Summary:
In late December, China's top legislature adopted amendments to the nation's education-related laws to strengthen bilingual teaching among ethnic minorities and promote the sound development of higher education. The amendments to the nation’s law on education and law on higher education were adopted at the week-long bi-monthly session of the Standing Committee of China’s National People's Congress (NPC).

The newly amended laws are scheduled to go into effect on 1 June 2016 if they are approved by the full session of the National People’s Congress in March 2016. In practice it is very rare for a law supported by the Standing Committee to be rejected at this stage.

There are more than 10 modifications of the terms to the Education Law, including key amendments as follows:
• Article 18 was added, saying that “the state shall develop the standards for pre-school education, accelerate the popularization of pre-school education, and establish a pre-school education public service system covering both urban and rural areas, especially the countryside. The people's governments at all levels shall take measures to facilitate and support the pre-school education received by children below the school age”.

• An article which formerly allowed schools for ethnic minority students to teach in the local language was amended to stress bilingual teaching. “Schools and other educational institutions dominated by ethnic minority students in ethnic autonomous areas” shall, “according to the actual circumstances, use the standard spoken and written Chinese language and the spoken and written language of their respective ethnicities or commonly used by the local ethnicities to implement bilingual education”.

• The amended law contains more detailed regulations to prevent cheating and other kinds of academic misconduct. It criminalises cheating in national exams, supporting other people to cheat, and lax management of exams that allows serious cheating, as well as making, selling, buying or using fake degree certificates, and specifies that academic certifications obtained as a result of cheating will be revoked.

Regarding the Higher Education Law of China, there are seven amendments to Article 4, 5, 24, 29, 42, 44 and 60 respectively, related to higher education policy, talent nurturing, the establishment of new universities, academic committee responsibilities, and evaluation systems, financing measures and other areas.

• The amended law sets out the roles and responsibilities of academic committees of higher education institutions. Responsibilities include reviews of academic discipline development, planning of teaching and research; evaluation of teaching and research outcomes; and investigation and handling academic disputes and misconduct.

• The revision also stipulates that colleges and universities shall establish evaluation systems for both education quality and management quality, and disclose the relevant information to the public. Education administrative departments shall organise experts or entrust professional third parties with assessing the effectiveness and quality of education, again sharing this information with the public.

• The amendment also stipulates that one of the tasks for institutions of higher learning is to give students a sense of social responsibility in addition to creativity and practical ability.

The amendment proposal of Vocational Education and enactment of laws on pre-school education have been included in the Twelfth National People's Congress legislative plan or annual legislative work plan, and will be submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for further review later in the year. Meanwhile, an amended Private Education Law, which would have allowed for-profit schools and universities, was introduced to the NPC Standing Committee in December but was withdrawn due to disagreement over its content.

Analysis by Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst Analysis and Liu Xiaoxiao, Education Services Manager:

Many of the changes are in line with existing government policy. For example, the requirement for local governments to provide support for pre-school education was already set out in the country’s Medium and Long Term Educational Development Plan, while in practice minority-language schools already offer a bilingual curriculum rather than one taught completely in the regional language. At the HE level, the newly amended law will increase the importance of academic committees in the management of institutions, and lead to more transparency in universities’ quality assessment.

It should be noted that the new language policy is aimed at schools in regions with high concentrations of ethnic minority students, such as Tibet or Xinjiang, and not at schools which teach an international curriculum in English. The relevant article already existed in the previous version of the education law and specifically refers to schools in ethnic autonomous areas which use the local language as a medium of instruction.

Although the proposed amendments to the Private Education Law were withdrawn in this session, it is possible that they will be re-introduced in future years after gathering more support. If a similar law is approved in the future it will likely have a significant effect on private investment in the education sector.

Sources:
1. http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-12/26/c_1117588566.htm
2. http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/201512/t20151228_226184.html
3. http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/201512/t20151228_226192.html
4. http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/201512/t20151228_226228.html