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Education plays a decisive role in youth development. Every person has some inborn talents and education is the key to determine how such talents could be developed. Everyone can develop his or her intelligence and potential through apporpriate education.
The Chinese government has attached great importance to the development of education, making it a national policy to pursue prosperity of the country through advancement of science and technology and prioritizing the development of education over all other national undertakings. The country has achieved rapid progress in the area of education during the past 12 years, creating opportunities for youth development.
Advancement of education has brought development opportunities for Chinese youth
Educational funds have increased significantly. China’s educational funds was RMB￥187.795 billion in 1995, which had increased by 4.48 times to RMB￥841.9 billion by 2005, showing an annual growth rate of 14.61% averagely. Among them, the educational funds from the national finance rose by 3.65 times from RMB￥141.152 billion to RMB￥516.108 billion, a growth rate of 13.42% per year in average.
The coverage of education for the youth had expanded significantly. First of all, the nine-year compulsory education has been popularized basically. The Chinese government requires nationwide popularization of nine-year compulsory education. Since the enactment of the Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China in 1986, the central and all local governments have implemented nine-year compulsory education according to law and achieved remarkable results. By the end of 1995, only 1,025 counties (cities, prefectures) in China had popularized nine-year compulsory education, accounting for about 36% of all counties (cities, prefectures) in the country. The education covered less than 50% of the total population. However, the percentage of population covered by the education reached 95% by 2005, totally 2,973 counties (cities, prefectures, including 181 other county-level jurisdictions) had passed the “two basics” (nine-year compulsory education being basically popularized and young illiterates being basically wiped out) inspection, accounting for 96% of the total county number, covering 98% of the total population. The percentage of primary and junior high school dropout students in China was 1.49% and 4.0% respectively in 1995, and the figures had fallen down to 0.45% and 2.62% by 2006.
In addition, the scale of senior high school education has expanded significantly. In 2006, the number of students in China enrolled for senior high school education was 16.1903 million, the number of registered students at school was 43.4186 million, the gross enrollment rate of senior high schools was 59.8%, and the percentage of junior high school students entering higher schools was 75.7%, while the number of registered students at school and the gross enrollment rate of senior high schools was only 16.5244 million and 33.6% respectively in 1995.
Secondly, higher education has become popularized and is no longer something especially for elites. There were 1,054 general higher-education institutions in China in 1995 and the figure had risen to 1,867 by 2006, an increase of 77.13% during the past 12 years; the number of students recruited for general bachelor and junior college studies grew from 925,900 in 1995 to 5.4605 million in 2006, increasing by 4.9 times. Significant growth was seen in terms of the number of higher-education colleges and universities in China, the numbers of students they enrolled, registered and graduated, and the size of the colleges and universities especially after the adoption of the expanded enrollment policy in 1999. In the 4 years from 1995 to 1998, the number of students enrolled for bachelor and junior college studies increased only by 157,700, with an annual growth rate of only 5.67%; while in the 8 years from 1999 to 2006, the number of general colleges and universities increased by 796 and that of students enrolled for higher education rose by 2.71 million, a growth of 24.3% per year in average. In 2006, the gross enrollment rate of higher education in China reached 22%. Meanwhile, the Chinese government attached greater importance to the cultivation of people with higher education, with 51,100 post-graduate students enrolled in 1995, including 11,056 students for doctor’s degree, and the figures were 397,900 and 56,000 respectively in 2006.
Third, the efforts to wipe out illiteracy have seen remarkable results. The goal set forth by the Chinese government in 1990s was to wipe out illiteracy by 4 million people each year in average. Totally 39.6733 million illiterates in China had been eliminated during the past 12 years from 1995 to 2006. The illiteracy rate of the youth had been reduced below 4% by 2005.
Educational reforms have been strongly accelerated. The Chinese government actively advocates the implementation of quality-oriented education for the youth, calling for society, schools and families to change their concepts on education, raise the awareness of people-centered education, and focus on the cultivation of creativity, practical abilities and scientific attitudes of students. In 1998, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Opinions on Strengthening the Cultural And Quality-oriented Education of College Students. In 2001, the Ministry further launched the Opinions on Actively Accelerating the Implementation of Quality-oriented Education in Primary and Secondary Schools. Driven by the official mandates, educational administrations at all levels have conducted active researches, discussions and taken various measures. The measures mainly include adjusting educational structure and curriculum setting, reforming the entrance examination system, establishing the supervision and evaluation systems for quality-oriented education, improving and strengthening moral education, consolidating the research on education.
