We will implement the Party's policy on education in all areas, continue to prioritize the development of education, and make faster progress in improving the modern education system in order to raise the overall quality of education, promote fairness in education, and promote the moral, intellectual, physical, and artistic development of people so that they will build up and take up the baton of socialism.
Section 1
Balanced development of basic public education
We will establish a unified urban and rural funding mechanism for compulsory education which places emphasis on rural areas, and increase funding for public education in the central and western regions, remote or poor areas, and areas with concentrations of ethnic minorities. We will take appropriate measures to ensure that state-run schools that provide compulsory education comply with educational standards, improve conditions in boarding schools as well as badly built and poorly operated schools, improve the regional layout of education institutions and services, work to eliminate extremely large class sizes in urban schools, achieve a basic balance between schools in the same county in the allocation of educational resources, and raise the completion rate of compulsory education to 95%. We will strengthen the ranks of teachers with emphasis on those teachers in rural schools, implement a support plan for rural teachers, and address structural, school level-specific, and regional teacher shortages through methods such as the provision of government-purchased teaching positions. We will improve the teaching environment in rural schools. We will help make rural preschool education more accessible by encouraging the development of rural kindergartens open to all children, carry out the three-year preschool education plan, and work to see the gross enrollment ratio for children receiving three-year preschool education rise to 85%. We will work to make senior secondary school education more universal and give high priority to waiving fees for senior secondary school students registered as economically disadvantaged students, with the aim of seeing the gross enrollment ratio rise to over 90%. We will increase the availability and quality of special needs education for groups with disabilities, and increase support given to such education. We will actively promote the development of education for ethnic minority students, appropriately move ahead with bilingual education, and strengthen bilingual teacher training.
Section 2
Integration of industry and vocational education
We will improve the modern vocational education system and strengthen infrastructure in vocational education. If conditions are suitable, colleges providing undergraduate education will be encouraged to become applied institutions. We will give impetus to training models for applied expertise or technical skills which allow for the involvement of industry and vocational education as well as cooperation between schools and enterprises, and promote two-way exchanges between faculty members from vocational schools and technical staff members from enterprises. We will prompt the development of production-oriented majors, class content, and teaching methods. We will promote mutual recognition and vertical mobility between vocational education and regular education. We will phase in, based on classification, the waiving of tuition and miscellaneous fees at schools providing secondary vocational education and put into effect a national program to offer basic vocational training packages.
Section 3
University capacity to produce innovators
We will develop the modern university system and refine the internal governance structures of universities. We will cultivate a first-class teaching staff and update teaching content with new theories, knowledge, and techniques. We will improve the system for ensuring the quality of higher education. We will manage higher education based on classification and carry out the comprehensive reform of institutions of higher learning to ensure that they optimize the arrangement of their disciplines and majors, reform their training mechanisms, implement an educational system using different methods to cultivate academic talent and applied talent whilst combining general knowledge and major-specific knowledge, strengthen instruction through practice, and nurture the capacity of students for creativity, innovation, and starting businesses. We will invigorate higher education in the central and western regions and see that more students from these regions and rural areas are able to enter key institutions of higher learning. We will ensure that all universities improve their capacity for innovation, and will adopt a coordinated approach to developing world-class universities and disciplines.
Section 4
Toward a learning society
We will emphasize the development of continuing education and build a system for lifelong learning and training available to all members of society. We will encourage the open sharing of all types of learning resources, ensure the success of open universities, develop online and distance learning, and integrate all kinds of digital learning resources to make them available to the general public. We will establish a system for personal learning accounts and credits, make it easier for people to pursue continuing education and lifelong learning, formulate a national qualifications framework, and promote credit transfers and recognition of the learning outcomes of non-degree education and vocational skill grades. We will develop senior citizen education.
