The People's Republic of China has a nationwide system of public education,
which includes primary schools, middle schools (lower and upper), and
universities. Nine years of education is technically compulsory for all Chinese
students.
Education in China is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. The
education system provides free primary education for five years, starting at age
seven, followed by five years of secondary education for ages 12 to 17. At this
level, there are three years of middle school and two years of high school. The
Ministry of Education reported a 99 percent attendance rate for primary school
and an 80 percent rate for both primary and middle schools. Since free higher
education was abolished in 1985, applicants to colleges and universities
competed for scholarships based on academic ability. Private schools have been
allowed since the early 1980s. The population has had on average only 6.2 years
of schooling, but in 1986 the goal of nine years of compulsory education by 2000
was established.
The United Nations Development Programme reported that in 2003 China had 116,390
kindergartens with 613,000 teachers and 20 million students. At that time, there
were 425,846 primary schools with 5.7 million teachers and 116.8 million
students. General secondary education had 79,490 institutions, 4.5 million
teachers, and 85.8 million students. There also were 3,065 specialized secondary
schools with 199,000 teachers and 5 million students. Among these specialized
institutions were 6,843 agricultural and vocational schools with 289,000
teachers and 5.2 million students and 1,551 special schools with 30,000 teachers
and 365,000 students.
In 2003 China supported 1,552 institutions of higher learning (colleges and
universities) and their 725,000 professors and 11 million students (see List of
universities in the People's Republic of China). While there has been intense
competition for admission to China’s colleges and universities among college
entrants, Beijing and Tsinghua universities and more than 100 other key
universities have been the most sought after.
The total literacy rate in China was 90.8% (male 95.1%; female 86.5%), based on
2002 estimates.
The education system
To provide for its population, China has a vast and varied school system.
There are preschools, kindergartens, schools for the deaf and blind, key schools
(similar to college preparatory schools), primary schools, secondary schools
(comprising junior and senior middle schools, secondary agricultural and
vocational schools, regular secondary schools, secondary teachers' schools,
secondary technical schools, and secondary professional schools), and various
institutions of higher learning (consisting of regular colleges and
universities, professional colleges, and short-term vocational universities). In
terms of access to education, China's system represented a pyramid; because of
the scarcity of resources allotted to higher education, student numbers
decreased sharply at the higher levels. Although there were dramatic advances in
primary education after 1949, achievements in secondary and higher education
were not as great.
Although the government has authority over the education system, the Chinese
Communist Party has played a role in managing education since 1949. The party
established broad education policies and under Deng Xiaoping, tied improvements
in the quality of education to its modernization plan. The party also monitored
the government's implementation of its policies at the local level and within
educational institutions through its party committees. Party members within
educational institutions, who often have a leading management role, are
responsible for steering their schools in the direction mandated by party
policy.
Primary education
Primary schools
Children usually entered primary school at seven
years of age for six days a week, which after regulatory changes in 1995 and
1997 were changed to five and a half and five days, respectively. The
two-semester school year consisted of 9.5 months, and began on September 1st and
March 1st, with a summer vacation in July and August and a winter vacation in
January and February. Urban primary schools typically divided the school week
into twenty-four to twenty-seven classes of forty-five minutes each, but in the
rural areas, the norm was half-day schooling, more flexible schedules, and
itinerant teachers. Most primary schools had a five-year course, except in such
cities as Beijing and Shanghai, and later other major cities, which had
reintroduced six-year primary schools and accepted children at six and one-half
years rather than seven.
The primary-school curriculum consisted of Chinese, mathematics, physical
education, music, drawing, and elementary instruction in nature, history, and
geography, combined with practical work experiences around the school compound.
A general knowledge of politics and moral training, which stressed love of the
motherland, love of the party, and love of the people (and previously love of
Chairman Mao), was another part of the curriculum. A foreign language, often
English, was introduced in about the third grade. Chinese and mathematics
accounted for about 60 percent of the scheduled class time; natural science and
social science accounted for about 8 percent. Putonghua (common spoken language)
was taught in regular schools and pinyin romanization in lower grades and
kindergarten. The Ministry of Education required that all primary schools offer
courses on morality and ethics. Beginning in the fourth grade, students usually
had to perform productive labor two weeks per semester to relate classwork with
production experience in workshops or on farms and relate it to academic study.
