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Overview
New approaches to education were encouraged
after 1977, after a long period of nothing
being done with the growth of education and
science. It was in 1985, that school reform
was implemented. Schooling was for nine years,
with academic achievement having priority over
political consciousness.
Children
between the ages of three to six go to
kindergarten. There they study language, math,
singing, and painting and participate in
sports. However, because there is a shortage
of room, many children do not get to
participate in pre-school education. But,
because of the importance placed on education,
that is changing.
After
kindergarten, the educational system is broken
into three stages. Primary school, secondary
school and then the university. Primary school
is required and last for six years. Although
in the more rural areas of China, the
schooling is always enforced.
While in
primary school, the students are exposed to
math, Chinese and one foreign language,
English or Japanese. These are the main
subjects, however they covered is Biology,
music, art, politics, history, physics,
chemistry and geography.
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Once
they complete with their primary school
education, an exam is taken before they
proceed to the next stage – secondary
school. This also lasts for six years, broken
down into middle and upper school. A student
will go to middle school for three years, upon
which another exam is taken before proceeding
into upper school. The student who completes
the middle school stage may then proceed into
vocational colleges.
Primary
and middle school is required, but from here
on they have the choice to quit or continue
their education. Within the vocational schools
there are three types: technical secondary
schools, vocational high schools and skilled
worker’s schools. With technical schools the
idea is to create managerial personnel for the
front line of production. With vocational high
schools, the training is focused on certain
professional skills. Lastly are the skilled
workers schools.
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These
are for bringing about technical workers.
Essentially, a vocational school allows a
student to study technical, teacher training
or agricultural courses. How well they do with
the upper school education depends upon if
they can meet the university entrance
requirements, which are known to be difficult
and demanding.
The
highest level of education that one can
receive in China is a university education.
This is something that is offered to a small
amount of Chinese. For instance, in 10,000
students only 18 will be offered a university
education. The main study at universities is
in humanities and science, although there is
an interest in architecture and engineering.
However, the emphasis is usually placed on
scientific and technical education.
Once the
students finish with their university
education, it is up to the authorities to find
them employment. Also, on a small scale, is
the emergence of post-graduate study. Today,
China has a post-graduate education system in
place.
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Recently
there has been a surge of interest in adult
education. This began due to the high rate of
illiteracy among its adults. The main purpose
was to increase the education level of the
adults. Essentially, it is for those who want
to change jobs, provide literacy education for
the illiterate adults.
It was
also to provide education for those who left
regular school. Types of higher learning
education facilities include radio and TV
universities, workers colleges, farmer’s
colleges, teacher colleges, and independent
correspondence colleges. Also, there are
regular universities offering adult education.
In
various types of colleges, they can take
free-time, part-time and full-time course. The
best free-time courses are in Beijing and
Shanghai. Students are generally released from
work and are allowed to study, while having
their fees paid by their employers.
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Despite
China’s attempt to educate the people, it is
reported that there is 27% of the population
that is illiterate. However, those numbers
have dropped compared to an 80% of the
population illiteracy rate in the 1940’s.
The drop out rate has decreased, and the
illiteracy of young and middle-aged people has
dropped significantly.
Some
of the main reasons for the illiteracy are
blamed on low school attendance while they are
young. Also, the lack of money to pay for
school fees prevents many from obtaining an
education. Then there are primary and middle
schools that don’t have enough teachers due
to low pay and poor working conditions.
But
compared to the history of China, great
strides have been taken in educating the
people. By the end 1998, there were 1,022
universities and colleges in China with over 3
million students. Then there were 962
institutions geared towards adult education.
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PRESCHOOL
EDUCATION
China
develops its preschool education in various
ways, by mobilizing the resources of the whole
society. While local governments run
kindergartens, work units, social
organizations and individuals are also
encouraged to open kindergartens.
Kindergartens apply the principle of combining
child care with education, and ensure that the
infants achieve all-round physical,
intellectual, moral and aesthetic development,
providing them with a harmonious coordination
of body and mind. With play as the basic
form of activity, kindergartens create a good
environment for learning and provide the
infants with opportunities and conditions to
exercise and display their abilities.
The
state has worked out a qualification and
examination system for kindergarten teachers.
At present, there are 67 kindergarten
teachers' schools in China, and the infant
education is an area of study in vocation high
schools is considerably well developed. The
Regulations on the Administration of
Kindergartens, the Regulations on the
Kindergarten Work, and other laws and
regulations issued by the state have put
kindergartens on the road to systematized
scientific development.
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PRIMARY
AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
Primary
and secondary education in China is composed
of three stages: primary school, junior middle
school and senior middle school, with a length
of study of 12 years altogether.
Generally, the length of study in primary
schools is six years; junior middle schools,
three years; and senior middle schools, three
years.
Primary
and junior middle school education is
compulsory. Children who have reached
the age of six may enter primary schools.
Where junior middle school education is
basically universal, students who have
graduated from primary schools may, without
examination, advance to the appropriate junior
middle schools. Junior middle school
graduates may enter senior middle schools
after passing examinations set by the local
education authorities.
