Examination
* OpenCourseWare in China
* Patriotic Education Campaign
* Scouting and Guiding in Mainland China
* ''Two Million Minutes'' (documentary film)
* :Education in China by province, Education in China by province
* Bohunt Chinese School
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
Further reading
; 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)
* W. John Morgan, 'Maoist ideology and education', Chapter 2 in W. John Morgan, Qing Gu, and Fengliang Li (Eds.),''Handbook of Education in China'', Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA, USA,2017, , pp. 43–58,
* Reviews revisonist developments in the field and post 1949 literacy campaigns.
* Yellienk, Roie, "Chinese education: a tradition of obedience to the spirit of innovation", Makor Rishon, 17 April 2020, https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/221211/.
; Education after 1976
* M. Agelasto & B. Adamson. 1998. Higher Education in Post-Mao China. 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. Google Books]
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. , . Google Books]
* 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. Google Books]
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)
* W. John Morgan and Fengliang Li, 'Education: From egalitarian ideology to public policy'. Chapter 14 in David S.G. Goodman (Ed.), ''Handbook of the Politics of China'', Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA, USA, 2015, , pp. 217–237.
* W. John Morgan, Qing Gu, and Fengliang Li (Eds.),''Handbook of Education in China'', Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA, USA,2017, xi and 558 pp. .
* 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.'
6 October 2005. ''Financial Times''.
China Luring Scholars to Make Universities Great
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', 28 October 2005
* M. Agelasto. 2001
University in Turmoil: The Political Economy of Shenzhen University
Hong Kong.
* M. Agelasto. 2001
Educational Disengagement: Undermining Academic Quality at a Chinese University
Hong Kong.
* Cunzhen Yang & Trevor Gale
"Policy Analysis: On Chinese Higher Education Entry Policy"
(2004).
Archive
*
*
* W. John Morgan and Bin Wu (Eds.), ''Higher Education Reform in China: Beyond the Expansion'', London and New York: Routledge, 2011, xiii and 174 pp. .
* Perez-Milans, Miguel. 2013. ''Urban Schools and English Language Education in Late Modern China: A Critical Sociolinguistic Ethnography''. New York & London: Routledge. .
* Bin Wu and W. John Morgan (Eds.), ''Chinese Higher Education Reform and Social Justice'' London and New York: Routledge, 2016,xii and 160p,.
* Rui Yang
"Internationalising Chinese Higher Education: A Case Study of One Major Comprehensive University".
* Yu ZHANG
"Private Education in China: Issues and Prospects"
() ''Perspectives (journal), Perspectives'', Volume 4, No. 4, 31 December 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.
* Zhao, Xu. Competition and compassion in Chinese secondary education. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 2015. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137479402
;Comparative
*'Chinese-European Cooperation in Education', ''European Journal of Education'', Special Issue, Vol. 44 No. 1. March, 2009, ISSN 0141-8211 (print) ISSN 1465-3435 (online), Guest Editors, W. John Morgan and Albert C. Tuijnman.
*
External links
Ministry of Education
Vocational Education in China, UNESCO-UNEVOC
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'', 1 May 2009
* "Education," ''China Digital Times'
Annotated aggregation of current Chinese media coverage.
* United International College, a liberal arts college in China.
China Education statistics
UN Human Development Report
Nation Master
UNESCO Institute of Statistics
Education Statistics China
- UNICEF
Global Education Digest 2003 - Comparing Education Statistics Across the World
* [http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_39251550_1_1_1_1,00.html 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.
- education data from 1970 to 1998 by subject, region, country & year
- 16 most commonly used education on education
UNESCO Education for All movement
- source of statistical information
Study in China Admission System(中国高等院校国际招生管理服务系统)
- Study in China
{{DEFAULTSORT:Education In China
Education in China,
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