By She Yu, Research Team on “China’s Livelihood Survey”, DRC

Research Report, No.313, 2020 (Total 6057) 2020-12-28

Abstract: The year of 2020 marks the fulfillment of the national education plan and the successful conclusion of the 13th Five-Year Plan. In light of the result of a telephone survey in 2020, people’s satisfaction over all-round progress of education witnessed a certain increase compared with that of last year, whereas there is still room for improvement. For instance, the result of household survey shows clearly that the expenditure spent on education by households is reduced whereas the tuition charges still remain high; the burden on primary and middle school students is reduced to some extent, but it needs further improvement; the supply of inclusive kindergartens has been increased but it still lags behind market demand; the upsurge for choosing the elite schools for children’s enrollment has become somewhat eased, but it might loom up again; the coverage of on-line teaching is substantial while there still remains huge difference between rural and urban areas. In general, problems relating to different stages of education had changed during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. With regard to the above-mentioned issues, this paper suggests that work during the 14th Five-Year Plan period be done by focusing on the goal of cultivating a high-quality education system proposed at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee. By promoting education equality, increasing burden reduction, addressing the short links of education development and continuously increasing people’s satisfaction towards education, a new education pattern in line with the high-quality development needs to be established with vigorous efforts in a bid to provide sound support for the high-quality development of social and economic growth.

Keywords: livelihood, education, survey, 14th Five-Year Plan