1

DRAFT FOR DISCUSSION – DO NOT CITE

Equity and Access to Tertiary Education: Case Study—

China

Wanhua Ma

June, 2010

2

Acknowledgements

Since there are no nationally available statistics, the author culled data from a variety of

sources, including case studies, understanding that there are limitations to conclusions made

using such data. My PhD students have offered their helps in collecting the data and

translating the tables and diagrams into English, and I would like to express my sincere thanks

to them.

3

Table of contents:

Abstract……………………………………………………………………...….3

Part I: The scale of Chinese tertiary education …………………………...…5

System of Chinese tertiary education

Regional tertiary education development

The developmental disparity

Part II: Opportunity to tertiary education……………………………….…13

Social stratification and tertiary education

Social stratification and education stratification

The urban/rural residence and discipline stratification

Part III: Gender and tertiary education ………………………………..….. 29

Behind simple gender parity

Gendered disciplinary stratification

Institutional stratification and gender

Residence, Gender and Education stratification

Part IV: Ethnic minorities and tertiary education…………………………44

Current research on ethnic minority enrollment

Ethnic minority tertiary education policy

Part V: Major barriers to tertiary education………………………………50

The non-monetary barriers

The tracking system and senior secondary education

“Institutionalized mechanism” in equal access

Tertiary education policy related problem

Rural girls and the compulsory education law

The monetary barriers to tertiary education

Student loans and assistance programs

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….64

New policies for equity in tertiary education

Suggestions for further research

4

Part I: The scale of Chinese tertiary education

System of Chinese tertiary education

At the time when China adopted its open door policy in 1978, there were only

around 400 higher learning institutions in the country, with a gross enrollment

rate of only 1.56％.1 After only 30 years of development, Chinese tertiary

education has become quite different. The “paradigm shift” away from an

exclusive system to elite and toward mass access is significant not just for China

but for the entire global tertiary education sector.

Today, the Chinese tertiary education environment consists of regular (public)

higher education, adult higher education, Minban (private-like) higher education,

independent (private-like) colleges and universities, and self-study programs

provided by distance education universities.

The „regular higher education system‟ refers to the 1079 four year

institutions and 1184 three year vocational or technical institutions under the

oversight of the Ministry of Education (MOE) or local and provincial

governments. The storied “211 project” and “985 program” universities fall

within the 1079 regular four-year institutions. The students in these specific

institutions have the opportunities to get bachelor degrees and subsequently have

access to master‟s and Ph.D. degree programs. For post-graduate education, the

academies of science and of social science are also included in this sector since

both have graduate schools.

Students studying at the three-year technical institutions do not earn a

bachelor degree, but, instead, are awarded certificates upon completion. If they

want to study further to earn a bachelor degree and, potentially, to have

opportunities to access post-graduate education, they need to then attend a self-

study program to make up the missing credits and apply for a bachelor degree.

Adult higher learning institutions include workers colleges, peasant colleges,

and institutes for administration and management. Adult higher education

originally existed for the training of national cadres, but has become its own

segment of public four -ear colleges, enrolling regular students. Currently there

are 400 institutions in this classification. All told, there are collectively 2663

public institutions, hosting a student population of 20.21 million.

1 http://www.cass.net.cn/file/2006080879202.html）

5

In addition, there is now a large Minban (private) system in the country.

Currently, 218 Minban higher learning institutions have been officially

recognized by the MOE. In addition, there are also 322 „independent‟ colleges,

which are commercial off-shoots of regular (public) institutions. In many

instances, at the turn of the 21st century, universities facing financial challenges

started branch campuses, using the same teaching resources. At these branch

campuses, after four years, when students did graduate but were not awarded a

degree, because the number of degrees a university can offer is under the control

of MOE and were already allocated to students at the main campus. Later on this

kind of branch campuses were ordered to separate from the mother institutions,

creating a kind of “Minban” college. Though they are established with public

funds, they are now private in nature. The independent colleges can also provide

4 year education. As of 2008, 4.04 million students study in independent colleges.

Together with the 218 acknowledged Minban universities, there are also

866 non-acknowledged Minban institutions with 0.92 million registered students.

If students study through the national self-study program are included as part of

the tertiary education, in 2008, China was a home of 3529 institutions in tertiary

education, catering a student population of 29,000,0002.

