Education in China
Education in China is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. The education system provides free primary education for six years (some provinces may have 5 years for primary school but 4 years for middle school) , starting at age seven or six, followed by six years of secondary education for ages 12 to 18. At this level, there are three years of middle school and three 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.
China has already pulled off one of the most remarkable expansions of education in modern times, increasing the number of undergraduates and people who hold doctoral degrees fivefold in 10 years. 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 National Key Universities that have been the most sought after.
In one generation, China has rapidly increased the proportion of its college-age population in higher education, to roughly 20 percent in 2005 from 1.4 percent in 1978. , China is producing 450,000 new undergraduates a year in engineering alone, along with 50,000 engineering graduates with masters’ degrees and 8,000 Ph.D’s.
The total literacy rate in China was 90.8% (male 95.1%; female 86.5%), based on 2002 estimates.
