Education inequality in China

Shortly after the Chinese Revolution of 1949, the Communist government was confronted with heavy educational disparities across the nation. In the years following the Chinese Revolution, the Chinese government attempted to address these disparities with alternating approaches, creating periods of differing emphasis on opposing educational models. The first model, based on egalitarianism, emphasizes equality across regions of varying economic wealth and development. Conversely, the second model, based on competition, emphasizes individualistic competition, rationalizing any existing educational disparities as a necessary sacrifice for national economic development.[1]

The Chinese government also focused educational policies on higher education and specialized training, leaving basic education underdeveloped throughout large parts of the country. Government funding for education was reserved for urban areas; rural communities, already at an economic disadvantage, were left to fund their own schools, exacerbating the already existing divide between urban and rural education.[2] When collectivization policies passed in 1955, placing rural families into agricultural cooperatives that distributed income on the basis of labor hours, the importance of education dropped even further within these rural communities, and they were much less likely to fund primary education for the children of their communities.[2]

Also beginning in the 1950s, the hukou system assigned the Chinese population into urban and rural regions, exacerbating continuously worsening inequalities within health, employment, housing, and education.[3] Further complicating education policy, people of rural-hukou status are able to live and work in urban areas without changing their hukou designation. According to Xiaogang Wu's tabulation, based on figures from the 2000 Chinese Census, an estimated 33% of city residents were actually designated as rural-hukou holders.[4]

A significant shift in education finance policy occurred in 1982 with the introduction of decentralization, in which provincial governments were now individually in control of financing education within their region. The change in policy sought to capitalize on rapid income growth by funding education from non-governmental sources, and in the 1980s and 1990s, the government share of education expenditures dropped, even as total education expenditures increased.[5][6] As a result, families had to pay increased tuition and fees, and schools turned to surcharges and social contributions to fund themselves.[5] Education for children of poorer families was only attainable with state subsidies, which often did not reach the families who were most in need. Tuition and fees also increase as students move from lower to higher grade levels, so even if these poorer students were able to move through the education system, many were prevented from even completing their compulsory education by economic barriers.[6] Additionally, this shift to a wider financial base for education also coincided with rising interprovincial inequality, significantly impairing education opportunities for children in poorly developed rural provinces.[5]

Although basic education policies remain in control of the Communist Party, increased open-mindedness shown by party authorities indicates the possibility of more substantial educational reform, in addition to recent reforms to the national college entrance examination.[7] Although educational inequality has lessened overall, great gaps in educational attainment still exist between populations on multiple divides, affirming the need for a regional focus within reform initiatives.[3]

One-child policy Effect

Government sign in Tangshan Village, De'an County, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, stating: "For the sake of the country's prosperity and families' happiness, please implement family planning"

The One-child Policy in China plays an important role in the inequality of education. The One-child policy was implemented in China in 1979 to slow down the country's explosive population growth and was abolished in 2016. Before the one-child policy, parents were allowed to have more than one child and had the opportunity to display a preference toward male children; this so-called “son preference” has prevailed among most Chinese parents for centuries.[10] However, after the One-child policy was enacted, the only-child girls were able to receive more educational opportunities because there was not as much competition for household resources as in multiple-child households. The gender inequality has improved by this One-child policy and therefore, female education opportunity has increased. The big issue on gender inequality has been improved through this policy.[10]

Education heavily influences social and economic mobility, with research indicating that higher levels of parental education positively influence their children's levels of education. This connection is especially significant within rural communities, with education playing a large role in breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.[2]

However, Guangjie Ning's contrasting analysis of existing research suggests that income inequality and education equality are mutually reinforcing factors, perpetuating a vicious cycle of their own. Therefore, by Ning's logic, in accordance with the popular perception of education as a means of escape from poverty, children from poorer families theoretically need education the most, yet encounter greater economic barriers that prevent continuation of education.[18]

Currently, variations in education policy across different levels of schooling continue to contribute to educational inequality. Even within the same region, school attendance and tuition are regulated differently, often causing confusion for families new to the education system.[3]

A typical high school classroom in China.

Beginning in the early 1980s, grades 1-6 have been designated as compulsory education; it was not until the mid-1990s that grades 7-9 were also designated as compulsory.[3] This regulation of earlier education was enhanced by the elimination of tuition for grades 1–9 in the early 2000s, and in recent years, the poor are now able to obtain subsidies for the education of their children.[3] This system of 9 year compulsory education has been partially successful in rural areas, with regions reporting very high primary-level enrollment and completion rates.[12] However, grades 10-12 have not been designated as compulsory, and high secondary-level dropout rates break the 9 year compulsory education cycle even earlier.[12] Additionally, in rural areas, the tuition for public high school is comparatively higher than that of most other developing countries, further discouraging rural households from focusing their income on upper secondary education.[3]

Additionally, as a result of China's large population, college enrollment slots are still restricted in availability, with tuition so high that the costs far dwarf the income of a typical family in poverty. Recent efforts to expand college education availability, coupled with increasing emphasis on scholarships and loans, may help counter rising tuition costs (and other income-related barriers to higher education).[3] Despite tuition challenges, more and more students have been able to graduate from college, with the number of college graduates quadrupling in the past decade.[13]

As an attempt to level the playing field, the gaokao, or Chinese university examination, offered extra points for students of ethnic minority backgrounds, although this was scaled back in the 2014 reforms to the national examination policy after multiple cases of ethnicity alteration prompted national backlash.[16] The new reforms also included provisions for provincial quotas, requiring universities to reserve a designated number of admission seats for students from outside of the university's region.[19][20]

The implementation of the double reduction policy in 2021 was a new attempt by Chinese regulators to reduce the inequality of educational resources allocation caused by regional inequality and economic differences during the compulsory education period.[21] According to Opinions on Further Reducing the Homework Burden and Off-Campus Training Burden of Students in Compulsory Education, schools should narrow the educational quality gap and reduce the need for students to rely on tutoring institutions by optimizing teaching methods, designing teaching materials based on students' different abilities, and providing students with abundant educational resources.[21][22] As schools provided "on-campus classes for both academic subjects and extra-curricular activities" and tutoring institutions were no longer permitted to be for-profit institutions, the double reduction policy had relieved the inequality phenomenon whereby poor families did not have access to adequate educational resources while rich families can obtain better academic performance through tutoring institutions.[23] And the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China also pointed out that the higher level of educational equity could be realized through the student-oriented education method, which satisfies students’ individual growth needs.[22]

• Education inequality
• Education in China
• History of Education in China
• Women in China
• Gender inequality in China
• Small-town Swot
• Double Reduction Policy