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Closing the educational gap through reform

Author  :  Li Chunling     Source  :    Chinese Social Science Digest     2014-07-31

Born following the implementation of reform and opening-up policy, China’s post-1980s generation is the first to grow up within the reformist era. As most from the generation have finished school, this research attempts to investigate the educational experiences of the group in an effort to examine the distribution of educational opportunities from primary school to university. The study aims to present a deeper, more accurate account of educational inequality and trends in China.

The study is based on data from the three latest national-level surveys conducted by the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in 2006, 2008 and 2011 respectively.

Of 2,858 respondents, 98.2 percent (2,807) received formal schooling. Among them, 88.8 percent (2,493) entered middle school after completing their primary education. Some 52.7 percent (1,315) of middle school graduates went on to higher secondary education, admitted either into high school, vocational high school, technical school or technical secondary school. Finally, 50.6 percent of the 1,315 students enrolled at college.

In general, secondary education was largely available to the post-1980s generation, but high school and college still loomed out of reach for many.

Of all surveyed respondents, fewer than half were enrolled at high school and less than a quarter received a college education.

Lingering gaps despite reforms

Compared with previous generations, the post-1980s generation saw opportunities of high school and college education soaring, and those of middle school education also showed a steep rise.

Taking into account the growing trend of educational opportunities for these generations, the post-1980s generation was apparently the luckiest with most opportunities, especially in terms of receiving secondary and higher education.

Granted that primary education was also made universal to them, previous generations lacked many of the opportunities to attend middle and high school compared to their post-1980s counterparts.

Overall, college education opportunities for pre-1970s generations grew scarcely and even declined in some instances. It wasn’t until the post-1970s that the situation improved and subsequent generations were endowed with substantially more opportunities for college education. Arguably, the post-1980s generation has reaped the greatest benefits of education equality.

Despite larger numbers from the post-1970s generation going to college compared to their precedent generations, their admission in higher secondary education was much more limited than the post-1980s generation, hence their far lower gross college enrollment rate (10.9 percent) compared to the post-1980s generation (23.3 percent).

Gross college enrollment rates for generations prior to the post-1970s were even lower, with 3.3 percent for the post-1940s, 3.6 percent for the post-1950s and 5.3 percent for the post-1960s generations.

College education opportunities for the post-1980s generation sprang up largely because of the expansion of university enrollments, which more than doubled opportunities for the generation to enter college.

Link to family background

Short-term impressive growth of educational opportunities has advanced educational equality, with disadvantaged groups more likely to benefit. Nevertheless, there have been large numbers of post-1980s students left behind in the educational revolution.

Statistics show that nearly half (49.4 percent) of respondents surveyed were eliminated upon entering college and deprived of access to college. Less than one fourth (23.3 percent) of the post-1980s generation came forth winners after passing one “gate” after another.

A comparison of family background of passers at each level – primary school, middle school, high school and college – reveals that the higher the educational level, the better the family background.

Rates of students whose parents were white-collar workers and urban residents kept climbing, while the rates of those from peasant families or rural areas went downward.

Moreover, children of managers and professionals had a clear edge in competing for opportunities of attending college. Children of government employees were also advantageous.

Children of blue-collar workers and self-employed individuals were neither advantageous nor disadvantageous, but those of peasants and from the countryside were put at a notable disadvantage.

Two percent of the uneducated and 11 percent of primary-only educated children were from families of low socioeconomic backgrounds who remain on the margins of society. There is a high likelihood that their children will be have limited educational opportunities, too.

Conclusions of research

Based on the latest national sample surveys, analysis of the educational experience of the post-1980s generation led to the following conclusions.

Firstly, it is not true that children of workers and peasants have more educational opportunities.

In the first decade since reform and opening-up, introduction of the market economy pushed tuition fees for elementary and secondary education rather high and out of the reach of peasant families. Many rural students were forced to drop out due to their family’s limited finances, compounding educational inequality.

Effective policies, such as making nine-year compulsory education generally available and waiving primary and middle school tuition fees for some students, have widened opportunities and boosted educational equality over the past decade. Nonetheless, the educational experience of the post-1980s generation indicates there is still a long way to go in eliminating educational inequality .

Secondly, there are huge disparities in educational opportunities between urban and rural children.

Students from cities have four times more opportunities to go to college than their rural peers and 4.7 times more opportunities to receive high school education.

Although primary and middle school education are universal and compulsory in China, some from the post-1980s generation lacked access to one or both. From primary school to middle school, from middle school to high school and from high school to college, numerous children of peasants and workers were forced to drop out.

Even if they managed to pass their tests and realize their college ambitions, most attended second- or third-tier universities. Even if they graduated with their degree, they often faced hurdles in the job market.

Thirdly, the choices of educational paths were also stratified.

Children from upper-class families were blessed with more opportunities in receiving quality education. After graduation from middle school, most went to high school to gear up for the gaokao (Chinese college entrance examination). They were more likely to go to top universities and obtain higher value-added degrees to pave way for their future career.

It was common that those from the lower- and even middle-class entered second- or third-tier universities. Children of peasants would give up opportunities of further study if their performance in middle school was too poor to ensure college admission, leaving school and their hometown to work in cities or just idling about in the countryside.

All in all, there is an urgent need to address educational inequality. Although China’s educational reforms have generated many positive results, inequality still looms large due to the increasingly rigorous examination and school classification systems.

The statement “everyone is equal before the scores” seems to indicate fair competition, but the scrambling for educational opportunities is by no means fair.

The advantaged group, with more resources, is capable of accessing more educational opportunities by various means to ensure their children succeed despite fierce competition. Conversely, the underprivileged have few alternatives but to hopelessly see their children washed out in one examination after another.

The unfair competition is very likely to perpetuate and even intensify class and rural-urban inequality that already exists in the elder generation, thus aggravating social inequality.

The imperative is therefore to back up vulnerable groups, lower their educational costs and risk of failure and improve their educational return to contain and bridge the gap in educational opportunities between rural and urban areas and classes to give play to the role of education in promoting social equity.

 

 

The author is research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

 

  

    Translated by Chen Mirong

  Revised by Tom Fearon

 

Editor: Du Mei

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