Educational Sector

    Since its founding, the People's Republic of China has scored tremendous achievements in education undertakings. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the State Council and various central departments have held national educational work conferences many times. Quite a few of the conferences were held at crucial historical moments to resolve issues concerning the theory of educational development and practice, define the orientation of educational development and promote the continuous advance of China's socialist education undertakings.
    By the end of 1998, China had 1,022 universities and colleges, 92,071 secondary schools and middle schools, and 609,626 primary schools. There were 216.35 million students in school. Included were 3.41 million students in higher institutions, 73.41 million in secondary schools and middle schools and 139.54 million in primary schools. By the end of 1998, there were an average of 27.3 college students, 588 middle school students and 1,118 primary school students for every 10,000 people.
    China had 133.69 million schooling-age children in school in 1998 with the rate of school entrance reaching 98.9 percent; 21.17 million primary school graduates, 94.3 percent of whom were enrolled by middle schools; and 16.03 million junior middle school graduates, 50.7 percent of whom were enrolled by senior middle schools.
    In 1998, China's ordinary schools and schools for adults had a total faculty of 15.8 million including 12.06 million full-time teachers. Its ordinary higher institutions and colleges for adults had a total faculty of 1.23 million including 500,000 full-time lecturers. Ordinary middle schools and middle schools for adults had a total faculty of 6.73 million including 4.77 million full-time teachers; primary schools and primary schools for adults had a total faculty of 6.68 million including 5.91 million full-time teachers; and kindergartens had a total faculty of 1.16 million including 880,000 full-time teachers.
    From 1949 to 1998, the number of graduates from ordinary universities and colleges exceeded 13 million, and that of post-graduates exceeded 500,000. The number of graduates from secondary specialized schools amounted to over 18 million; and that of graduates from higher institutions for adults including those who passed college entrance examinations through self-study and secondary specialized schools for adults totaled 28 million.
Substantial progress has been made in the educational work for the handicapped. By the end of 1998, China had introduced an educational system for disabled people, which consists of preschool education, compulsory education, secondary and higher education and education for adults. Education for handicapped children has been included in the overall national program for making compulsory education universal. By the end of 1998, it had become a major form for disabled children to receive compulsory education that they studied together with the normal children in ordinary schools. Moreover, 64.3 percent of the blind, deaf and mentally-retarded children were at school. Occupational education and training have taken shape preliminarily. During the 1993-1998 period, 890,000 disabled people were trained at different levels. Great progress has also been made in secondary and higher education for disabled people. China opened senior middle schools for the blind and deaf on a trial basis. It also opened three higher institutes that enroll disabled people exclusively, namely, the Special Education Institute of Changchun University, the Binzhou Medical College, and the Poly-technical Institute for the deaf under the Tianjin College of Science and Engineering.
    In April of 1998, in line with the requirements of the first meeting of the Leading Group of the State Science and Technology Commission, the Ministry of Education began to draw up the "Program of Action to Revitalize Education in the 21st Century". In February of 1999, the State Council wrote comments on the program submitted by the Ministry of Education. Based on the "Law of Education" and the "Program for China's Education Reform and Development," the program serves as a cross-century blueprint for the educational reform and development. Its main target is that nine-year compulsory education should cover 85 percent of the Chinese people with 85 percent of primary school graduates to be enrolled by middle schools by the end of 2000. The five-year to six-year compulsory education should be solidified in 10 percent of the population of poor areas, and three- to four-year education should be made universal in poverty-stricken regions accounting for five percent of China's population. In the areas making up more than 90 percent of the country's population, illiteracy among youth and middle-aged people should be basically eliminated. Efforts should be made to reduce the average illiteracy rate to less than five percent. Rural residents are required to know at least 1,500 Chinese characters. Quality education should be promoted vigorously; a vocational education and continuous education system should be improved, so that newly-added urban and rural laborers and in-service workers will have extensive access to education and training at different levels and in different forms; and higher education should be developed steadily to enable the university enrollment rate to reach 11 percent. The education sector must aim at the state innovative system to train a number of professionals with high standards and able to make innovations. It is necessary to deepen the reform and establish a basic frame for the new educational system, so as to cater to economic and social development. By the end of 2010, on the basis of meeting the above targets, cities and developed areas should make senior middle school education universal step by step to enable the schooling length of people of the whole nation to meet the advanced standard of developing countries. The scale of higher education should be expanded with the rate of enrollment approaching 15 percent, and a number of universities and colleges and some key branches of learning to meet or approach the first rate in the world. It is necessary to institute a lifelong study system to provide sufficient professional support for and knowledge contribution to the state knowledge innovative system and the modernization drive.