Vocational education and training has been expanded in response to the marketization of employment. China’s vocational education had experienced a period of rapid growth from late 1970s through mid 1990s. By 1995, the nation had 17,168 secondary vocational and technical schools (including vocational high schools, technical secondary schools and technical schools, but excluding adult educational institutions), which enrolled 3.6895 million students. On September 1, 1996, the Vocational Education Law of the People’s Republic of China was officially enacted and brought in effect. From late 1990s, vocational education had started a period of relatively slow growth. It was particularly in the period from 1999 to 2001 when higher-education colleges and universities expanded the size of enrollment that the number of vocational schools and the figure of students they enrolled declined significantly. Along with the popularization of higher education, the State cancelled the government-arranged job assignment for college graduates, and shifted to the market-oriented employment system, making the employment difficulty faced with college graduates increasingly noticeable. Oriented by employment demands, the Chinese government has further promoted the reform and development of vocational education. In August 2002, the State Council re-promulgated the Resolution on Strongly Accelerating Vocational Education Reform and Development. Vocational educational institutions of all types around China actively expanded the size of enrollment. In 2006, there were 14,693 secondary vocational schools in the nation, which enrolled 7.4782 million students, showing an increase of 921,600 students over previous year, and registered 18.0989 million students, an increase of 2,098,500 students over previous year. The number of students enrolled and registered by secondary vocational educational institutions respectively accounted for 46.18% and 41.68% of the totals enrolled and registered for secondary school education. The number of higher vocational schools and of students they registered reached 1,147 and 7.13 million respectively.
Educational investment introduces diversified channels. First, non-public educational institutions have expanded and private capital has been brought in. Non-public educational institutions had grown rapidly during the 12 years and are playing an increasingly important role in the entire educational undertaking. On July 31, 1997, the State Council promulgated the Provisions on Schooling Running by Social Actors; and from September 1, 2003, the Law of the People’s Republic of China for Promoting Non-public Education has been implemented, identifying through legislation that “non-public schools enjoy the same legal capacity of public schools and the State protects the autonomy of non-public schools in school running”. Non-public education has witnessed new progress in China since 21st century. In 2006, there were 93,200 non-public schools in the country, which enrolled 23.1302 million students; and non-public general higher-education institutions enrolled 1.3379 million students, accounting for 7.69% of the total of general higher education. Secondly, public goodness projects like Project Hope and Bud Programme have played an important role. The projects have been initiated and promoted by the All-China Youth Federation and the All-China Women’s Federation, which have extensively mobilized financial resources from home and abroad to help drop-out children in poor areas to finish their studies and to improve the schooling conditions in the areas. Since initial implementation on October 30, 1989, Project Hope has received over RMB￥3.519 billion donation in the past 17 years cumulatively, supported 3.04 million poor students to accomplish their studies in a “one-helps-one” model, and improved, built 13,285 Hope primary schools. At present, one in every 50 rural primary schools in China is Hope Primary School built with the support of non-governmental funds, and 80% of Hope Primary Schools and the students beneficiaries are in the central and western regions of China. Bud Programme is a public welfare project initiated in 1989 in order to help financially poor young girls in poor areas to go back to school, which had raised RMB￥600 million and a huge amount of materials by the end of 2006, build more than 410 Bud Schools and helped 1.6 million person-times of poor young girls (1 person-time represents 1 year of aid for each person) realize the dream of going to school.
The Government has taken measures to improve the equalization of educational opportunities to the youth
The Chinese government has taken strong measures during the past 12 years to improve the provision of equal educational opportunities to young people in different regions, financial conditions and from different ethnic groups.
Strong support has been provided to develop education in poor regions.In the period from 1995 to 2000, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance had implemented the National Compulsory Education Project for Poor Regions to improve the schooling conditions for compulsory education in the regions. The central government allotted RMB￥3.9 billion as special funds for the project, and the total funds for the project amounted to RMB￥10 billion including the matching funds from local governments. In 2006, the financial departments at all levels nationwide has arranged RMB￥184 billion funds for compulsory education in rural areas.
The current leadership of the central government has given strategic priority to education since it was established, and has particularly increased the support to the compulsory education in poor rural areas, for example, renovating ramshackle buildings of rural primary and secondary schools, and starting in 2004 to supply free-of-charge textbooks to more than 24 million students who are at the age for compulsory education and come from poor families in central and western regions. Effective from 2005, textbook expense and sundries are exempted for these groups of students, and living expense aids are offered to them. In 2006, 52 million rural students from western and some parts of central regions were exempted from the sundries fees during their compulsory education period. The government provides free textbooks to 37.3 million of poor students and offer subsidy for 7.8 million boarding students.
