Education
Tsinghua University is a well regarded university
in Mainland China.
In 1986, China set the long-term goal of providing
compulsory nine-year basic education to every child. There are
about 628,840 primary schools, 78,642 secondary schools
and 1,020 higher education institutions in the
PROC.In February 2006, the government advanced its
basic education goal by pledging to provide completely free
nine-year education, including textbooks and fees, in the
poorer western provinces. 90.9% (male: 95.1%;
female: 86.5%) of the population over age 15 are
literate. China's youth (age 15 to 24) literacy
rate is 98.9% (99.2% for males and 98.5% for females) in
2000. In March 2007, China announced the decision
of making education a national "strategic priority", the
central budget of the national scholarships will be tripled in
two years and 223.5 billion Yuan (28.65 billion US dollars) of
extra funding will be allocated from the central government in
the next 5 years to improve the compulsory education in rural
areas.
The quality of Chinese colleges and universities varies
considerably across the country. The consistently top-ranked
universities in mainland China are:
- Beijing: Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin
University of China, Beijing Normal University
- Shanghai: Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University
- Tianjin: Nankai University
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an)
- Nanjing: Nanjing University, Southeast University
- University of Science and Technology of China
(Hefei)
- Zhejiang University (Hangzhou)
- Wuhan University (Wuhan)
- Sun Yat-sen University (aka Zhongshan University)
(Guangzhou)
- Sichuan University (Chengdu)
- Shandong University (Jinan)
- Lanzhou University (Lanzhou)
Many parents are highly committed to their children's
education, often investing large portions of the family's
income on education. Private lessons and recreational
activities, such as in foreign languages or music, are popular
among the middle-class families who can afford
them.
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