Most schools had after-hour activities at least one day per week to involve
students in recreation and community service. Preschool education
Preschool education, which began at age three and one-half, 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, 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.
Secondary education
Middle schools
Chinese secondary schools are called middle schools and are divided into junior
and senior levels. In 1985 more than 104,000 middle schools (both regular and
vocational) enrolled about 51 million students. Junior, or lower, middle schools
offered a three year course of study, which students began at twelve years of
age. Senior, or upper, middle schools offered a two or three year course, which
students began at age fifteen.
The regular secondary-school year usually had two semesters, totaling nine
months. In some rural areas, schools operated on a shift schedule to accommodate
agricultural cycles. The academic curriculum consisted of Chinese, mathematics,
physics, chemistry, biology, geology, foreign language, history, geography,
politics, music, fine arts, and physical education. Some middle schools also
offered vocational subjects. There were thirty or thirty-one periods a week in
addition to self-study and extracurricular activity. Thirty-eight percent of the
curriculum at a junior middle school was in Chinese and mathematics, 16 percent
in a foreign language. Fifty percent of the teaching at a senior middle school
was in natural sciences and mathematics, 30 percent in Chinese and a foreign
language.
In China a senior-middle-school graduate is considered an educated person,
although middle schools are viewed as a training ground for colleges and
universities. And, while middle-school students are offered the prospect of
higher education, they are also confronted with the fact that university
admission is limited. Middle schools are evaluated in terms of their success in
sending graduates on for higher education, although efforts persist to educate
young people to take a place in society as valued and skilled members of the
work force.
Vocational and technical schools
Both regular and vocational secondary schools sought to serve modernization
needs. A number of technical and "skilled-worker" training schools reopened
after the Cultural Revolution, and an effort was made to provide exposure to
vocational subjects in general secondary schools (by offering courses in
industry, services, business, and agriculture). By 1985 there were almost 3
million vocational and technical students.
Under the educational reform tenets, polytechnic colleges were to give priority
to admitting secondary vocational and technical school graduates and providing
on-the-job training for qualified workers. Education reformers continued to
press for the conversion of about 50 percent of upper secondary education into
vocational education, which traditionally had been weak in the rural areas.
Regular senior middle schools were to be converted into vocational middle
schools, and vocational training classes were to be established in some senior
middle schools. Diversion of students from academic to technical education was
intended to alleviate skill shortages and to reduce the competition for
university enrollment. Higher education
Higher education reflected the changes in political policies that have occurred
in contemporary China. Since 1949 emphasis has continually been placed on
political re-education, and in periods of political upheaval, such as the Great
Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution,
Higher education institutions also were assigned a greater role in running
inter-regional and inter-departmental schools. Within their state-approved
budgets, universities secured more freedom to allocate funds as they saw fit and
to use income from tuition and technical and advisory services for their own
development, including collective welfare and bonuses.
There also was a renewed interest in television, radio, and correspondence
classes (see distance learning and electronic learning. Some of the courses,
particularly in the college-run factories, were serious, full-time enterprises,
with a two- to three-year curriculum.
Entrance examinations and admission criteria
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 was considered prestigious. Although
the examination system for admission to colleges and universities has undergone
many changes since the Cultural Revolution, it remains the basis for recruiting
academically able students. When higher education institutions were reopened in
early 1970s, candidates for entrance examinations had to be senior-middle-school
graduates or the equivalent, generally below twenty-six years of age. Work
experience requirements were eliminated, but workers and staff members needed
permission from their enterprises to take the examinations.
Scholarship and loan system
In July 1986 the State Council announced that the stipend system for university
and college students would be replaced with a new scholarship and loan system.
The new system, to be tested in selected institutions during the 1986-87
academic year, was designed to help students who could not cover their own
living expenses but who studied hard, obeyed state laws, and observed discipline
codes. Students eligible for financial aid were to apply to the schools and the
China Industrial and Commercial Bank for low-interest loans. Three categories of
students eligible for aid were established: top students encouraged to attain
all-around excellence; students specializing in education, agriculture,
forestry, sports, and marine navigation; and students willing to work in poor,
remote, and border regions or under harsh conditions, such as in mining and
engineering. In addition, free tuition and board were to be offered at teachers'
colleges, and the graduates were required to teach at least five years in
primary and middle schools. After graduation, a student's loans were to be paid
off by his or her employer in a lump sum, and the money was to be repaid to the
employer by the student through five years of payroll deductions.