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Since
the issuing of the Compulsory Education Law of
the PRC in 1986, governments at all levels
have actively promoted nine-year compulsory
education, and made remarkable achievements.
Throughout the national, nearly ,500 counties,
cities and municipal districts have basically
instituted nine-year compulsory education,
with a population coverage of about 50
percent. Senior middle school education
is now virtually universal in large in large
and medium-sized cities and the coastal areas,
where the economy is fairly well developed.
Ethics,
labor skills and after-school education are
promoted in primary and secondary schools,
laying a good foundation for the enhancement
of the students' quality and their all-round
development.
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SPECIAL
EDUCATION
The
Chinese government has all along paid great
attention to special education. With the
initiation of the reform and opening policies
in 1978, China's special education entered a
new development period. The state has
issued a series of laws and regulations which
make explicit stipulations on safeguarding the
rights to education of the disabled,
formulated a series of both general and
specific policies for reforming and developing
the sphere of special education, while
earmarking special funds for this purpose.
According
to statistics, China has 1,426 special
education schools for blind, deaf and mentally
retarded children and teenagers, and some
5,400 special education classes attached to
ordinary middle schools, with a total of
320,000 students. In addition, a large
number of disabled children and teenagers
study in ordinary schools. Currently,
more than 1,700 rehabilitation institutions
for deaf infants are operating on China and
over 70,000 children have been or are being
trained there. Furthermore, there are
more than 1,000 vocational training
institutions for the disabled in China.
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VOCATIONAL
EDUCATION
The
Chinese government issued the Vocational
Education Law of the PRC in 1996, making
explicit stipulations regarding the status,
role, structure, functions and duties,
management system and fund channels for
vocational education.
China's
vocational education is mainly composed of
advanced vocational schools, technical
secondary schools, skilled worker's schools,
vocational middle schools, vocational training
centers and other technical training schools
for adults and training institutions run by
social organizations or individuals.
Vocational education is divided into three
levels: advanced, secondary and primary
levels, which coordinate closely with each
other.
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Advanced
vocational education, the highest level of
vocational education in China, is still in the
initial stage. Conducted on the basis of
the students having high-school education, it
is an important part of the higher education.
At present, schools offering advanced
vocational education are: 87 professional and
technical colleges, short-term vocational
universities and technical junior colleges;
several dozen professional junior colleges,
now undergoing reforms; 133 higher learning
schools for adults (with 188 areas of study
offered), where experiments in advanced
vocational education are conducted; and 18
technical secondary schools which offer
advanced vocational education classes.
Their
major task is to cultivate practical and
technological specialists for the front line
of the nation's economic construction.
In accordance with the development program for
vocational education, the existing system of
advanced vocational education is to be
reformed and restructured, and supplemented
with a small number of leading vocational
secondary schools to promote advanced
vocational education and gradually develop
into colleges of vocational technology.
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Vocational
secondary education is the principal part of
the China's vocational education. It has
three forms: technical secondary schools,
vocational high schools and skilled workers'
schools.
The
major task of technical secondary schools is
to cultivate secondary technical and
managerial personnel for the front line of
production. After many years of effort,
there are now 3,206 technical secondary
schools nationwide.
The
restoration and development of vocational high
schools began in the early 1980s. Because they
have adapted themselves to China's economic
development and reform of the structure of
secondary education, vocational high schools
are developing rapidly. Now there are
8,500 such schools nationwide, with a total of
four million students.
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They
mainly train employees with high school
educational level and certain professional
skills. Compared with the low quality of
professional teachers and textbooks and simple
and crude equipment for experiments and
practice in the early 1980s, vocational high
schools now have developed into well-equipped
new-type schools with obviously improved
quality of teachers and management.
Skilled
workers' schools are vocational secondary
schools for cultivating technical workers.
China's first skilled workers' schools was
established in 1949. Currently, there
are 4,467 skilled workers' schools nationwide,
with 1.8625 million students studying 400-odd
subjects.
To date,
there are more than 17,000 vocational schools
of various types and levels, 2,090-odd
professional training centers and over 400,000
training centers for workers and staff,
technical training schools for adults and
training institutions run by social
organizations and individuals.
Each
year, millions of people are trained at the
various training institutions and vocational
schools. Chinas has basically formed a
vocational education system offering distinct
advanced, secondary and primary levels of
education in all grades.
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HIGHER
EDUCATION
After
continuous reforms and adjustment since 1978,
a multi-level and multi-format higher
education system comprehending all disciplines
has taken initial shape to fit in with
national economic and social development.
The number of ordinary institutions of higher
learning increased to 1.022 in 1998 from 598
to 1978.
With the
continuous deepening of the reform of the
organization of higher education, the scale of
ordinary institutions of higher learning has
been greatly developed, and the benefits
remarkably enhanced. With the levels and
structure of the cultivation of talent being
increasingly rationalized, and the courses
improved, institutions of higher learning
continuously supply society with a great
number of top=grade specialists.
In
recent years, putting stress on scientific and
technological sectors while developing in an
all-round way, enterprises run by institutions
of higher learning have sprung up rapidly, and
their products with high technology contents
have found their way into international
markets.
