The Chinese educational structure provides for six years of primary school, three years each of lower secondary school and upper secondary school, and four years in the standard university curriculum. All urban schools are financed by the state, while rural schools depend more heavily on their own financial resources.
Its academic results are first-rate as measured by the Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which administers standardized tests worldwide every three years. China topped the rest of the world in reading, math and science in the latest test, in 2018.
China describes its education system as having four components; basic education, occupational education, higher education and adult education. Basic education comprises pre-school education, six years of primary schooling; three years of junior secondary schooling and then three years of senior secondary schooling.
A typical school has few academic and athletic facilities other than a chalkboard, some desks, chairs and a Chinese flag and courtyard where children play. Better schools have a dirt soccer field. Few schools have air conditioning or heating.
Chinese education focuses on the knowledge of accumulation, on how students manage and use the knowledge they learned in school, and on understandings of knowledge systems and structures. Americans are interested in how students use their knowledge in society.
Becky Francis, a visiting professor at King's College London, director of education at the Royal Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: "Our main argument is that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of differentiating ...
Without experienced teachers and stimulating learning spaces, the few rural students who can pursue higher education do not make it as far as their urban peers. Less than 5% of rural students are admitted to universities, while over 70% of urban students attend, contributing to China's rural-urban education gap.
Literacy Rate in China Overview
The literacy rate reached 99.83% in 2021. Between 2015 to 2021, the literacy rate of China grew by 0.106%. On a year-on-year basis, the literacy rate increased by 0.018% in 2021.
There are five primary educational learning theories: behaviorism, cognitive, constructivism, humanism, and connectivism. Additional learning theories include transformative, social, and experiential.
Students usually attend four or five classes in the morning and another two or three in the afternoon. Each class is 40 minutes long with a 10-minute break in between and the lunch break is approximately 60 to 90 minutes long, depending on the school.
Public schools are mostly free of charge and this is an initiative by the government to ensure that all children in China have a basic of a nine-year education. Parents may have to pay for study supplies and uniform.
Primary and Secondary Schools
That is mostly because the curriculum in Chinese schools differs from the typical Western standards. Strict rules, the emphasis of discipline, endless homework and tests, and constant pressure from peers and teachers – that seems to be the daily life of a Chinese student.
That is, the Chinese education system is widely criticized by its own educators, scholars, and parents for generating toxic levels of stress and producing graduates with high scores, low ability, and poor health (Zhao, 2009. (2009).
China provides an example of a higher education system which has moved into the early stage of mass higher education, while Japan's higher education has transformed into the stage of universal higher education.
The dramatic increase in literacy in China has a lot to do with the efficacy of numerous political, economic and educational policies. In 1982, compulsory education was written into the Chinese constitution, postulating a nine-year compulsory education funded by the government.
Nine-Year Compulsory Education in China
The policy is funded by government, tuition is free. Schools still charge miscellaneous fees. Senior secondary school (grade 10 to 12) and college education are not compulsory and free in China.
As of 2020, China has succeeded in eradicating absolute poverty, but not the poverty defined for upper middle-income countries which China belongs to. China still has around 13% of its population falling below this poverty line of $5.50 per day in 2020.
Financial deficit of developing countries
Universal primary education is a major issue and a sizeable problem for many states. Many emerging countries do not appropriate the financial resources necessary to create schools, provide schooling materials, nor recruit and train teachers.
Although every student is unique, Chinese students are generally regarded as disciplined, hardworking and respectful.
Since ancient times, teachers have been respected by people as messengers of wisdom. The famous Chinese idiom, "Cheng Men Li Xue," which literally means "standing in the snow at the gate of Cheng's home," is a wonderful example.
Homework, as an important part of students' schoolwork, has been a heavy burden on Chinese schoolchildren. This problem has already become very serious, which mainly demonstrates in terms of too much homework, lack of students' sleep and so on.