Summary:
During panel deliberations to the on-going bimonthly session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China's Education Minister Chen Baosheng announced a report on HE progress and reform over the previous Five Year Plan period (2011-2015). By the end of this period (i.e. 2015) there were 36.47 million students receiving higher education in China, an increase of 17.5 per cent from 2010. The gross enrolment ratio was 40 per cent, 13.5 percentage points higher than in 2010, exceeding the average level of medium-to-high income countries. Minister Chen claimed that "overall the phased target of the education plan (2010-2010) has been achieved on schedule and China has established the world's largest higher education system".

In addition, Chinese universities and colleges attracted nearly 400,000 international students from 202 overseas countries and regions last year, a 50 per cent surge from 2010. China has signed mutual recognition agreements for academic degrees with 43 countries and regions, including the UK. In addition, domestic engineering education programs will be recognised by all the signatory bodies of the Washington Accord, covering 18 countries.

From 2011-2015, five Chinese-foreign cooperative universities have been approved to set up, and more than 600 Chinese-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programmes have been established. Moreover, China has developed four transnational education institutions and 98 programmes in 14 countries and regions, nearly 500 Confucius Centres and 900 Confucius Classrooms have been developed in 132 countries

The report points that China has continuously increased funding for higher education, reaching 952 billion CNY in 2015, an increase of 389 billion CNY over 2010 (69 per cent). This includes a doubling of headcount-based funding to nearly 85 billion CNY, doubling from 2010. The average financial allocation standards for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students were 15,600 CNY, 22,000 CNY and 28,000 CNY in 2015

According to the report, it remains an urgent task for planning authorities to allocate more education resources to address the imbalance. The report shows that in the last five years, the government has spent 10 billion CNY (around 1 billion GBP) on improving the infrastructure and teaching quality of 100 colleges and universities in the central and western regions. In 2015, 5.6 billion CNY has been spent on establishing national-level universities in 13 provinces and autonomous regions that used to have only provincial-level HEIs; most of these are relatively-poorer parts of China.

The minister also highlighted a focus on new programmes catering to strategic emerging industries such as cyberspace security, Internet of Things and big data.

China also has been striving to train more applied graduates via cooperation between universities and enterprises. More than 200 colleges and universities have programs in partnership with domestic and international companies, including Alibaba, Tencent and Intel.

The report also stresses the need for more effective measures to tackle limitations to long-term development, such as
- to call for more improved measures to ensure college education serves the needs of social and economic development
- to stress more on teaching quality but not limited to scientific research, as well as to improve the higher education scheme to guarantee enough time for students to work as interns before graduation
- to strengthen the quality over quantity of scientific research and innovation capability

Analysis by Kevin Prest and Liu Xiaoxiao::
This is the Ministry of Education’s official progress report of the HE sector in the last five years, setting out recent achievements. Key achievements highlighted by the government include an expansion of HE provision, a significant increase in funding, and a greater focus on central and western regions, internationalization and industry links. Although most of the figures have been seen before, this puts them into context and shows the broad changes in China’s HE sector over the last five years.

Sources:
1. http://www.jyb.cn/high/gdjyxw/201609/t20160901_671205.html
2. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/zxbg/node_30915.htm
3. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/cwhhy/12jcwh/2016-09/01/content_1996369.htm
4. http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/zxbg/2016-09/06/content_1997013.htm
5. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-09/02/c_135652552.htm
6. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-08/31/c_135648688.htm