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China is
focusing its energies on carrying out the
"211 Project," that is to say,
developing 100 major universities and an
extensive group of important disciplines and
areas of study to reach the advanced world
standards by the early part of the 21st
century.
As China
established a socialist market economy system
and deepened the reforms of various
undertakings, the higher education system
reform has become the crux of various reforms
in higher education.
The
general objective for the reforms is to bring
into better balance the relations between the
government, society and institutions of higher
learning, establish and strive to perfect a
new system that, while still macro-managed by
the state within an overall plan, turns
institutions of higher learning outward to
face society and gives schools autonomy in
providing education.
After
many years of effort, higher education has
made considerable progress in the reform of
management and investment systems, as well as
in the personnel and distribution systems.
Also, it has taken a big step forward in the
reform of the recruitment and employment
systems of college graduates.
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In 1997,
all the institutions of higher learning in
China carried out the "combination of two
categories" reform, that is, the students
to be recruited were no longer divided into
two categories - state planning and the
regulatory planning - but all belonged to the
same category and had to pay tuition fees.
Schools
provide loans for students who cannot afford
to pay the tuition. In respect of the
employment of recent college graduates, with
the improvement of the labor and personnel
systems, the work units and schools meet to
coordinate supply and demand, and exercise a
"two-way choice," wherein work units
may select their own employees and graduates
may choose their employers under the guidance
of state policies, with the exception of those
students who are pre-assigned to specific
posts or areas, who enjoy pre-assignment
grants or special grants and are to be
employed according to the contracts.
Postgraduate
education is making unprecedented strides.
Before 1949, China's high-grade specialists
were mainly trained in foreign countries, the
scale of domestic postgraduate education was
very small, as a handful of higher-education
schools enrolled a limited number of graduates
and granted about 200 master's degrees
altogether throughout all the pre-Liberation
period, and no doctorates were offered.
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After
1978, China's educational and scientific
undertakings developed in an all-round way,
and postgraduate education gradually entered a
new stage of vigorous development. In
1978, some 63,000 people entered for graduate
admission examinations, and 10,000 were
recruited.
In 1998,
a total of 8,957 students received doctorates,
and 38,051 master's degrees. Today,
China has managed to establish a postgraduate
education system fundamentally comprehending
all disciplines and an academic degrees system
wherein the quality of the training can be
guaranteed.
This has
promoted the fostering and growth of
high-grade specialized talents, and given an
impetus to scientific research and discipline
development in institutions of higher
education and scientific research.
While
admitting foreign students, China also send
students to study abroad every year. In
1998, China received 43,084 students from 164
countries and the students it sent to study
abroad exceeded to 23,000-mark.
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ADULT
EDUCATION
Just
after the founding of the PRC, when
illiterates accounted for more than 80 percent
of the nation's population, the Chinese
government called on the people to
"develop functional literacy and
gradually reduce illiteracy," which was
the beginning of adult education in China.
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The
purpose of adult education in China is to
raise the educational level and that of
professional technology, and the practical
capabilities of the people who, while working,
wish to change their jobs or are waiting for
employment; provide literacy education for
illiterates; continue to provide education for
people who have left regular schools, in
accordance with their educational levels;
provide continued education for people who
have received higher education to renew and
expand their knowledge and enhance their
professional proficiency; and develop colorful
social and cultural life education to help all
of China's people lead civilized, healthy and
scientific lives.
Adult
higher learning institutions include radio and
TV universities, workers' colleges, farmers'
colleges, colleges for managerial personnel,
colleges for in-service teachers training,
independent correspondence colleges, and
ordinary colleges and universities offering
adult education (such as correspondence
departments, evening universities and
teachers' in-service training classes),
supplemented by educational TV programs and
higher-learning examination programs for the
self-taught.
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Secondary
schools for adult education include vocational
secondary schools, ordinary middle schools
holding secondary vocational classes for
workers and cadres, adult middle schools,
adult technical training schools, peasants'
cultural and technical schools and
agricultural radio and TV schools,
supplemented by the secondary vocational
examination program for the self-taught.
In
addition, there are various face-to-face
teaching schools and correspondence schools
characterized by in-service training, guidance
and other training.
The
teaching methods provided by these schools
include full-time classroom teaching, and
long-distance instruction for self-taught
students by providing teaching materials, and
audio and video materials. The study
methods include full-time, part-work and
part-study, and spare-time methods.
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Education
comes in two categories - general and
specific. The former includes the
regular college, junior college, vocations
secondary school and middle school levels, and
the latter includes elimination of illiteracy
rural practical technology training,
on-the-job training, education for
single-discipline qualification certificates,
education for vocational certificates and
postgraduate continued education.
In
recent years, the units running schools for
adults have made considerable progress in the
acquisition and improvement of schools
buildings, teaching instruments and equipment,
and the number and quality of teachers, and
the quality of and benefits from schools are
being continuously enhanced. Schools for
adult education have become an important part
of China's education.
In
addition to schools funded by the state, there
are 1,2000-odd institutions of higher learning
funded by society at large, of which 21 are
qualified to issue academic certificates and
diplomas. Besides, there are 30,000
schools giving short-term training, in-service
training, continuation courses and
guidance.
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