With a student body of 29 million, Chinese tertiary education becomes the

largest system in the world But until the mid/late 1990s, tertiary education in

China was restricted only to a few. In 1991, the gross enrollment rate was only

3.4%, in 1994, it was only 6%, and in 1996, it was 8.3%. Due to the great

demand for access to tertiary education, in 1999, an administrative order was

released to increase national enrollment by 30%. And in that year, the gross

enrollment was only 10%3

With the official enrollment increase policy, the national gross enrolment of

tertiary education grew to 15% in 2002. Within six years, it reached to 23.3%

(2008). The following chart shows the pattern of Chinese tertiary education

enrollment change over the last 30 years, and, more specifically, in the past 10

years.

2 http://www.edu.cn/jiao_yu_fa_zhan_498/20090720/t20090720_392038.shtml

3 http://www.edu.cn/gai_kuang_495/20100121/t20100121_441887.shtml

6

Sources: from unpublished lecture by Wenli Li, 2006.

By this enrollment increase, the number of people with tertiary education

experiences in pre 100 thousand people has grown from 931 in 1999 to 2042 in

2008. The follow table shows the number of people with different levels of

education in per 100 thousand people in the recent 10 years. This change reflects

the speed for human resource development in China.

Average student number in pre 100 thousand people at different levels of education4

Year Higher

education

Senior

(secondary

education

Junior

Secondary

education

Elementary

education

Preschool

1999 931 2021 5161 9937 1595

2002 1146 2283 5209 9100 1560

2004 1420 2824 5058 8725 1617

2006 1816 3321 4557 8192 1731

2008 2042 3440 4227 7819 1873

The table also shows the developmental tendency, the number of students in

elementary education and the number of junior secondary education come down.

This might have something to do with the national birth control policy. Now in

the country, birth rate is under 1.6. Meanwhile the number of students in senior

secondary education goes up, and so does with tertiary education. This should

contribute to the tertiary education enrollment policy, when more children see the

4 Department of education 2009 <a concise statistical analysis of 2008 national education development > page 7,

and Ma, Wanhua, a PPT report on introduction of Chinese higher education in 2000.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

19

78

19

85

19

87

19

89

19

91

19

93

19

95

19

97

19

99

20

01

20

03

number of enrolment in regular public higher education

7

opportunity to access tertiary education, they are more likely to finish junior

secondary education, to continue for senior secondary school and get a high

school diploma. No doubt, today, in China, there are more choices and

opportunities for the age cohort to access tertiary education.

Following the dramatic enrollment increase, problems in tertiary education

become obvious. It has been noticed that China has made a great achievement in

economic reform, but there is clearly a disparity in regional economic

development, the economic developmental disparity reflecting in tertiary

education is the disparity in gross enrollment.

Regional enrollment disparities

In mainland China, there are 4 municipalities, 22 provinces and 5

autonomous regions. Higher education development differs greatly between each

other. As a result, the increase enrollment policy (1999) affected each of the

regions or provinces in different ways. As mentioned above, the national average

gross enrollment rate in tertiary education is 23.3%. The provinces,

municipalities, and autonomous regions show greater differentiation regarding

gross enrollments, investments in tertiary education and institutional diversity.

Areas historically known as tertiary education centers have higher tertiary

investments and experience higher gross enrollment levels, while the poor

provinces with lower investment to education have low gross enrollment rates. In

some provinces, the gross enrollment rates are well below the national average of

23.3%. The following tables show the difference of enrollment growth between

provinces from 1999-2007. The differences of enrollment growth by provinces from 1999-2007

5

5 Wang, Youhang (2009) unpublished report on the dynamics of higher education expansion and government

policy choices

8

The table shows that each province has increased its gross enrollment, but

the proportion of the increase is so different. Many reasons contribute to the

developmental disparity. When taking equity and access into consideration, those

provinces with high enrollments provide more opportunities, while low

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

1600000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Beijing

Tianjin

Hebei

Liaoning

Shanghai

Jiangsu

Zhejiang

Fujian

Shandong

Guangdong

Guangxi

Hainan

Shanxi

InnerMongoliaJilin

0

200000

400000

600000

800000

1000000

1200000

1400000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

HeilongjiangAnhui

Jiangxi

Henan

Hubei

Hunan

Chongqing

Sichuan

Guizhou

Yunnan

Tibet

Shaanxi

Gansu

Qinghai

Ningxia

Xinjiang

9

enrollments mean fewer opportunities. The table provides a holistic picture of the

data that lies behind the averaged national gross enrollment rate.