Student loans have been released to poor students. In order to help students from poor families finish their studies, the government started in 1999 to provide national student loans to college students. The loan policy was further improved in autumn of 2004: changing the original practice of providing 50% financial subsidy to cover interest of the loans to the practice of subsidizing all such interest for the period of schooling, calculating and requiring repayment of interest after their graduation, extending the term of repayment from 4 to 6 years, and offering more flexible forms of repayment. In the past 6 years, 1.08 million students have successively been granted RMB￥6.98 billion of such loans in total, and in 2004, 235,000 students were offered loans for a total contracted amount of RMB￥2.1 billion. In 2005, it’s expected that 800,000 poor students at school will be granted loans in an amount of approx RMB￥4.33 billion in aggregate. Since the national student loan project started in 1999, the amount of applications totals 3.952 million, with 2.405 million passed the bank permission. The cumulative amount of loan applications reaches RMB￥ 30.56 billion, among which RMB￥20.14 billion was approved. Since June 2004 the new students loan mechanism was implemented, by the end of June 2006, the total applicant and the sum of loan application reached 2.111 million and RMB￥17.18 billion respectively, 1.543 million applications and a total sum of RMB￥13.17 billion were proved by the bank. Comparing with the number in 2005, there was an increase of 339,000 person and RMB￥2.91 billion.
May 2007, the State Council published the Opinions on Establishing the Aid Policy System for university students, senior and secondary vocational school students from poor families, decided to further establish an aid policy system for students from poor families since the autumn term of 2007. Along with the entire implementation of this new policy system, the Chinese government as well as the universities will invest RMB￥50 billion every year on financing the poor students and students loan. Around 4 million college students and 16 million secondary vocational school students will obtain the assistance each year in various forms. More than 20 college students in 100 can get the assistance, 90% of secondary vocational school students in first and second years can get the assistance.
Efforts have been made to improve special education to the youth. The Chinese government includes the education of disabled children into the national compulsory education system for planning and implementation as a whole. The right of disabled youth to receive education is well guaranteed. In 1995, there were 1,379 schools in China offering special education, which enrolled 56,300 disabled children, and 295,600 disabled children were at school. By 2006, in the context that the number of primary and secondary schools and the total number of students at school were declining, the coverage of education for disabled children had been further expanded, the number of schools offering special education and of their students had increased to some extent. In 2006, there were 1605 special schools, 226 more than the figure 12 years ago, which had enrolled 49,800 students and had 362,900 students studying at school. In 2005, more than 4,335 disabled students entered colleges and universities and 590,000 disabled people received vocational education and training. In 2006, 45,200 disabled students graduated.
Efforts have been made to improve the education of minority groups. There are 55 minority groups in China, accounting for 8.41% of the nation’s total, who mainly live in regions that are economically underdeveloped. Since China’s reform and opening up, the central government has expanded investment in the education of minority groups and local governments have given favorable policy in terms of the use and allotment of special educational funds of all types, which has improved the educational level of citizens from the groups. By the end of 2006, 85% of the 699 minority autonomous counties in China had achieved the goal of basically popularizing nine-year compulsory education and wiping out young illiterates. The State also provides preferential policy to minority students in higher education, and continues the policy of prioritizing minority students over non-minority students of the same conditions during enrollment of colleges and universities. In 2006, there are 910,000 minority students in general colleges and universities across China, accounting for 5.8% of the total.
Efforts have been made to solve the educational problem of mobile youth. According to the data from the fifth nationwide census, there were approx 14.0968 million mobile children aged 14 or below in 2000, accounting for 13.78% of total mobile population, of whom about 8.7823 million are at school ages. Most of them have moved to cities from rural areas with their parents or were born and grew up in cities. The most serious problem facing them is how they can receive compulsory education in the places where they reside. In the past few years, the State has successively launched a series of policies, which have significantly alleviated the problem. The Resolution of the State Council on the Reform and Development of Primary Education promulgated in 2001 provides for the protection of the right of mobile children according to law to receive compulsory education through diversified channels with full-time public primary and secondary schools as the dominants and with the local governments as the major administering authorities. In order to reduce the educational burden of households with mobile children, General Affairs Office of the State Council required that governments in places to which the children flow shall set the charge rate of the compulsory education for the children, relieve or exempt appropriate charges, and charge them at the same rate offered to local students.
