Inequality in Chinese Education
By Heng Yuan / Fall 2019
Author Fu suggests “one of the top scorers in the college entrance examination from the capital of Beijing, China, says in an interview that it is increasingly difficult for children from rural areas to get into good universities (Fu)”, but if we look deeper, we see that this reveals the uneven distribution of educational resources in China. Because of the reform and development of China, the gap between different classes in Chinese society has been increasing. Education is a useful tool to break the barriers of social classes and realize social class mobility. However, in recent years, the effect of education on social class mobility is weakened. The social class of students' parents has severely affected the fairness of the education in China. It becomes worse for the upper class to make their children enjoy high-quality education resources by relying on their own wealth and rights. Overall, in China's first-tier cities, differences of educational resource caused by students' family background or social hierarchy lead to educational inequality.
The problem of unfair distribution of educational resources caused by students’ family background or social class is particularly prominent in China's first-tier cities, which is defined as the most developed cities with abundant resources such as Beijing, Shanghai. In China, students' access to quality of educational resources should be determined by their test scores. For example, when students want to enter better primary school, junior middle school, or senior high school, they have to take regular examinations. The school accepts the students according to their scores. However, the standard of education resources in first-tier cities are mostly determined by parents' class, rather than students' scores. Chinese nine-year compulsory education system is related to household registration, which regulates that students should be enrolled in the nearest school. Specifically, the students can only choose the school in the range of home address area. However, this policy does not reduce the uneven distribution of educational resources but leads to rapidly increasing housing prices near schools with strong teachers. In fact, this policy only restricts the middle-class and the lower class. The rich and powerful upper class can take advantage of their financial capital to buy a house near a high-quality school so that their children can cross the restrictions of the school district and acquire the best educational resources. At the same time, the Chinese education system states that people with local Hukou are entitled to local educational resources (Fu). Hukou is a household registration system used in mainland China. China's top education resources are centralized in China's first-tier cities, where local students have way more opportunities to enter better institutions than migrants. For instance, Peking University, one of the top universities in China, has a much lower admission score for local students than students from other cities. The original intention of this education system is to eliminate the problem of uneven distribution of educational resources in society. However, since the upper class and middle-class enjoy more rights and control more wealth resources, they only aggravate the problem of unfair educational resources.
Now that we’ve examined the social class of student’s parents, we can consider what communities are impacted. Family background was causing educational resource differences especially in middle-class of china. Although the urban middle-class is the bedrock of the communist party's political support (Lauren), the wealth of the middle-class cannot guarantee their descendants a life without crisis. Common characteristics of the Chinese middle-class include low net assets and disposable income. They still need to work hard to maintain a relatively prosperous life. Their social status and income levels are way lower than those of the upper class. There are two reasons why Chinese middle-class is the largest group of people affected by unfair educational resources. Firstly, Chinese middle-class relies on their efforts in order to achieve class promotion. They are the faithful supporters of knowledge to change their living condition. The middle-class knows the importance of quality of educational resources to a child's future career and income. Therefore, their desire for high-quality educational resources is the highest. The middle-class hopes that their children can be closer to the higher class through acquiring better education. Thus, they invest most of their family income into their children's education. Secondly, the middle-class is in a dilemma because they cannot enjoy the preferential education policies given by the government in poor areas. On the other hand, they do not have enough wealth and power to compete with the upper class for rare and high-quality education resources. Due to the competition to get into top schools has spawned severe corruption. Upper-class parents, under the guise of "voluntary contributions"(Levin), have spent tens of thousands of dollars to secure access to top schools for their children. Therefore, some middle-class choose to send their children to study abroad. However, the high cost of studying abroad is beyond the ability of the average middle class. Therefore, Chinese middle class is particularly affected by differences in educational resources based on students' family background or social class.
Before we discuss how to solve unfair distribution of educational resources, we must first explore what obstacles are preventing people from addressing it. The ideology of individualism was caused, by two major obstacles of preventing people from addressing unequally distributed education resources are self-interest of teacher, and the existing social circumstances. In one aspect, teachers are more willing to join high-ranked schools with large amount of funds. This kind of school are highly supported by the government and the upper-class parents which ensures that students accept good quality of education. Thus, high-quality teachers, most of whom earn at least Master’s degree, are concentrated in high-ranked urban schools while other teachers just get into ordinary schools. Consequently, due to the self-interest, teachers will only consider the schools with better benefits. It is no doubt that this phenomenon contributes to the uneven distribution of educational resources. Added to this, Chinese government has no choice but to make the policy mentioned in previous paragraph, trying to help the middle- and lower-class citizens to get equal chance of education. However, the expected results contradict to the actual consequences in reality. When poor and middle-class family are restricted to this policy, the upper-class family are able to send their children to any school they want through various measures, such as bribery. What’s worse, they control enough financial and political resources to prevent any change of the policy that they get benefits from. Therefore, the obstruct from rich people is another barrier to solve the problem.
