Secondary Education (High School) in China

Abstract

Secondary education (high school) is an important link between compul-sory education and higher education. This chapter demonstrates education data obtained from OECD, UNESCO, the official website of the Ministry of Education of China (MOE), and other data sources, and conduct analysis based on these data. The results show that due to a large population, China has a certain disadvantage when compared with developed countries in terms of total expenditure per full-time equiv-alent student. Despite this added hurdle, China has reached or surpassed the global average in multiple measures, including student–teacher ratio and teacher attrition rate. This chapter also preliminarily constructs three dimensions of indicators (input, output, and college preparation) to examine excellent high schools in international context. Additionally, this chapter analyzes the development trends of China’s high school education from the perspectives of latest research and national policies, and presents aspirational stories and best practices. The chapter provides readers with a unique lens to understand the current and future development of China’s high school education in the international context.