Since 1950 China has provided nine-year compulsory education for
a fifth of the world's population with only two percent of the
world's total education spend. Nine-year compulsory education
operates in 90 percent of China's populated areas, and illiteracy
in the young and mid-aged population has fallen from over 80
percent down to five percent. The system trained some 60 million
mid- or high-level professionals and near 400 million laborers to
junior or senior high school level. Today, 250 million Chinese get
three levels of school education, (elementary, junior and senior
high school) doubling the rate of increase in the rest of the world
during the same period. Net elementary school enrolment has reached
98.9 percent, and the gross enrollment rate in junior high schools
94.1 percent.
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China's educational horizons are expanding. Ten years ago the
MBA was virtually unknown but by 2004 there were 47,000 MBAs,
trained at 62 MBA schools. Many people also apply for international
professional qualifications, such as EMBA and MPA; close to 10,000
MPA students are enrolled in 47 schools of higher learning,
including Peking University and Tsinghua University. The education
market has rocketed, with training and testing for professional
qualifications, such as computer and foreign languages, thriving.
Continuing education is the trend; once in one's life schooling has
become lifelong learning.???
International cooperation and education exchanges increase every
year. China has more students studying abroad than any other
country; since 1979, there have been 697,000 Chinese students
studying in 103 countries and regions, of whom 185,000 have
returned after finishing their studies. The number of foreign
students studying in China has also increased rapidly; in 2004,
over 110,000 students from 178 countries were studying at China's
universities.
Investment in education has increased in recent years; the
proportion of the overall budget allocated to education has been
increased by one percentage point every year since 1998. According
to a Ministry of Education program, the government will set up an
educational finance system in line with the public finance system,
strengthen the responsibility of governments at all levels in
educational investment, and ensure that their financial allocation
for educational expenditure grows faster than their regular
revenue. The program also set out the government's aim that
educational investment should account for four percent of GDP in a
relatively short period of time.?
For non-compulsory education, China adopts a shared-cost
mechanism, charging tuition at a certain percentage of the cost.
Meanwhile, to ensure that students from low-income families have
access to higher education, the government has initiated effective
ways of assistance, with policies and measures as scholarships,
work-study programs, subsidies for students with special economic
difficulties, tuition reduction or exemption and state
stipends.
The government is committed to markedly raising educational
levels generally, as evidenced in a Ministry of Education program;
by 2020, of every 100,000 people, 13,500 will have had junior
college education or above and some 31,000 will have had senior
high school schooling; rates for illiteracy and semi-literacy rate
will fall below three percent; and average schooling duration
across the population will increase from today's eight years to
nearly 11.
