Summary

Chinese education statistics released in late May 2020 show that the country's higher education entrance rate reached 51.6 per cent in 2019. This is the first time that more than half of the country's young people have entered higher education, and represents an extremely fast increase - in 2014 the entrance rate stood at 37.5 per cent.

As previously noted by British Council International Education Services, the number of new undergraduates in the country increased by 15.7 per cent in 2019 to 9.1 million, significantly quicker than the rate of growth in recent years. The new data provides more detail on the breakdown of these students, showing that the increase in higher education participation has been driven by an enormous jump in the number of students studying for three-year higher vocational diplomas; students entering these programmes have grown by more than 30 per cent compared to a 2.2 per cent increase in bachelor's degree entrants.

This growth means that entrants to higher vocational diploma programmes now outnumber those starting bachelor's degrees for the first time since 2008: around 4.8 million students started higher vocational diplomas compared to 4.3 million joining bachelor's degree courses.

As described in the previous IES news article (linked below), enrolment at vocational senior high schools is also growing at a faster rate than at academically-focused schools, although to a lesser extent than at the higher education level. Participation at the pre-school and senior high school levels also continues to increase, reaching 83.4 and 89.5 per cent respectively, while participation at these levels and at the compulsory education level is also greatly affected by demographic changes. In 2019 China had 47.1 Mn students enrolled in pre-school education, 105.6 Mn at primary schools; 48.3 Mn at lower secondary schools; 24.1 Mn at academic senior high schools; and 15.8 Mn students at vocational senior high schools.

Finally, the proportion of students enrolled in private schools continues to grow at all levels of education except pre-schools. This effect is particularly pronounced at academic senior high schools, where the number of new students at private institutions increased by 16.2 per cent compared to 5.9 per cent across all schools of this type.

Analysis by Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst, British Council International Education Services

This growth shows the importance the Chinese government places on vocational education at both the upper secondary and higher education levels. Chinese authorities see vocational education as vital to drive the country's further development and are working to encourage more students to choose this route. The rate of growth is still driven much more by direct government involvement than by student preference - student quotas are approved by education authorities, and a large majority of students enrolling on vocational programmes are those whose gaokao or zhongkao scores were not high enough not to enter universities or academic senior high schools respectively.

A rise in higher vocational students has less potential effect on future demand for overseas postgraduate study than the rise in overall Chinese undergraduate programmes may imply. However, there may still be room for UK HEIs to build partnerships with Chinese higher vocational colleges. The rise in private education is also a positive sign, as one major contributor to this increase is schools teaching an internationalised curriculum whose students tend to go abroad for university study.

China's HE entrance rate is now higher than the most recent figure for the UK's higher education initial participation rate of 50.2 per cent - although that UK figure is from the 2017/18 academic year so it is possible that the UK's rate is still slightly higher. However, the proportion of UK young people enrolling on full bachelor's degrees is still far higher than the proportion of Chinese young people doing the same thing. Trends elsewhere in East Asia show that there is still a lot of room for China's HE enrolment to grow - data from UNESCO shows that Hong Kong's gross tertiary enrolment ratio stood at 77 per cent in 2018, while the proportion for South Korea was 94 per cent in 2017.

Sources

1. Chinese Ministry of Education: 2019 national education development statistical report (in Chinese) - http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_sjzl/sjzl_fztjgb/202005/t20200520_456751.html

2. British Council International Education Services: Chinese statistics show strong increase in HE student numbers in 2019 (March 2020) - https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/chinese-statistics-show-strong-increase-he-student-numbers-2019

3. UK Department for Education: Participation Rates in Higher Education - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/843542/Publication_HEIPR1718.pdf