Private and public schools in China

Following the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the government announced that workers were the most important class in society (Cheng, 1994). As such, the Ministry of Education established that henceforth, education must be made accessible to all workers, in order to favour the development of the country. By 1950, when the nation's first middle schools and universities commenced, all staff involved were given welfare entitlements like other proletariat members in the public division (Wang, 2005). This establishment of the new Chinese education system was constructed upon a combination of the Soviet model and elements of traditional China (Chan, 2019).

Throughout the 1900s, public education was subjected to several variations (Zhang, 2001). In particular, these temporary changes were a result of the 1958 Chinese educational revolution. As the development of the proletariat was prioritized, education gradually became combined with labour and production. Most schools were converted to half-study and half-labour schools, and many started to experiment with new systems of education on their own. Consequently, procedures, school organizations and the initially established education form from 1949 were terminated. During this time, the chairman of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong, also declared that students would be re-allocated to rural areas. The reason behind this was his belief that students would be able to learn the most from labour workers. Hence, from 1966 to 1976 during the Cultural Revolution, more than 16 million students were pulled out of school in order to be re-educated by working in the countryside. The policy of school education only resumed after 1977, when the Gang of Four political faction lost power (Wang, 2005).

Unlike public institutions, schools administered by private bodies were established very early on in China (Wang, 2005). However, despite their being a fundamental component of the early educational system, they were forced to either shut down or transfer ownership to the administration of the central government in 1952 following the 1949 revolution that formed the People's Republic of China (Zhang, 2001). The direct order was released by the Chinese Ministry of Education, with the formal issue titled "The Direction of Transferring Private Primary and Private Middle School". This command was carried out in order for the economy to conform with the Soviet model the government wished to achieve – one that promoted a unified state management of education (Wang, 2005). It was not until 1992 that the re-emergence of private schools occurred, brought about by a statesman named Deng Xiaoping (Cheng, 1997). He referenced his speech in 1978 to restate his opinion on the linkage between education and science technology for the development of China. He declared that education was a necessity, due to its ability to drive the advancement of science and technology which he believed, was crucial for future expansion of China. He proclaimed that education could not rely on educational departments alone and stated the importance of support from industries and professions (Cheng, 1994). Following this economic reform, the first private school to be re-established was Guangya Primary School in Sichuan province. It was the attention this first school received that drove the development of other private schools in the country (Lin, 1999). Ultimately, the increasing need for education combined with gradual reform of China's economic system expanded the development of private schools (Wang, 2005).

Unlike private schools have freedom of deciding their curricula to adapt to the international trends of education, the public high schools, under the regulation of Minister of Education of the People's Republic of China,[6] have fixed curriculums and subjects. The main target of public education in China is to help the students score well in their college entrance examination. The department of education make all policies related to how the public school should work and set up goals for all the public schools to reach.[6] However, even with the same subjects, the actual textbooks are varied based between provinces, for instance, there are textbooks from People's Education Press[7] and Zhejiang Education Press.[8][9]

High school textbooks in Chongqing, Shaanxi, Henan, Hubei, Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Gansu, Hebei, Guangxi, Jiangxi and other places are all from People's Education Press[7].

The ones used in Taizhou, Zhejiang are all from Zhejiang Education Press[8].

According to the actual situation of the province's educational development, each province adopts different modes of education and propositions for the college entrance examination questions. In particular, the economic development in the western region is slow, the allocation of education resources in basic schools is not balanced, basic schools in remote mountainous areas in rural areas have poor educational conditions, educational resources are backward, the economic advantages of improving the quality of education and teaching, and the lack of motivation behind the support of educational resources are serious. All these factors restricted the development of basic education.[10] To be fair for using different textbooks and different educational conditions, Minister of Education of the People's Republic of China adopts different models of the National College Entrance Examination.

As of the 2018, the National College Entrance Examination (also known as the gaokao), there are four types of college entrance examination questions and proposition models in all provinces and cities across the country. There are a total of national papers 1, 2, and 3 and semi-autonomous propositions (Hainan Province) and autonomous proposition forms. Among them, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, The five provinces and cities in Zhejiang fully implement autonomous propositions.

Though each province in China adopts different modes of propositions for the college entrance examination according to the actual situation of the province's educational development, the grade segregation in public schools is still the debate of every year.

Grade segregation is intended to split students with good performance, average performance, and bad performance into different classes with different teachers. Hence, it becomes easier for the teachers to apply the optimal education according to the current academic situations of students.[11]

Excluding elementary schools, middle schools and high schools often have night section, where students go to school averagely from 7am to 10pm.[12]

Public schools in China have their fixed schedule determined by Minister of Education of the People's Republic of China, according to South China Morning Post, 60% of students age from 6 to 17 do not have more than eight hours of sleep.[13]

'Elite' private schools typically receive students of famous entrepreneurs, foreigners and government officials. They charge the highest out of all private school tuition fees, ranging on average between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan per year. Characteristics distinct to this type of school include a low teacher to student ratio, boarding system and selected emphasis on areas such as computer science and English. They are also known to receive the most national publicity (Lin, 1999).

'Urban Ordinary' private secondary schools are generally located in suburban areas such as towns and cities (Chan, 2019). Their purpose is to admit students who failed their senior schools entrance exam, providing them with the opportunity to either re-take the exam or learn vocational skills before reaching the workforce. They typically emphasise the independence of curriculum arrangement, admission and teaching methods, where they prioritize the addition of supplementary courses in minority languages and arts on top of the required annual government curriculum (Lin, 1999).

'Vocational Technical' schools were initially established in order to assist China's objective in creating more capital and skill intensive industries as opposed to ones that were labour-intensive and low skilled (Chan, 2019). The emphasis of this school type is usually on the learning and training in practical vocational skills, in that they serve students who wish to join the workforce immediately after graduation. These skill sets are often narrow, and programs catering to each set typically lasts between two and three years (Lin, 1999). Course subjects often include international trade, secretarial work, service and management mastery, cooking and commercial English (Chan, 2019). As these schools prioritize student employment, they are therefore often connected to multiple government organisations and businesses. Some vocational technical schools are also administered as a franchise (Lin, 1999).

Rural private schools are situated in remote villages and townships (Lin, 1999). Their annual tuition fees are the lowest out of all private schools, in order to support their priority in providing basic education accessibility in rural areas (Li & Liu, 2014). They consist of a larger percentage of primary schools than secondary schools (Lin, 1999).

Private schools set up by the government are passed down from the mid 1990s, during which the central government had approved the negotiation for a number of public schools to be contracted to private individuals for management. Whilst they draw on the private aspect of relying on annual student tuition fees to run, they do however, have free use of school buildings. Due to this, many local governments are willing to invest large amounts of money into their construction. Unlike other private schools, they do not have the ability to freely set the annual tuition fee. Instead, they are required to oblige with the government's tuition fee standards, which usually range between 4,000 and 15,000 yuan per year. The specific amount is dependent upon the policy of the school's local government (Lin, 1999).