In 2022, China made great strides toward building a modern socialist nation by focusing on education as a central pillar of society. Under the guidance of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, the education system fully implemented President Xi Jinping’s instructions on education and reached new heights of success. Presented below is a synopsis of China’s educational successes in 2022, broken down by level and subject area.
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.
I. Pre-school education
In 2022, the gross enrollment rate at pre-school level was 89.7%, 1.6 percentage points higher than in the previous year.
There were 289,200 kindergartens across the country, including 245,700 affordable kindergartens, accounting for 84.96% of kindergartens nationwide.
The number of children enrolled in kindergartens reached 46,275,500. Children registered in affordable kindergartens totaled 41,440,500, an increase of 1.77% over the previous year, accounting for 89.55% of registered preschoolers.
Kindergarten faculty and staff numbered 3,244,200, marking an increase of 1.67% over the previous year. The percentage of full-time teachers in preschool education meeting qualification requirements reached 99.39% and 90.30% of them had a junior college education.
II. Compulsory education
In 2022, the completion rate of nine-year compulsory education was 95.5%, 0.1 percentage point higher than in the previous year.
1. Primary schools
There were 149,100 primary schools nationwide, with 107 million registered students. Newly admitted students in 2022 totaled 17,013,900.
The number of primary school faculty and staff was 6,629,400. The percentage of full-time teachers in primary education meeting qualification requirements reached 99.99%, and 98.90% of them had at least a three-year college education.
The surface area in regular primary schools across the country covered 889,618,000 m2, 18,328,200 m2 more than in the previous year. 2022 witnessed higher percentages of schools with facilities and equipment fulfilling applicable standards, as follows: 93.52% of schools met the sports ground area (stadium) requirements; 97.07% met sports equipment requirements; 96.81% met musical instrument requirements; 96.79% met art supply requirements; and 96.62% met laboratory tools and equipment requirements.
Large and oversized classes with 56 or more students numbered 13,800, which was 7,200 fewer than the previous year, accounting for 0.48% of the total number of classes and down 0.25 percentage points from the previous year.
2. Junior high schools
There were 52,500 junior high schools, with 51,206,000 registered students. Of them, 17,313,800 were newly enrolled in 2022.
Faculty and staff in junior high schools totaled 4,025,200. The number of full-time teachers meeting qualification requirements stood at 99.94%, and 91.71% of them had a four-year college education.
The surface area in junior high schools across the country covered 786,483,500 m2, 30,546,500 m2 more than in the previous year. The percentages of schools with facilities and equipment fulfilling applicable standards were as follows: 95.68% of schools met the sports ground area (stadium) requirements; 98.08% met sports equipment requirements; 97.88% met musical instrument requirements; 97.88% met art supply requirements; and 97.75% met laboratory tools and equipment requirements.
Large and oversized classes of 56 or more students totaled 4,522, which was 2,703 fewer than the previous year, accounting for 0.40% of the total number of classes, and down 0.25 percentage points from the previous year.
3. Senior high schools
In 2022, the gross enrolment rate at the upper secondary level was 91.6%, 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous year.
There were 15,000 regular senior high schools across the country, an increase of 441 over 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 vocational senior high schools across the country, down 93 on the previous year. Newly enrolled students in 2022 numbered 4,847,800, down 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.
Faculty and staff in regular senior high schools totaled 2,133,200. The percentage of full-time teachers meeting qualification requirements reached 99.03%, with 13.08% holding a master’s degree.
Faculty and staff in vocational senior high schools totaled 718,300. The percentage of full-time teachers meeting qualification requirements reached 94.86%, with 8.91% holding a master’s degree. Dual-qualification teachers (with teaching and industry experience) accounted for 56.18% of full-time teaching staff, an increase of 0.67 percentage points from the previous year.
The total school building floor area in regular senior high schools increased 36,728,000 m2 over the previous year to 680,349,000 m2. The percentages of schools with facilities and equipment fulfilling applicable standards were as follows: 94.46% of schools met the sports ground area (stadium) requirements; 96.50% met sports equipment requirements; 95.85% met musical instrument requirements; 96.05% met art supply requirements; and 96.18% met laboratory tools and equipment requirements.
The total school building floor area in regular senior high schools increased 7.39% over the previous year to 275,160,900 m2, and the per student building floor area was 20.55 m2. The per student value of educational facilities and equipment reached RMB 8,504.32.
III. Higher education
In 2022, gross enrollment in higher education reached 59.6%, 1.8 percentage points higher than the previous year.
China had 3,013 higher education institutions (HEIs). Among them, 1,239 were regular ones (164 independent colleges included). This included 32 polytechnic colleges, and 1,489 higher vocational education institutes. There was also a total of 253 adult higher education institutes. There were also 234 research institutions training postgraduate students. The number of registered students in all HEIs totaled 46.55 million across the country, an increase of 2.25 million over 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. Regular HEIs enrolled 4,679,400 students on average, an increase of 5.25% over the previous year. Vocational colleges enrolled 76,300 students, an increase of 84.39% over the previous year, while higher vocational education institutes enrolled 5,389,800 students, including 542,900 students in five-year programs beginning at junior high level.
The total number of enrolled postgraduate students grew by 5.61% to 1,242,500, of which 139,000 were for Doctoral degrees and 1,103,500 for Masters’ degrees. The number of registered postgraduate students stood at 3,653,600, an increase of 9.64% over the previous year. Doctoral students totaled 556,100 and 3,097,500 were Masters students.
4,000,200 students were newly enrolled in an undergraduate program in HEIs for adults, bringing the total number of registered students to 9,336,500; while 2,808,900 students were newly enrolled in online higher education programs, bringing the total number of registered students to 8,446,500.
There were 1,977,800 full-time teachers in higher education, including 1,315,800 in regular undergraduate colleges; 27,800 in undergraduate-level vocational colleges; 619,500 in higher vocational education institutes; and 14,700 in adult higher education schools. 78.54% have a Masters’ degree or above, up 1.04 percentage points from the previous year.
The total floor area of regular HEIs reached 1.1308055 billion m2, marking an increase of 3.97% on the previous year. The per student campus area was 51.63 m2, and the per student building floor area was 25.21 m2. The per student value of educational facilities and equipment reached RMB 17,527.82.
IV. Special education
There were 2,314 special schools across the country, an increase of 1.14% over the previous year. The total number of students receiving special education of all types was 146,300. Registered students receiving such education totaled 918,500, of which: those attending regular classes in regular schools numbered 335,700, accounting for 36.54% of the total number of registered students receiving special education across the country.
Full-time teachers totaled 72,700, an increase of 4.85% over the previous year.
V. Non-state education
In 2022, China had 178,300 privately run schools, accounting for 34.37% of all schools across the country. The number of students attending non-state schools was 52,827,200, accounting for 18.05% of all students in China.
More details are as follows:
- 160,500 non-state kindergartens, serving 21,267,800 children;
- 10,500 non-state primary and junior high schools, with 13,568,500 registered students, including 7,363,700 students under government funding;
- 4,300 non-state regular senior high schools, with 4,977,900 registered students;
- 2,073 non-state vocational senior high schools, with 2,762,400 registered students;
- 764 non-state higher education institutions (including 390 regular universities/colleges, 22 bachelor-degree-awarding vocational schools, 350 higher vocational education institutions, 2 higher education institutions for adults), with 9,248,900 attending.