Section 5
Education reform and development
We will deepen education reform to increase students' sense of social responsibility, their awareness of rule of law, their spirit of innovation, and their ability to put ideas into practice; to strengthen education in sports, physical health, mental health, the arts, and aesthetics; and to cultivate students’ interest in innovation and their scientific literacy. We will deepen reform of the examination and enrollment systems as well as instructional reform. We will administer the Academic Proficiency Test and the Comprehensive Student Assessment to junior and senior secondary school students. We will launch a nationwide reform of the professional title system for primary and secondary school teachers and improve teacher salaries and benefits. We will promote close integration of modern information technology with education and teaching. We will guarantee certain levels of spending on education in accordance with the law. We will operate on the principle of separation between the management, running, and assessment of schools, expand the decision-making powers of schools, improve inspection of and oversight over education, and strengthen social oversight over education. We will put in place a system of policies for management according to institution type and for the provision of differentiated support, and encourage nongovernmental actors and investors to provide a diverse range of education services. We will improve the financial support system and ensure that all students from financially disadvantaged families are covered.
Box 20
Education modernization projects
1. Standards for schools providing compulsory education
§ Implement an action plan to accelerate the development of education in the central and western regions;
§ Gradually ensure that state-run compulsory education schools that cannot yet meet required standards work to bring their buildings, premises, and staffing up to standard.
2. Senior secondary education access plan
§ Increase senior secondary education resources in poor areas in the central and western regions, particularly in contiguous poor areas;
§ See that basically all junior secondary school graduates in poor parts of these regions who did not enroll in regular senior secondary education enter into secondary vocational schooling.
3. Development of kindergartens open to all children
§ Strengthen the development of such kindergartens, focusing particularly on making sure children of kindergarten age in rural parts of the central and western regions as well as children born in urban areas after the introduction of the two- child policy have access to kindergarten education.
4. Integration of education into industry
§ Support 100 higher vocational institutions and 1,000 secondary vocational schools in strengthening cooperation with enterprises to develop vocational education internship and training facilities;
§ Support colleges providing undergraduate education in improving their basic conditions including facilities for teaching, conducting experiments, and training;
§ Establish a number of high-quality applied undergraduate colleges;
§ Support the development of clusters of emerging disciplines and majors to serve modern industry through cooperation between universities and enterprises.
5. Development of world-class universities and disciplines
§ Give high priority to supporting the development of a number of world-class universities and disciplines, and ensuring that some disciplines reach the highest ranks worldwide;
§ Continue the initiative to improve universities' capacity for innovation.
6. Development of continuing education
§ Support higher learning institutions and vocational institutions in providing continuing education and training for migrant workers in cities, modern professional farmers, modern industrial workers, and demobilized service personnel;
§ Establish personal learning accounts and an academic credit certification platform.
7. Teacher development
§ Support the development of teacher training and launch a program to cultivate high-caliber teachers;
§ Add to bilingual teacher numbers in areas with concentrations of ethnic minorities and to secondary vocational teacher numbers in poor areas;
§ Recruit teachers for the special rural teacher program every year to gradually bring their number to 100,000;
§ Build accommodations for teachers in rural areas;
§ Implement the head teacher plan in primary and secondary schools in the central and western regions and a plan to attract excellent teachers to universities in these regions;
§ Strengthen efforts to train special needs teachers.
8. Information technology in education
§ Move faster in implementing the project to ensure that broadband internet is accessible to each school, quality digital educational resources are accessible to each classroom, and an online learning space is accessible to each student and to put in place platforms for educational resources and management;
§ Continue support for IT infrastructure construction in rural primary and secondary schools;
§ Establish a national quality learning resource platform through government service procurement;
§ Develop modern remote and online learning with a focus on vocational education and applied higher education.
9. International exchanges and cooperation in education
§ Promote educational activities related to the Belt and Road Initiative;
§ Implement the study abroad action plan;
§ Continue to ensure Confucius Institutes are run successfully.
(Excerpt from The 13th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China (2016–2020) , Central Complication & Translation Press)
