China: Domestic and International

NUMBER 53, FALL 2008

China's Tertiary Education Expansion

Ma Xiaoying and Malcolm Abbott
Ma Xiaoying is lecturer in the English Department, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China. E-mail: amxiaoying@126.com. Malcolm Abbott is research associate at the Centre for Research in International Education, 28A Linwood Avenue, Western Springs, Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail: mjabbott@kpmg.com.au.

In recent years, China's tertiary education sector has experienced considerable growth. In 2006 23.4 million students were enrolled in tertiary education in China (public and private, full time and part time), making it the world's largest system. Despite this rapid growth, China's tertiary education sector is no larger than in a range of other countries with a similar level of development. It is therefore possible that China's tertiary education sector will continue to expand for some years to come.

Income Levels and Population Size
In 2007 it was estimated that China had an average per capita GDP of $5,300—making it a country with an average level of income higher than India ($2,700) and Indonesia ($3,700) but lower than South Africa ($9,700), Thailand ($7,900), and Brazil ($9,700). China's population has a median age (at 32.7) higher than that of many developing countries, although lower than most developed countries. In addition, although the proportion of China's GDP that is generated by the agricultural sector is similar in proportion to that of other developing countries (just over 10%), the proportion from the industrial sector is high and services sector correspondingly low.

Expansion in the economy and incomes relates to increasing numbers of people who wish to study. The development of the economy also creates a greater demand for graduates. The shift of the population into the industrial sector involves a call for engineering and related skills. The growth of the services sector will probably further extend this demand for graduates and stimulate a change in the composition of tertiary education toward business, information technology, and related qualifications.

The rise in incomes in China and demand for experts means that the number of graduates is expanding at a more rapid rate than in most developing countries. This has raised some concerns about the quality and employability of graduates. A shortage of well-trained graduates could hinder the growth of the Chinese economy and prevent the country from developing more sophisticated industries. While China produces about 600,000 new engineers every year, nine times as many as the United States, the pool of 1.6 million young engineers in the country includes only about 160,000 with practical and language skills to work for a multinational corporation. Despite strong growth in the number of graduates, it will be hard for China to develop service-based industries. Compared to many countries, therefore, the Chinese tertiary education sector faces some difficulties associated with too rapid expansion.

Participation Rates
The participation rate (enrollment ratio) of young people studying at the tertiary level rose from 6.4 percent in 1999 to 21.6 percent in 2006. In effect Chinese tertiary education was transformed in a very short time from an elite to a mass education sector. At the same time the enrollment ratio in secondary education grew at a slower but still steady rate, rising from approximately 62 percept in 1999 to 76 percent in 2006. This rate is still lower than the secondary education participation rate in developed countries such as the United States (95%), Japan (100%), and Hong Kong (85%) but fairly typical of developing countries and at a similar level to that of Malaysia (70%), Columbia (82%), and Thailand (78%).

The inference is that this rate will probably continue to rise if China's growth and development continues and if the country makes the full transformation from developing to developed country. On the whole it can probably be expected that the secondary education enrollment rate will continue to rise at a fairly steady rate to reach approximately 90 percent before leveling off.

Enrollment Levels
Tertiary education enrollments vary widely across countries, but in the Chinese case still appear fairly low compared to most other countries. The Chinese figure of 21.6 percent is not only below that of developed countries (i.e., Japan 57.3%, the United States 81.8%, and Hong Kong 33%) but is also below that of many developing countries (i.e., Malaysia 39%, Columbia 30.8%, and Thailand 45.9%). It would thus appear likely that China's tertiary education sector will continue to grow in size in the future, perhaps not as rapidly as in the past but nonetheless at a fairly steady rate. Perhaps the only factor that will constrain this growth is the aging of the Chinese population.

At some stage in the future the tertiary education sector's growth will slow down. Until that happens, however, it would appear that a combination of strong growth of the Chinese population and rising participation rates in education will continue to drive expansion of the system.

Numbers of Students Studying Abroad
Based on data from 2006 the largest number of students studying outside of their country of origin (not including intra-European Union students) are from China. Students study abroad for reasons such as desire to emigrate, attraction to more prestigious institutions, and lack of educational opportunities in their own country. It is difficult to infer much from the figures except to say that although Chinese students study abroad in large numbers they do not do so at any particularly high rate compared to that of other countries. The ratio of Chinese higher education students abroad compared to Chinese students in higher education in their home country was 0.38 percent of students in the 15-to-25-year age group. This figure is not particularly high compared to most other countries (i.e., Japan 0.82%, Hong Kong 7.59%, Malaysia 1.84%, Thailand 0.45%, and Indonesia 0.16%). It would be expected, therefore, that in the future Chinese students will remain the largest group of national students studying abroad unless there is some dramatic change to the rates of countries like India and Indonesia.

Conclusion
The rapid growth of the tertiary education sector in China over the past few years can be expected to continue for some years to come. This trend will not fully prevent problems of the quality of graduates, the approporiateness of their qualifications, and the related issue of employability. The second main point is that while growth in Chinese student numbers studying abroad may not remain as great, most likely in the future they will constitute the largest national group studying abroad.

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