Thus, in taking provincial enrollment rates into consideration, the disparities

become more obvious. Statistics show that when the national gross enrollment

rate rose to 15 % at the end of 2002, the gross enrollment in Beijing had already

reached to 49%6 and in 2003, Shanghai had achieved a rate of 53%. Contrary to

this explosion of enrollments, in 2005, the gross enrollment rate in Gansu was

only 15% and reached only 20% by 2008. Henan province, in central China,

with an enormous population of almost 100 million people, has achieved a gross

enrollment rate of only 19.7% in 2009; and Yunnan province, which is located in

the south west of the country, achieved a gross enrollment of only 16.17% by

20077. In other remote provinces, the gross enrollment was even lower, such as

in Guzhou, with a GER of 11.5％in 2007.8 All of these indicate that there remain

great regional/provincial disparities in tertiary education development in China.

The following table further illustrates the provincial enrollment disparities.

Comparison of gross enrollment rates by 27 provinces in 2006.9

The table shows the varied enrollment rates in 27 provinces in 2006. The

four major municipalities—Beijing, Shanghai, Tienjin and Chongqing—are not

6 http://www.annian.net/show.aspx?id=11876&cid=25

7 http://gaokao.chsi.com.cn/gkxx/ss/200901/20090120/16757947.html

8 http://www.gzu521.com/campus/article/examination/200804/167805.htm

9 Association of Chinese higher education, Academic Activity Report，2009:6:6.

10

included in the table, but their gross enrollments are over 50% in each except

Chongqing, which is at the national average level.

Difference in investment is considered to be one of the major factors behind

difference in enrollment increases. From 2002 to 2007, the Guizhou province‟s

investment in higher education was only 0.521 billion Yuan, which was 4.91% of

its total investment in education10

. In Shanghai, on the other hand, the municipal

government invested 114.015 billion Yuan in higher education (1995-2006,), and,

in 2006 alone, the total investment in higher education was over 18,932 billion

Yuan,11

300% more than that of Guizhou in 6 years. The insufficiency of such

investment levels has become the barrier to effective and sustainable

development of the higher education in those provinces and autonomous regions.

Another major factor is the uneven distribution of tertiary institutions. In

Beijing, there are 87 tertiary institutions, and more than half of them are well-

known research universities; while Inner Mongolia has only 33 tertiary

institutions, many of which are newly established vocational or technological

training institutions. Anhui province experienced a similar situation, it has 95

higher learning institutions, 30 of which are allowed to offer undergraduate

degrees, 14 master degrees, and only 7 institutions have PhD. Programs. The rest

are newly established vocational or technical institutions. As a horizontal equity

consideration, the lack of access to high quality research universities is an issue

across many of the provinces.

Shen (2005) examined the scale of the tertiary education in each province

and autonomous regions and determined that Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjun offer

the most education opportunities, whereas Hainan, Suchuan, Gansu, Inner

Mongolia, Ningxia, Anhui, and Qinghai offer the least. The following table

shows the details of his division of Chinese tertiary education.

Scale distribution of Chinese higher education in 200112

Scale Provinces

Extremely big scale Beijing, Shanghai, Tienjin

Comparative big scale Jiangsu, Hubei, Liaoning, Sanxi, Zhejiang, Helongjiang, Jilin

Moderate scale Guangdong, Shangdong, Hebei, Hunan, Xingjiang,

Chongqing, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Fujian

10

Ibíd. 11

http://press.ecust.edu.cn/index.php?controller=Books&action=Detail&bid=789 12

http://www.lnsgdb.com.cn/news/view.asp?id=17964

11

Smaller scale Henan, Suchuan, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia,

Anhui, Qinghai, Hainan, Guizhou, Guanxi, Yunnan and Tibet.

Source: To be filled

In his research, Yuan (2006) used education development indicator (EDI) to

examine disparities in tertiary education development across the provinces and

reached a similar conclusion, but Yuan used the geographical concept, “region,”

to show the disparity. The following table shows his categories according the size

of the EDI.

