RESOURCES

IN BRIEF: THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF CHINA

Although China’s modern universities were not founded before the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the history of formal education in China predates the establishment of Western-style educational institutions by centuries. The imperial education and examination system developed, as a meritocratic means to train and select civil servants, by some reckonings as early as the Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE).

 Some characteristics of education in Imperial China continue to influence education in the country. Contemporary China retains a meritocratic approach to education with an emphasis on examinations, the most well-known of which is the gaokao university entrance exam. Said to be one of the most demanding exams in the world, success on the gaokao is of paramount importance for students’ future career and income prospects. This focus on examinations encourages a disciplined, top-down learning style that relies mostly on rote memorization and leaves less room for discussion and criticism when compared to Western education.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the country established a highly centralized system of education steered by China’s one-party state. The higher education system was initially based on the Soviet model, a system that separated teaching from research. Universities became primarily teaching institutions, affiliated with specific government bodies. They taught related subjects, such as medicine, art, or agriculture. The result was a high degree of specialization and lack of cross-fertilization between the disciplines. Research, on the other hand, was mostly conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other research institutes.

 Administration of the Education System

The People’s Republic of China is administratively divided into 23 provinces, four municipalities that have the same standing as provinces (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing), five autonomous regions (including Tibet and Xinjiang), and two specially administered regions (Hong Kong and Macau). These provincial-level divisions are further subdivided into thousands of counties, cities, and townships.

 The education system in mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau) is administered as follows:

l  At the national level, the Ministry of Education (MOE) establishes overall education policies and guides educational reforms. It sets the school system’s curricula and content of examinations. It directly oversees 75 prestigious universities and steers the higher education system by setting overall directives. It also oversees the national gaokao university entrance examinations, as well as ideological education at all levels of education.

l  The departments of education of the provinces approve the establishment of HEIs and monitor their performance. Apart from the universities directly overseen by the MOE and other central government bodies, as well as a few universities administered jointly by the central and provincial governments, most HEIs in China are supervised by provincial authorities and lower-level local governments.

l  At the local level, counties and municipal governments manage elementary and secondary education.