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Reviewed by:
  • Education in China Since 1976
  • Harold Swindall (bio)
Xiufang Wang . Education in China Since 1976. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2003. x, 309 pp. Paperback $39.95, ISBN 0-7864-1394-8.

Although the title of this volume suggests that it is a history of educational developments after the death of Mao, it is actually more about events since the 1990s as the Chinese government tries to align the country's educational system with economic growth. It also aims to explicate the complex educational bureaucracy for foreigners interested in launching educational joint ventures and exchange programs with Chinese partners. This is hardly surprising, since Xiufang Wang is president of a company in Vancouver that assists Western institutions with precisely those activities. To this end, the book contains numerous organizational charts of Chinese governmental organs concerned with education. It is also rich in statistical tables on all aspects of Chinese schools and their enrollments in the last decade. Although like most books written in English by Chinese it could have received better proofing, the raw data it contains make it worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the present and possible future of education in China and its relation to social and economic development.

As Wang notes at the beginning, "leaders in China invariably look to education as a force in economic change" (p. 12). The major economic change in China since 1976 has of course been the switch from a planned to a market economy, and this implies that education may become part of a decentralized market economy, too. Although the government has made cautious strides in this direction, progress has been slow and irregular, and much remains to be done. The market economy has, however, already had a great impact on education in China, for one thing by creating greater financial resources to spend on it and pushing it toward modernization. It has also created more opportunities in vocational and technical education. Wang confidently predicts that as "[m]arket forces . . . come into play in the field of education itself " (p. 13), they will favor innovation and increased choice, redefine what is fair in terms of educational consumers, and make students more oriented toward creativity than scores. If all this seems a little too sanguine a forecast for China, there is more to follow.

Wang is nevertheless quite honest in her assessment of China's dire educational shortcomings. She notes that in the late 1990s, the average Chinese child could expect just 10 years of education, compared with over 12 in most developed countries. Only 18 percent of Chinese 25-34-year-olds have finished secondary school. China's expenditure on education is a lamentable 2.5 percent of GNP, whereas that of developed countries is around 6 percent, and other third world countries around 3.5 percent. In addition to the insufficiency of educational funds, [End Page 274] Wang also mentions China's well-known poor school conditions and treatment of teachers. The Chinese government has resolved on a series of reforms to remedy this situation. First, it plans to increase educational expenditure to 4 percent by 2010 and further encourage its already thriving private schooling. The transfer of management school to the local level is being considered. By 2010, only "backbone institutions" and those with "a strong sectorial bias" (p. 16) will be run by the central government, and there will be a new system of educational legislation by then, too. Reforms of rural education are also planned, but how China can fix its parlous rural schools is not specified.

Some of the reform resolutions Wang cites (and appears to believe in) are doubtful given China's educational tradition. She describes astonishing plans to reduce students' workloads and exam pressure so that they can "develop themselves in an all-round way," a phrase she repeats several times throughout the book. "One tiger will be taken by the tail," she declares, "that predator which chases students towards high examination marks and drives up their workload" (p. 18). Wang documents the itineraries of Chinese primary and secondary school students: up at 5 a.m., they are at school by 6:20 where they study until classes...

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