The educational level of its citizens says a lot about a
country's economic development. It is a good indicator not only of
the stage of economic development already reached but also of the
potential for future growth. A nation's precious human capital is
nurtured through education and promoted through the labor market.
This is the national resource that more than any other will
determine success in terms of GDP, investment environment and so on
as nations compete in the global market economy.
Wei Yu is an academician with the?Chinese Academy of
Engineering and deputy director of the Committee for Education,
Science, Culture, Health and Sports under the National Committee of
the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. She
addressed the issues of population and education in China, and the
relationship between investment in education and economic growth.
Here are the main points of her view:
There are five basic national policies. The concept of human
capital relates to three of these in the areas of: improving the
quality while controlling the quantity of the population, and so
transforming what could otherwise be a huge burden of numbers into
precious human capital; science and technology as the key to
revitalizing the nation; and talents as a key to building a strong
nation. That China's economy will be increasing at the current high
rate for the next 20 years depends, to a large extent, on the
implementation of these basic national policies.
Let's first take a quick look at the facts and figures
concerning China's population. Provided current patterns of family
planning are maintained, by the year 2043 population growth will
have been brought to a halt and China will be a nation of 1.6
billion citizens.
Two demographic problems stand out, these are gender ratio and
population aging. Statistics from the fifth national census
conducted in 2000 show that the ratio of males to females has
reached 117:100. Males outnumber females by 12.77 million in the
age group of 0 to 9 years.
The number of people joining the ranks of the senior citizens is
increasing at an unprecedented rate. People over the age of 65 will
account for 11.8 percent of the total population by 2020 and will
make up a quarter of the population by the middle of the
century.
To make matter worse, population aging is more marked in rural
rather than in urban areas. The general rule of thumb is that
developed countries start to acquire an aging population when their
per capita GDP reaches US$10,000. But now China, a developing
country whose per capital GDP is less than US$1,000, has already
joined this group of countries with aging societies to support.
This brings great challenges in providing medical care and social
security for the elderly.
Now, let's turn to education. The concept of human capital was
first raised in the 1950s by an economist named Theodore W.
Schultz. Human capital refers to working abilities acquired through
investment in education, training, and health. These working
abilities are an integral part of the individual. Education plays a
key role in accumulating human capital and in economic growth. The
concept of a knowledge-based society is replacing the earlier
concept of a knowledge-based economy.
First and foremost, developing countries need to develop basic
education as an essential prerequisite for building a stable
society, and for advancing civilization, developing democracy,
protecting the environment and so on.
The next challenge is to develop the vocational education and
training necessary to produce a skilled labor force capable of
building an industrial nation.
People who have benefited from higher education are needed in a
knowledge-based society. This is especially the case for those who
are resourceful, creative, and well-informed decision-makers. We
are not short of information and knowledge in today's world with
its information explosion and the break-neck pace of development in
information technology. No, what we are short of are the wisdom and
creativity that are so necessary to perceive new innovative uses of
that knowledge and information.
In this sense, wisdom and creativity are more important than
knowledge and information and the objective of higher education is
to turn out thinking people who have managed to develop their
wisdom and creativity.
Currently there are some 300 million students in China. The
enrollment and retention rates in the primary school system are
both around 90 percent while in the junior middle schools these
rates are around 80 percent.
The enrollment rate in institutions of higher learning is around
17 percent for students in the age group 18 to 22. This represents
almost 20 million students.
All these achievements help the investment environment, which in
turn, contributes to the rapid increase in the inflow of foreign
investment. Many articles have been written comparing the
investment environment in China with that in India and concluding
that the Chinese labor force is basically more productive.
The Chinese Ministry of Construction recently carried out a
survey on the educational level of migrant workers. It showed that
on average, those surveyed had eight years of formal education
showing the great progress that has been made in basic education in
China.
I should like to present three points of view relating to our
approach to education:
First: education represents investment rather than
consumption. It is a long-term investment made by the government,
society, the family, and the individual. It is natural for each of
these to play their part and to share the responsibility because
education is not a commercial activity but something which is
undertaken to promote the public good. To ignore this shared
responsibility would be to hinder our educational development.
Second: simply looking to indices in the developed
countries as indicators of educational development is not the
answer. For example, enrollment rates in institutions of higher
learning in the former Soviet Union and the eastern European
countries reached 40 percent some twenty years ago. But could we
say they did a good job in developing their economies?
Third: a fair system of education is one that can
provide people of different abilities with what they need and
enable everyone to realize their potential. This holds true for
basic education. Education that can offer only the same approach to
people with different abilities is the worst kind of education in
terms of fairness. This is an important issue for public
debate.
China should develop its education with an eye to the demands of
the labor market. Employment is under great pressure as 200 million
surplus rural workers put pressure on the jobs of their urban
counterparts. Therefore, great efforts should be made in developing
vocational education and training, and a system of "education for
life" should be developed.
At present, people are enthusiastic about developing higher
education and substantial resources are flowing into the
institutions of higher learning. It is time to put the brakes on
this and cool the overheating in investment in higher
education.
If we were to use 100 as a base to represent the capital
invested in educating a primary school student, then the figure
would be 200 for a middle school student and as high as 1,600 for a
college graduate. This ratio of 16 times more for a college
graduate than a primary school student is the highest in the
world.
Think about the people in the vast central and western regions
of China, who are deprived of their right to basic education and
vocational training due to poverty. Even if we were to
substantially increase overall investment in education, they would
still not be fully covered. Therefore, the priority should be on
basic education and vocational training. Meanwhile in higher
education, attention should be given to how investment in the
sector can be used more effectively rather than how levels of
investment can be further increased.
We may ask ourselves what is the biggest educational challenge
facing China? I would say it is increasing investment in education.
Despite ten years of effort we have yet to achieve the goal of
increasing the ratio of investment in education to 4 percent of
GDP. Private capital comes into the educational sector in a
supplementary role to state capital. In China, private investment
accounts for 44 percent of total investment in education. The
average in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) countries is 12
percent. China should increase government investment in
education.
Another challenge lies in the training of exceptionally talented
people. As I mentioned previously, enrollment in higher education
has reached 17 percent. The task now is to improve the quality of
higher education so that it can produce outstanding talents.
(China.org.cn translated by Ni Xiaoqiang, June 29, 2004)