The Chinese educational system is both decentralized where management of the teaching staff and school buildings is concerned, and centralized in terms of educational content. The Ministry of Education determines the school syllabus for all provinces in China. Local authorities (the township for rural areas) are responsible for implementation of the syllabus, school construction, teachers’ pay. The school scholarship system was abolished in the 1990s (with a few rare exceptions). The cost of schooling has risen 50% in twenty years, but this has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in investment. The number of teaching staff has risen considerably. A government fund for school building and assistance to deserving students, the Hope Foundation (xiwang gongcheng) finances some projects and assists with schooling at the national level, but the allocation of funds collected from the Chinese population (individual and corporate donations) has frequently been criticized on grounds of unfairness, corruption, embezzlement of funds etc.
Nine years’ compulsory education The former « five year system » (wunianzhi) consisting of five years of primary school was abandoned in the middle of the 1980s and replaced by the “nine years’ compulsory education system” (jiunian yiwu jiaoyu), consisting of six years primary school and three years lower secondary. The walls of rural villages carry large character slogans such as, “Even if we are poor, the children must be able to go to school, even if life is harsh, the children must not suffer” and “It is illegal to keep children out of school”. These official slogans are all very well, but they obscure the harsh fact that the cost of sending children to school in China is exorbitant, in particular in the poorest regions of the country.
Officially primary school (xiaoxue) is free. However the cost of “books and other miscellaneous expenses” has to be borne by the students. These expenses represent a heavy burden for the rural population and often lead to students having to drop out of school. Every semester the students receive a text book in which they do their exercises. There are the main subjects such as (1) Chinese, the official language, also known as the common language (putonghua), reading and writing Chinese characters (hanzi) in simplified form; (2) math’s : arithmetic, geometry; (3) civic education (sixiang pinde) which includes ethics, courtesy, hygiene, behavior in society, respect for older people (teachers, parents, the elderly), solidarity with other students, appreciation of manual labor, team spirit, respect for national heroes (patriotism)…
Secondary subjects: singing, drawing, natural science, gym are taught in addition to the main subjects and are intended to provide an opportunity for rest and relaxation. Exams take place at the end of the school year to determine whether the students can move up to the next class. Grades are marked out of 100. Secondary schooling (zhongxue) is divided into three years of lower secondary (chuzhong) and three years upper secondary (gaozhong).In addition to the subjects taught in primary school students must study the following subjects : history, geography, chemistry, physics, English, politics. Entry into lower secondary is relatively easy, but to continue on to upper secondary students must take an exam (zhongkao) at the end their third year of lower secondary school. Their grades are very important, because they decide whether the student can get into a state school: teachers’ training college, medical school, general education, technical college, the Party school, military school. Those whose grades are not high enough cannot then get a contract with a state school and official status with guaranteed employment and a decent salary (between 600 and 1200 RMB). They can enroll in a private school, but their qualification will not enable them to get a contract with the state and is of less value for getting a job. The secondary school syllabus contains the same subjects as in western countries, but in addition students must study « politics » consisting of Marxist and socialist political theory. General schools lead on to higher education, teaching and research. Teacher training Teachers’ training college takes place in two stages: three years upper secondary and two years higher education (including psychology, educational science, and use of teaching material). It is only after five years (three years used to be considered sufficient to teach at primary school level) those students obtain a qualification enabling them to get a contract with the state and be appointed primary or secondary school teacher. Those who do not obtain this qualification can only work as “replacement teachers” (daike laoshi). This is both a precarious and poorly paid activity (130 - 180 RMB/month). They are nevertheless entitled to a plot of land on which to grow food.
However, in most large Chinese cities teacher training college is free, although the student must commit to working as a teacher for at least ten years. But in Guangxi province teacher training is exceptionally expensive: 3000 RMB/year or 15 000 RMB for five years (in addition to tuition per se, students coming from rural regions need to cover their daily subsistence costs, about 5 RMB/day. This system is clearly unfair in a region that is particularly poor and where the opportunities to study and pursue a career are even more limited than elsewhere.
Further training exists at the township level for non-contract teachers. These training courses, which are provided by teacher training colleges do not lead to a qualification of the same level, nevertheless provide an opportunity for advancement for those teachers who only have a school leaving certificate and were hired mainly because of the desperate need to find teachers for village schools. Despite these measures, these teachers face an uncertain future, because of plans to consolidate the number of schools, leading inevitably to the laying off of staff, “xiagang”, etc…
In the regions where the minorities live, officially, education is bilingual, at least during the first years of primary education. But in fact Mandarin is the only language taught at school for the simple reason that most of the languages of the minority ethnic groups do not have a written form and cannot be taught. It is the teachers who translate the Chinese texts of the school books into the language of the students. Hence the main subject taught in primary school is Chinese, and the languages of the minorities are relegated to the position of archaic languages which will inevitably disappear. In China, when referring to someone who speaks a non-Chinese language and who has not been to school, the term used is “meiyou wenhua” (uncivilized)