By She Yu

Research Report Vol.20 No.4, 2018

2017 is the first year for implementing China’s “13th Five-year Plan on Educational Development”. In the year, the Chinese government made sustained efforts to improve educational reform and development. In accordance with the arrangements of the central government, we made greater efforts on the reforms for achieving universal education and tackling tough problems related to education at high school stage, implementing the preschool education action plan (third phase), reducing the drop out rate, and increasing the level of compulsory education, and introduced a raft of policies and measures and made positive results.

As is seen from the results of the questionnaire surveys on nearly 10,000 households in eight provinces, the data were improved to different extent compared with that in 2016, indicating that the educational reform and development were good on the whole over the previous year. In terms of preschool education, the complaints about “high cost of admittance into kindergarten” and “difficulty in admittance into kindergarten” dropped by 19.6 percent points and 4.4 percent points, respectively. In terms of compulsory education and regular high school education, the complaints about “poor teaching quality” and “the students have to have extra classes or hire private teacher since lots of knowledge have not been taught by school teachers” dropped by 2.5 percent points and 2.7 percent points, respectively. In terms of vocational education, the complaints about “poor quality of employment” and “lack of practice and practical training, and inadequate training of practical ability” dropped by 12.9 percent points and 5.2 percent points, respectively. In terms of higher education, the complaints about “difficulty in employment after graduation” dropped by 10.5 percent points.

However, we have not yet satisfied the increasing demands of the people for receiving better education. At present, China’s education still has prominent problems of unbalanced and inadequate development, and for this can not fully adapt to economic and social development as well as the new demands and expectations of the people. As is seen from household questionnaire survey results that have more detailed information and the results of survey made in some regions, we find the educational problems are mainly shown in the following aspects.

I. The Rights of Some Groups of People to Receive Education have not yet been Safeguarded

Thanks to the implementation of two consecutive three-year action plans, the degree of universal preschool education has been on the rise on the whole. Nevertheless, due to the weak foundation and lots of historical problems of China’s education, as well as inadequate preschool education resources, poor policies on financial spending and unreasonable charging of kindergartens, the “high costs of and difficulty in admission into kindergarten” still remain a big concern of the respondents. According to the household questionnaire survey results, the 569 unsatisfied respondents whose children are at the stage of preschool education complain of “high cost of admission into kindergarten” and “difficulty in admission into kindergarten” most, accounting for 22.6% and 7.5%, respectively.

We have achieved universal compulsory education, which is however not enough, moreover, it still remains a prominent problem that middle and primary school students in some regions are unable to go to school or drop out from school due to learning difficulty (tire of study), financial difficulties of their families and long journey to school. As is seen from the “educational status of family members” on the household questionnaire, the problem of dropout at the stage of compulsory education persists. Specifically, the dropout rate at primary schools is[]① 5.04%, while that at junior high school is 2.07%. 38.7% of the respondents whose children are at the stage of compulsory education complain that children’s education takes the lion’s share of their family expenditures, with primary school education and junior high school accounting for 35.8% and 46.3%, respectively. In terms of compulsory education and regular high school education, 11.4% of the 1,511 unsatisfied respondents complain that “it is inconvenient to go to school due to the long distance to school”.

Thanks to the introduction of a raft of policies on education of children of migrant workers in many regions, the rights of such children to receive education at the stage of compulsory education have been gradually safeguarded. So far, except for Tibet, 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have begun to allow children who live with their migrant worker parents to take the college entrance exam in their cities of residence. In 2017, 150,000 children who live with their migrant worker parents took the college entrance exam in their cities of residence, 36.5 times that in 2013. However, affected by various factors, children who live with their migrant worker parents in some big cities, particularly megacities, have to face a number of new challenges and problems at the stage of compulsory education, for examples, the access threshold of public schools has been further raised, and the educational expenses are allocated in accordance with student status rather than students themselves.

II. Inadequate Fair access to Education, and Great Differences of School Conditions at the Basic Education Stage

Although steady progress has been made in the reform and coordinated development of compulsory education in urban and rural areas, such policies as “computer-aided allocation” and “allow students to receive compulsory education at schools close to where they live” that aim to facilitate basic balance of local compulsory education tend to deliver poor results due to the de-facto big gap between different regions and schools, and between the urban and rural areas. The household questionnaire survey results show that, 23% of the 3,320 respondents whose children are at the preschool or compulsory education stage indicate that the school where their children study is not near or relatively near to where they live.

As is seen from the reasons for failing in receiving education at schools close to where they live, the results of the 749 valid questionnaires indicate that “for studying at a better school” is the top reason for this, accounting for 40.3%, followed by “there is no school nearby (within five kilometers)” and “for convenience (for example, near to where he/she work, full-time study at school, near to where his/her parents live)”, accounting for 33.9% and 14.7%, respectively.

The compulsory education in urban and rural areas is severely affected and can not develop in a balanced way due to the unreasonable allocation of teacher resources, prominent structural problems, as well as shortage of teachers in rural areas, remote poor areas, and areas with poor ethnic minority populations. Similar to primary schools and junior high schools at the compulsory education stage, senior high schools also have a big gap in education conditions. At the stage of preschool education, we should pay attention to such problems as unclear nature and responsibility and unbalanced development, etc.

III. The Quality of Education Remains Low and the Talent Training has not yet Properly met the Requirements on Economic and Social Development

The reform on the mode of training talents for middle schools and primary schools has been deepened, but the teaching methods, teaching organization forms, teaching means, and classroom teaching quality still need to be improved, the evaluation system with students’ comprehensive quality as the core is still inadequate, and some governments and schools overemphasize grade and enrollment rate in the evaluation process, thereby putting more pressure on students at middle school or primary school and severely impairing their healthy growth. The household questionnaire survey results show that, in terms of compulsory education and regular high school education, amongst the 1,511 unsatisfied respondents, most of them complain of “poor teaching quality” and “the students have to have extra classes or hire private teacher since lots of knowledge have not been taught by school teachers”, accounting for 17.3% and 12.7%, respectively.

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