China • Education • News

Education in China: what is compulsory ?  

China has had compulsory nine-year schooling since 1986. It is part of the “Decision on the Reform of Education”, which the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party adopted in 1985. This still forms the basis for the existing school system in the People’s Republic.   

For a long time, education in China lay fallow. It was not until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the end of the Cultural Revolution that the Communist Party was also able to carry out school reform. Over the years, school hours were successively increased and larger sums were invested until the aforementioned Communist Party decision was made in 1985.   

How does the school system in China work?    

The education in China is decentralized. The individual provinces and regions have a strong say, while the powers of the Ministry of Education in Beijing have been regularly reduced since the 1990s. As part of China’s opening up, the education system has also been standardized according to the International Standard Classification of Education.   

Attendance at kindergarten is not compulsory in China. Children can begin attending between the ages of three and five and stay until the age of six or seven. Chinese children then attend elementary school for six years. In rural areas, sometimes only five years.   

How does schooling work in China?   

After elementary school, children in China attend secondary schools. Secondary education is divided into three years of lower school and three years of upper school.  There are general education and vocational and technical middle schools, with general education preparing students for university.   

At the end of upper secondary school, students take the Gao Kao. The exam is comparable to the Abitur in Germany. It is a final examination after twelve years of school. It entitles the student to attend university. The exam is standardized throughout China.   

Education in China: what do children learn?  

Academic achievement is considered a central goal of education in China. Because education in China is based on the teachings of Confucianism, just like society in China, criticism is an important component. Praising children is less common than in Western countries because praise is considered immodest. It is part of the culture in China and is not perceived as harshly as in this country.   

The school system in China is based on a reform from 1985 and is considered outdated. Drill and high performance pressure are the foundation of school education. Good performance is usually seen as the only way to achieve social advancement. Because competition in the world’s most populous country is enormous at the same time, parents in particular often react with strict performance control.   

What is the level of Education in China? 

China has a problem with its education. The level of education in the People’s Republic is too low to implement the ambitious plans of the Communist Party. The government plans to turn the country into a high-tech nation and a global innovation engine. But there is a shortage of qualified personnel. Development economist Scott Rozelle has conducted research on this topic in China. He concludes that of all the middle-income countries, China is the one with the lowest level of education.   

Countries comparable in terms of income, such as South Africa, Thailand and Mexico, would do better in this regard. In the People’s Republic, only thirty percent of all Chinese have a high school diploma comparable to an American high school. Nations that have become high-income countries have always had a percentage of fifty percent. In addition, only 12.5 percent of all Chinese have a university degree.  

Is China’s transformation into a high-tech power in danger?  

The background to this low level of education is that cheap labor for mines, factories and agriculture was a real competitive advantage for China. However, this circumstance could now become a stumbling block for the great goal of becoming a high-tech power.   

Dramatically, Rozelle says, the workers are also difficult to train. They would lack basic skills to become specialists in the service sector, technicians in a chip factory or office workers. They would lack basic skills such as mathematical knowledge, computer skills or language skills. Rozelle concludes that up to 300 million Chinese will be structurally unemployable in the future.   

Is digitization an educational opportunity for China? 

The low level of education in rural areas is becoming a major problem for China. About seventy percent of all children in China have rural status – meaning a rural hukou status in the household registration system. However, education levels in rural areas are significantly lower than in urban areas. According to Rozelle, four million Chinese children leave the education system each year without any school qualifications.   

In the Communist Party’s current five-year plan – the 14th in the People’s Republic of China – e-learning has a special place. The advantages of online education are to be fully exploited. China is betting on its technology. Lifelong learning is to be improved and a learning society is to be built up in this way. Accordingly, the budget for China’s online education sector was increased by 35.5 percent to 39.7 billion U.S. dollars. Around 350 million people are already using the service.   

The e-learning offering is aimed primarily at students in small towns and rural areas. The hinterland in particular is considered backward in China. The learning platforms are intended to improve the chances of advancement by standardizing the material taught. This is because in China, all students, regardless of whether they go to school in a big city or in the countryside, have to take the same university exams.   

Will education technology become a growth market in China?    

Digitalization in China is also expected to help raise the level of education in the People’s Republic. The middle class in particular could benefit from this. In most cases, both parents have full-time jobs and little time to help their children with their homework. Artificial intelligence and monitoring systems could help with this task in the future. One extreme example is the Dali Smart Lamp from Bytedance – a surveillance camera in lamp format. A special app sends warnings and even pictures to parents if the child is slouching or attention is waning.  

The background to this innovation is the amount of money Chinese parents invest each month in their children’s education. On average, this amounts to several hundred euros per month. The amount of this spent on services in the education technology sector is growing steadily. In 2020, the online education market – fueled by the corona pandemic – grew to $40 billion. By 2026, that figure is already expected to reach $100 billion.   

Why are international schools particularly popular in China?    

When it comes to education in China, foreign schools enjoy a special status. They are seen as a stepping stone to a prestigious university. Investors from the People’s Republic are responding by taking over schools in Great Britain. Their teaching concepts are also being implemented in China.  

As a result, the number of British educational institutes in China has tripled in the last five years. In 2020, eleven international schools were opened in the Shenzhen metropolis alone. However, because the middle class is growing in China, expansion plans are not only focused on large metropolises. Institutions are also opening in smaller cities and poorer regions.   

How is education in China connected to Great Britain and the EU? 

In recent years, Chinese investors have also penetrated the education market in the UK, taking over at least 17 British private schools. In addition to steady profits thanks to rising fees, China also benefits from the adoption of educational concepts.    

Because of this kind of cooperation on the one hand and the Brexit on the other, in 2021, for the first time, there were more prospective students from China than from EU countries in the UK. Since 2017, the number of Chinese applicants has doubled to now 28,490. In parallel, the number of applicants from Germany and the EU plummeted by 43 percent last year to 28,400.  

Why does China want to promote domestic education with return programs? 

The communist party’s major goal is still to keep more pupils and students in China in the future. In a study, the National Science Foundation concluded that ninety percent of all Chinese foreign students of STEM subjects (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology) would still be working in the United States ten years after graduation.   

The People’s Republic has therefore launched return programs to bring highly qualified Chinese back to the People’s Republic. They are promised lavish research budgets, for example. The program is proving successful. Between 2009 and 2018, the proportion of those returning after graduation grew from forty to eighty percent. At the same time, the People’s Republic is investing more in elite universities.   

Against this backdrop, international collaborations are increasingly viewed critically. In the summer of 2021, the Chinese Communist Party had 286 cooperations with foreign universities terminated. These included renowned institutions such as City University London, New York University and the University of Hong Kong. A few weeks earlier, the rules for private education companies were changed. In the future, they will not be allowed to make profits or accept investments from abroad.  

All news about education in China   

China’s education policy will determine whether the People’s Republic achieves its ambitious goal of becoming a major global high-tech power. Accordingly, decisions in this area will also have an impact on Germany and Europe. All the important news on education in China is available from the Table.Media editorial team.