Facts & Figures

Growing contribution of education to society

Source: www.moe.gov.cn
2018-06-26

• China's education system supplying highly-qualified graduates for society

Higher education provided 11.93 million graduates in 2016 to society, the highest number in the world. In 2016, the number of graduates with bachelor degrees reached 3.744 million, of which 1.227 million or 32.8% finished with bachelor degrees in engineering, accounting exceeding high-income country performance.

The number of students graduating from vocational colleges every year is about 10 million. In rapidly developing industries such as high speed rail, urban rail transit, modern logistics, e-commerce and information services, more than 70% of newly trained graduates hail from vocational colleges, providing strong support for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and the development and growth of new industries and new industrial and economical formats.

• Significant improvement in comprehensive research capacity in higher education institutions

Higher education institutions undertake more than 80% of National Natural Science Foundation projects and a large number of major scientific and technological research tasks in 973 and 863 programs. Colleges and universities have led the construction of 5 major scientific and technological infrastructures in the 12th National Five-Year Plan. 60% of key national laboratories are based in higher education institutions. The three national science and technology awards account for more than 60% of all awards.

• Proactively serving the national economy

Research funds received by higher education institutions for serving the society in the past five years amounted to 179.1 billion RMB, accounting for 27.4% of all scientific research funds in colleges and universities. Higher education institutions file around 20% of all national licensed invention patents every year. Direct trading volume stemming from scientific and technological achievements has exceeded 13.09 billion RMB. Various kinds of science and technology parks centering around higher education institutions have become concentrated hubs for innovation and entrepreneurship.

• More international academic influence

In the international discipline assessment based on the number of dissertations and citations, in 2017, 845 academic programs reached the top 1% in their discipline in the world, an increase of 490 compared to 2010 (355). Higher education institutions with disciplines entering the top 1% in the world increased by 105 from 104 (2010) to 209 (2017). 12.5% of annual scientific and technological research papers are now from Chinese higher education institutions. The number of high-tier research papers has grown simultaneously.