Size of higher education according to the EDI in 2006

13

EDI

Category

Highly Developed

(100>EDI>85

Comparative high

developed

(85>EDI>70)

Moderate developed Development

Stagnated

Jinjunhu Beijing, Shanghai Tianjin

East region Zhejiang, Lioaning,

Jiangsu, Guandong

Shandong, fujian, Hebei,

Hunan

Middle region Jilin Heilongjiang, Hubei,

Shanxi, Hunan, Jiangxi,

Henan, Anhui

West region

Chongqing, Shannxi,

Suchuan, Xinjiang, Inner

Mongolia, and Ningxia

Guanxi, Gansu,

Qinghai,Yunnan,

Guizhou, Tibet.

Regional differences in tertiary education development seem to correlate with the

country‟s economic development patterns. The two tables above help to illustrate

education development disparities. In later sections of this paper, the analysis of

the development of ethnic minority education exposes the relationship of

education quality with the economic situation in those provinces such as Guanxi,

Gansu, and Xinjiang. Because of such developmental disparities, the Chinese

government decided a few years ago to invest more money in basic education as

well as tertiary education development, and this will be discussed in detail later in

this report.

13

Min, Weifang & Wang, Rong (ed.) China Education and Human Resource Development Report, 2005-2006,

p170

12

Part II Opportunities to access tertiary education

Social stratification in tertiary education

Research on income gaps and the unequal distribution of wealth finds that the

annual per capita disposable income of urban residents in China in 2009 was

17,175 Yuan, while the net per capita income of rural residents was 5,153 Yuan,

(National Bureaus of Statistics, 2009). In cities in the west regions , it was 8,783

YUAN, and in the western countryside, it was only 2,379 Yuan in 2005.14

Research has shown that the income gap and regional development disparity has

resulted in new social stratifications that produce inequity in access to tertiary

education.

There is no single way to describe the new forms of Chinese social

stratification. Some use political and economic approaches, some use the

procession of wealth, power, knowledge and skills, and others even use parents‟

profession and education backgrounds. For analyzing education equity, social

stratification provides a basic tool to understand who can mobilize what kinds of

resources to access tertiary education and what happens to those who do not have

such resources to mobilize.

Traditionally, there used to be four mechanisms of social stratification in

China: political stratification, stratification by residence, social status

stratification, and social stratification by class. In 1950, the Chinese government

defined 13 classes of the rural population, including landlord, capitalist, open-

minded gentleman, rich farmers, mid-rich farmers, intellectuals, freelances,

religious professions, handcrafts, business man, peasants, workers and farmers15

.

Though nobody directly uses this stratification for education analysis, its impact

remains in any understanding of social stratification in China.

In the late 1950s, considering the shortage of material supplies in the cities,

the Chinese government published several administrative orders requiring

residential registration. Such as in 1955, the State Council issued two documents:

“A guide for establishing registered residence” and “ The ways to distribute food

in cities and towns.” The two documents later became law for registered

residence in the cities. It was required that peasants should be registered as rural

residents, and people in the cities and towns should be registered as urban

14Yuan, Linva (2005), “ The Coefficient Analysis on Income Gap and Inequality in China” in the Journal of Yunnan

University of Finance and Economics 2008，24(1)30-37. 15

Guo, Zhenshu (2008), analytical methodology in stratifying social classes in China

http://www.cntheory.com/news/Lljs/2008/619/086191424166C81KBB48F3GFI82F300.html

13

residents. Since then this residence registration has become fixed, that people

with rural residence in the countryside could not be easily transferred to cities

unless they were selected as cadres to a certain level or were educated in tertiary

education. The policy has continued until now. Currently, mobile workers with

rural residency but who live in cities for an extended period of time are still

considered as farmers with rural residence.

Due to the lack of alternatives for social mobility for rural children in the

countryside, tertiary education has been a very important vehicle for young

people with rural residency to get urban residency. Now this kind of social

structure is called “rural /urban dualist structure.” The residence issue in tertiary

education means that urban residents have more educational resources while the

rural residents have less education resources.

Since 1979, there have been many changes in social stratification, as

economic restructuring has impacted the entire country. Even among workers,

there are different subcategories: state enterprise workers, urban non state

enterprise workers and mobile farmer workers and etc. The following chart is

Li‟s (2009)16

model on Chinese social stratification.

