Problems and prospects of access to education in china

Abstract

Since China reopened to the world after the end of the "cultural revolution " in the late 1970s and the profound structural reform of its economy, there has been considerable social and economic development. China has in large part replaced its centrally planned economic system with a market economy. Its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2003 reached USS1.4 trillion, resulting for the first time ever in a per capita GDP in excess of USS1,000. The population living in poverty has dropped from 250 million to 30 million. China has achieved its bold objective, set 25 years ago, of quadrupling its 1980 GDP in terms of constant prices by the end of the twentieth century and of raising the living standard of its people from simply having enough food and clothing to living a relatively comfortable life. To achieve and sustain such development depends largely upon the intellectual and technical quality of the country's human resources. Great efforts therefore have been made to reform and develop China's educational system. The most recent data indicate that, by the end of 2002, the net enrollment rate in primary schools had reached 98.58% and the gender gap had been reduced to 0.09%. The 9-year compulsory education had been universalized in the areas where 90% of the population live, the highest rate among the nine high-population developing countries (Brazil, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Mexico, and Pakistan). By 2001 the illiteracy rate had been reduced to less than 6.72%, and the illiteracy rate among the age group 15-50 had declined to less than 5%. The total number of university students reached 16 million, with the net enrollment rate of 15% in 2002, the largest body of university students in one country in the world. Despite the significant progress, China is facing three major challenges in educational access, two of which are long-standing and one is more recent, mainly as the result of uneven development between urban and rural regions and between eastern/coastal and inner/western regions. Today 800 million Chinese out of the total population of more than 1.2 billion still live in rural areas. There is a large discrepancy between urban and rural areas in terms of education opportunities. Although the average duration of education received by people living in cities has reached more than 10 years, the average education for the rural population aged 15 and above is less than 7 years. Improving access to compulsory education in rural areas to stop producing new illiterates represents the number one challenge. The second challenge is for literacy work. While, as the result of unremitting efforts in literacy work over the last 50 years, the illiteracy rate has dropped to 6.72%, there are still 85 million illiterate and semi-illiterate people in the country, most of whom live in rural areas (MOE, 2003a). Among them 20 million are young and middle-aged adults (aged 15-50), a situation that negatively affects the quality of the country's labor force. Moreover, there are more than 1 million new illiterates each year in rural areas due to dropping out of school. Further reducing the illiteracy rate will be much more difficult. As a result of structural reforms of the economy, many farmers have migrated into urban areas and taken employment there. At present there are close to 100 million so-called "migrant rural workers" working in large and small cities (Xinhua News Agency, 2004a). A new phenomenon has appeared: of the approximately 20 million children of migrant rural workers living in cities who fall in the age group eligible to take part in the 9-year compulsory education, half do not enter school on time due to various difficulties. Furthermore, close to 2 million school-age children do not attend schools at all (Xinhua News Agency, 2004c). Providing education to children of migrant rural workers is a new challenge for the education authorities in urban areas. These challenges not only have a bearing on social justice; addressing them is also essential for the country's socioeconomic development in general and for rural development in particular. In addition, these problems contribute to the gaps, which are growing ever larger, between urban and rural areas, as well as between coastal and inner/western regions. If such gaps are not narrowed to a reasonable and acceptable degree, the resultant social injustice and inequality will sooner or later give rise to instability in the society. This chapter attempts to analyze the major causes of these problems and to describe the policy measures recently put in place by the Chinese education authorities in order to address them. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.