The appropriate subsidies in rural areas should be implemented to ensure the long-term education for students in the areas. Even though the Chinese government has made financial support to maintain schools and teachers in rural areas, the policy could not change the family’s inability to support the children’s further education because of poverty. Solving the problem properly is very important to realize the equality of education. We can see a clear example of this in the following passage. The scholar Wang Dan has found that the people in rural areas could not afford the rest educational expense even though the “two exemptions and one subsidy” has been effective in basic education (80). Wang’s finding suggests that some students in rural areas will disrupt education because of their family poverty. In order not to let a child out of school because of poverty, the government and society have the responsibility to take special care of children from poor families in rural areas. The government can issue relevant standards and give the families in extreme poverty appropriate subsidies every year, so as to ease the burden on the families. In this way, the children can go to school and receive long-term education. The abolishment of college entrance examination privilege in first-tier cities will solve the unfair educational competition to a large extent. Then, not only the students in rural areas but also those in second and third-tier cities should be concerned. Second and third-tier cities mean the less flourishing cities where there is fewer social resource compared to the first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Schools in Beijing and Shanghai have the teachers with highest quality and most wholesome campus facilities. Since the basic education, the students in these cities have ahead in their peers. At the same time, the college entrance examination has different difficulty levels but the standard admission criteria for all students. However, the examination is important for every student and even decides their future destiny. The work of inequality in Chinese higher education from Zhe helps us to see, if the college entrance examination’s admission scores are lower in first-tier cities, it means that local students are more likely to have access to higher education, which undoubtedly increases the pressure on students from other regions (Zhe 55). From this example we can gather that students in second and third-tier cities should pay much more effort compared to those in first-tier cities when they face the same situation. Therefore, in order to realize the relatively equal right to receive education, the privilege of college entrance examination in Beijing and Shanghai should be canceled. For regions with particularly poor education, college entrance examination quota can be ensured according to the proportion of the national population, and other regions can unify the national college entrance examination that the students could make fair competition.
People in rural area and students in second and third-tier cities will benefit from the above policies and positively make response. Besides the social policies providing people with better physical condition, in order to make the above policies into effect, students in rural area should follow the traditional Confucian idea that learning is the most important thing. Chinese Confucian idea pays much attention to education and considers people should study hard. Even studying hard in current China decides whether the student can enter a good college. A good college may change their future destiny. In the social atmosphere, students should have the consciousness to study hard. The harder they study, the better future they will have. For students in second and third-tier cities, they should still work hard in the face of the unequal educational system. Only they work hard could they have better opportunities to ease the inequality.
The educational inequality should be concerned because it influences everyone’s social nature, and people will get complete development in a society with sound educational environment. Chinese Communism advocates wealth and equality for everyone. However, in light of our course discussion on hierarchy, the wealth and resources generally flow to the wealth that the wealth becomes wealthier while the poor become poorer, revealing the dominant ideology of individualism. Education is vital to people’s livelihood but has faced inequality at present. Rich people concern education is not about concerning the social development but their individualism. If poor people get more educational resources and national support, the employment and housing problem will be better solved. In this way, they are more likely to achieve self-value, which brings the country to realize communism.
After the discussion of the inequality in education, we can infer that the inequality in education is making significant impact on people who are poor mainly suffered by the influence. To look deeper at education, we can consider education should be a tool for people that helps them to make contributions to the entire society and our beautiful world. The ideology of individualism is being dominant in our society while only a few people are really concerning all of us as a whole. Overall, the appropriate subsidies in rural areas and the abolishment of college entrance examination privilege should be implemented to ensure equal education. At the same time, students in rural areas and second and third-tier cities should work hard to change the unequal condition. People should concern the unequal education as it influences their resource allocation and self-well-being. Current educational policy corresponds to the previous Chinese condition. However, with the development of economy and appearance of wider economic disparity, it is of vital importance for Chinese government to make adjustment on educational systems. Only in this way, could communism be truly realized.
Works Cited
Fu, Yinqin. “China's Unfair College Admissions System.” Atlantic, 19 June 2013. Accessed 25 November 2019.
Levin, Dan. “A Chinese Education, for a Price.” New York Times, 21 November 2012. Accessed 25 November 2019.
Teixeira, Lauren. “China’s Middle Class Anger at its Education System Is Growing.”Foreign Policy, 6 February 2017. Accessed 25 November 2019.
Wang, Dan. “Two Exemptions and One Subsidy: Voices from a Grass-Roots School.” Chinese Education and Society, vol. 41, no. 1, 2008, pp. 80-86.
Zhe, Ji. Inequity within Chinese Higher Education with the Focus on Henan Province.Duquesne University, 2016.