China is now the largest higher education system in the world: it awards more university degrees than the US and India combined. But its not just volume, its quality and growth too. China has identified education as a priority and invested in its education system so that in a few years it has transformed itself and it will continue to do so. It is winning the war of the future already.
At the Worldwide Universities Network conference, the audience was given a dramatic insight in to China’s education system. Here are some of the facts.
- University enrolments in China have risen from under 10% of young people in 1999 to over 21% in 2006, an unusually fast expansion.
- In 1996 China produced just 5,000 PhD students a year (that was only about half the number in the UK, Japan or India). Now China awards more doctoral degrees than any other country except the US.
- 34,000 students enrolled in 2006 and there will be over 50,000 enrolled a year in just three or four years, overtaking the US.
- China now has 5 universities in the top 100.
- A conscious policy of investment in higher education has transformed spending of just 1% of GDP on higher education in 1998 to a target figure for 2007 is 4%.
The last fact tells the story: China takes education seriously and is investing resources in its brain power.
(BBC report)
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