Press Releases

MOE releases statistical report on China’s educational achievements in 2022

Source: www.moe.gov.cn
2023-03-28

The Ministry of Education held a press conference to release a statistical report on China’s educational achievements in 2022 on March 23. Liu Changya, Director-general of the Department of Development and Planning, presented a synopsis of the report.

In 2022, China had 518,500 educational institutions of all kinds and all levels with 293 million students enrolled. The number of full-time teaching staff was 18,803,600. New entrants into the workforce on average received 14 years of formal education.

Affordable preschool education was further expanded. The gross enrollment rate at pre-school level was 89.7%, 1.6 percentage points higher than in the previous year. China had a total of 289,200 kindergartens across the country, with 46,275,500 children enrolled in preschool education. Among them, 245,700 were affordable kindergartens, accounting for 84.96% of all kindergartens in the country. 41.4405 million children were enrolled in these kindergartens, accounting for 89.55% of all enrolled preschool children, an increase of 1.77 percentage points from the previous year.

Compulsory education saw further improvement in 2022. The completion rate of nine-year compulsory education was 95.5%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared to the previous year. There were a total of 149,100 primary schools across the country, with 17,013,900 students newly enrolled and 1.07 billion students in attendance. The number of large and oversized classes with 56 or more students in primary schools decreased by 7,200 from the previous year to 13,800, accounting for 0.48% of the total number of classes, a decrease of 0.25 percentage points from the previous year. There were a total of 52,500 junior high schools, with 17,313,800 students enrolled and 51,206,000 students in attendance. Large and oversized classes of 56 or more students decreased by 2,703 to 4,522, accounting for 0.40% of the total number of classes, a decrease of 0.25 percentage points from the previous year.

Senior high school education was further improved. In 2022, the gross enrollment rate for high school was 91.6%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. There were 15,000 regular senior high schools nationwide, an increase of 441 from the previous year. New entrants in these schools totaled 9,475,400, an increase of 4.71% over the previous year, and the registered students amounted to 27,138,700, an increase of 4.18% over the previous year. There were 7,201 secondary vocational schools (excluding technical schools under the auspice of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security) nationwide, a decrease of 93 from the previous year. The enrollment was 4,847,800 students, a decrease of 0.86% from the previous year. Registered students in vocational senior high schools totaled 13,392,900, an increase of 2.09% from the previous year.

Higher education further expanded its enrollment scale. In 2022, the gross enrollment rate for higher education was 59.6%, an increase of 1.8 percentage points from the previous year. China had 3,013 higher education institutions (HEIs). The total enrollment in various forms of higher education was 46.55 million students, marking an increase of 2.25 million from the previous year. The number of registered students in all HEIs totaled 10,145,400 across the country, an increase of 6.11% over the previous year. The total number of enrolled postgraduate students grew by 5.61% to 1,242,500.

The special education system was further improved. In 2022, there were a total of 2,314 special education schools nationwide, an increase of 1.14% from the previous year. 146,300 new students were enrolled, bringing the number of registered students receiving special education to 918,500. The structure of non-state education was further optimized. China had 178,300 privately run schools at all levels, accounting for 34.37% of the total number of schools nationwide. The number of students attending non-state schools was 52,827,200, accounting for 18.05% of all students in China.