Some problems still exist in China’s youth education
Though remarkable progress has been achieved in China’s educational undertakings during the past 12 years, the problems and weaknesses existing therein may not be ignored. The three aspects to be improved are as follows:
Insufficient governmental investment: The percentage of public educational funds from governments (which are called “financial educational funds” in China) in GDP has persistently been below 4%, the average input of developing countries in 1980s. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council brought forth in the Chinese Educational Reform and Development Programme in 1993 the strategic development goal of improving the educational input to 4% by 2000 (which was only 2.46% in 1995). By December 1998 when the Ministry of Education announced the Action Plan for Vitalizing Education in the 21st Century requiring achievement of the goal as scheduled, the figure was only 2.64%. By 2000, the percent fell below the level in 1986 and 1990, let alone the promised 4%. Effective from 2001, the government has postponed the deadline for fulfillment of the goal to 2005. However, the figure in 2005 was only 2.82%, increased by 0.03% by the previous year．Now, the goal has been written in the 11th Five-Year Plan.
Unbalanced educational development: First, education is developed in an unbalanced manner in rural areas and cities. In 2000, there are 86.99 million illiterates population above 15 years old, and most of them are in rural areas. The average time of education received by rural working population is 7.33 years, while the figure in cities is 10.20 years. The ratio between working population in cities, counties and towns, and rural areas that have received junior college or higher level of education is 20:9:1. Secondly, unbalance exists among regions. In 2000, the illiteracy rate and gender-based illiteracy rate of population at and above 15 years old was highest in western regions, which reached 12.07%, nearly 3% higher than the national average, but showing insignificant difference between the central and the eastern regions. Third, educational development is unbalanced among different ethnic groups. The unbalance is mainly reflected as significant difference in illiteracy rate and uneven educational levels. There are 6 ethnic groups with illiteracy rate between 34% and 49%, the Dongxiang ethnic group has the highest illiteracy rate, which is 49.19%, and the Korean ethnic group has the lowest 0.21%, and the Russian ethnic group has the highest educational level of 11.41 years, while the average of the Dongxiang ethnic group is only 3.6 years. Fourth, educational development is unbalanced between men and women. Though the social status of Chinese women has been greatly improved over tens of years and also constantly rised in the past 12 years, the thought of valuing sons but belittling daughters is still prevailing in some rural and economically backward regions, where many parents believe that the ultimate role of girls is to be housewives and mothers. Many girls are forced to quit school after primary school education and leave for work in cities to support their families. For instance, the rate of female illiterates in western regions (17.71%) that are economically undeveloped is obviously higher than that in eastern (11.81%), central areas (12.04%) and the national average (13.47%).
Educational expense being an excessively heavy burden of family: A multiplicity of unauthorized educational charges still exists in China. Educational expense that accounts for an excessively high percentage in family expenses and education of children has become a heavy burden of families. According to surveys, educational expense is only next to food and nutrition expense, which accounts for 21% of total costs and expenses for raising a child. That percentage is 34% and 41% respectively during the periods of senior high school and college education. In Beijing, all education-related costs and expenses paid for a child from primary school education to graduation from senior high school are conservatively estimated to exceed RMB￥100,000. In many rural areas, going to school is still regarded as a shortcut to change the social status and fate of a youth. However, many young people have quitted schooling due to the expensive cost.
Prospects of Chinese youth education
In February 2003, the Ministry of Education publicized the Report on Chinese Education and Human Resource Issues, which provides forecasts of China’s education development goals in the coming 50 years based on the year 2001. Key indicators include: gross enrollment rate of senior high school education, which was 40.7% in 2001 and is predicted to reach 73% in 2010, 85% in 2020 and 95% in 2050; gross enrollment rate of higher education, which was 13.3% in 2001 and is forecasted to be 23% in 2010, 40% in 2020 and 55% in 2050; the share of public educational funds from governments (financial educational funds) in GDP, which was 3.2% in 2001 and is expected to be 4.5%, 5.0% and 5.5% in 2010, 2020 and 2050 respectively; average educated years of new labor force, which was 10.05 years in 2000 and is estimated to be 11.8 years in 2010, 12.7 years in 2020 and 13.8 years in 2050; and the population receiving junior college level (or above) education out of every hundred thousand people is to be increased from 3,611 in 2000 to 7,700 in 2010, 13,000 in 2020 and 31,000 in 2050.
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