    The "Program of Action to Revitalize Education in the 21st Century" points out that China must quicken the pace of the reform of the educational system, promptly set up a basic frame for the new educational system and enhance in an all-round way the capacity of the education sector to adapt to the economic and social development.
    In the coming five years, China will basically form a school-running system under which the government-run schools will serve as the mainstay with the participation of people from all walks of life and the joint development of schools run by the state and non-governmental efforts. The reform of the higher educational system will continue to follow the principle of "joint construction, readjustment, cooperation and merge," in order to form a new managerial system featuring management at two levels, namely, the provincial governments and the central government. Under the state macro-guidance, the central authorities and provincial governments will have a clear definition of responsibility and division of work, with the latter playing a dominant role. Educational administrative departments at different levels should transform their functions, simplify administration and delegate authority to lower levels and earnestly implement the "Law of Higher Education" to make sure that universities and colleges will able to run themselves independently according to law. Meanwhile, it is necessary to continue pushing forward the reform of university entrance examination system, the college graduate employment system and the teaching system, increase the intensity of the reform of the colleges' internal managerial system, accelerate the socialization of their support work, and improve their managerial standard and school-running efficiency.
It is imperative to transform the concept and set the concept of taking education as infrastructure construction and investment in education as an important fundamental and production investment, realize the role of educational development in spurring economic growth and take effective measures to increase the intensity of inputs in education.
    The "Program of Action" explicitly spells out the education development as part of the infrastructural construction and lists investment in education as important infrastructural and productive investment. It also stresses the importance of realizing the role of education development in stimulating other trades and economic growth. Educational development meets the requirement of expanding domestic demand.
    To take effective measures to increase investment in education according to law constitutes a necessary material guarantee for the "Program of Action", and an important symbol for implementing to the letter the strategy of invigorating China through science and education. In accordance with the stipulations of the "Law of Education" and the "Program for China's Education Reform and Development," it is imperative to gradually raise the ratio of the state budgetary expenditures for education to the gross national product. On the basis of ensuring the implementation of the "three increases" in educational expenditures as specified by the "Law of Education", it is necessary to increase the ratio of educational spending to the budgetary expenditures by the central and local governments. The budgetary spending on education by the central government has been raised by one percentage point annually since 1998. The ratio will be raised by three percentage points a year until the year 2000. This has fully displayed the government's determination to implement the strategy of invigorating the country by means of science and education. The "Program of Action" requires provincial governments to increase their budgetary spending on education to post the same or higher growth rate. In line with the requirement of the State Council, that art of revenues in excess of the budgets of local governments and extra-budgetary revenues should be allocated to education at a ratio not lower than that of educational spending to total expenditures as set in the beginning of a year. It is necessary to improve collection and management of urban and rural educational surcharges, and continue granting preferential tax treatment to school-run enterprises. The Chinese Education Development Foundation should be established to raise educational funds through various channels of society.
    On June 13, 1999, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council promulgated the "Decision to Deepen Educational Reform and Promote Education in Quality in an All-round way." From June 15 to June 18, 1999, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council held a national education work conference, the third of its kind convened by the two bodies since China initiated the reform and opening-up drive. The theme of the conference was to mobilize all members of the whole Party and people throughout the country to focus on improving the national quality and innovative capability, deepen the reform of educational system and structural reform, advance education in quality in an all-round manner, invigorate the educational undertaking, implement the strategy of vitalizing the nation through science and education, and strive to attain the objective of socialist modernization set by the 15th CPC National Congress.
    Chinese President Jiang Zemin, also the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, made an important speech at the conference. He emphasized that the rise and fall of a nation's destiny depends on education and that people of the whole country are responsible for invigorating education. He noted that the education sector must take the improvement of people's quality as its fundamental purpose, focus on fostering students' ability to make innovations and practice, and strive to train builders of and successors to the socialist cause, with a lofty ideal, moral integrity, a good education and a high sense of discipline and who will be able to develop in all respects including ethics, intellectual education, physical training and aesthetic education. He also pointed out that making nine-year compulsory education universal, meeting the basic need of study and improving the overall quality of laborers should become the primary target for educational work. Efforts should be made to raise the education standard of the overwhelming majority of people. For urban and rural students and other people who are unable to receive higher education, vocational and technical schools should be set up in a big way, so that they will be able to learn and master one and several production techniques or managerial and service skills. He also stressed that it is imperative to change the concept and educational mode that hamper the development of students' innovative spirit and ability, the cramming teaching method and the practice of taking examination scores as the sole criterion to judge educational results, as well as the ossified educational and teaching system. Efforts must be redoubled to train a number of leaders in academic subjects and talent people who can stand in the forefront of the world's science and technology, so as to raise the level of China's science and technology and innovative capability. This is not only the responsibility of the education sector, but also a strategic task for the whole Party and the whole society.