16

Li, Yi (2009) , The structure and evolution f Chinese social stratification http://www.sachina.edu.cn/Htmldata/longbook/liyi_structure_china/466.html

14

In Li‟s social stratification, there are six categories: the light blue bar

represents farmers; the purple bar represents workers in the state-owned

enterprises; the yellow bar represents; Chinese bourgeoisies; the grey bar

represents collective enterprise workers; the dark red bar represents state

enterprise workers; and the blue bar indicates state cadres and CEOs of national

enterprises (civil servants). The table shows that after 30 year of economic

reform, the structure of the labor force in China has not changed much—the

majority of the population is still farmers and workers. Notably here, however,

there appeared a new category, the bourgeoisies, people who become rich

quickly and who seem to get more education resources.

In the 1984, the commune, which used to organize peasants to work

collectively, was dissolved by the government, which then leased the national

land to farmers. With the leased land, traditional peasants become farmers, and

those who did not get much land to farm were thus released from the restriction

15

of the commune to become mobile. Until 1993, 0.14 billion farmers became

mobile in cities. By 2008, the number increased to 0.23billion. 17

In his research, Lu (2002)18

considered that the social stratification for China

now is very complicated, because, it is hard to define “class” by income. For

example, public officials are not well paid in China if one looks at the basic

salaries, but the non-monetary benefits might be much more significant than their

basic salaries, and they can mobilize organizational and cultural resources to

access tertiary education. Lu used 9 categories to describe Chinese social

stratification by the political or social position/status one holds. They are national

leaders, executives of state enterprises, owners of private enterprises,

professionals, office administrators, private business owners, workers, farmers,

city unemployed. Each category of this stratification can mobilize quite different

educational resources to access tertiary education. While wealthy business

owners or members of the bourgeoisie can use money to enroll their children in

first class senior secondary schools, office administrators can use established

social networks, or can even mobilize policy resources, while poor farmers often

have difficulty in having their children finish low-quality compulsory education.

Cultural stratification is another indicator that can be used for analysis of

equity in tertiary education and can be measured by parent education levels. In

China, 25.1% of the total population is illiterate, 36.44% has elementary

education, 27.44% has secondary education, 9.38% has senior secondary

education, and only 1.7% has tertiary education.19

Research shows that parent

education levels are correlated with their children tertiary education in many

aspects. (Source: to be filled)

Social stratification and education stratification

In the first 30 years of PRC, society was constructed by social political

stratification, with peasants and workers grouped together to represent the

leading class of the society. Public service staff and people in military service

were considered leaders of the leading social group, whereas intellectuals and

people who were educated were made to be re-educated by the leading class of

the society. These social political categories were used in research until the

1990s. In his research, Yang (2006) 20

used three categories: peasant/worker,

17

http://cn.chinagate.cn/hotissues/2009-03/25/content_17499940_2.htm 18Lu,xueyi （2002） (ed.), Report on the study of Chinese social stratification, Beijing, Social Sciences and Document Press. 19 Zeng, Huanping (2009), “The effect of current social stratification on education equity”,

http://www.12edu.cn/lunwen/whlw/200902/242453.shtml 20

Yang,dongping (2006) Access to Higher Education：Widening Social Class Disparities in < Tsinghua Journal of Education >

2006:1:20.

16

Cadre/serviceman, and intellectuals to explain the proportion of new entrants at

Peking University according to each group between 1977-1991.

Access pattern between 1977-1991 at Peking University( %)

Years Peasant/worker Cadre/serviceman Intellectuals

1977 27.5 38.7

1979 34.4 39.2 11.6

1981 33 36.4 12

1983 40.5 34.1 11

1985 41.9 32.3 12.4

1987 42.7 37.3 14.4

1990 40.4 45.7 13.3

1991 37.1 48.7 13.6

The table reflects the changing patterns of access to tertiary education in the

last quarter of the 20th Century. Students with peasant/worker family background

increased in the late 1980s, then decreased progressively from 1985 to 1991. The

proportion of students of intellectual backgrounds does not show much change,

but the proportion from Cadre/serviceman families went up radically from 37.3%

to 48.7% in just a five year period, from 1987-1991.

This change corresponds to the beginning of the twin track system. In 1985, a

policy allowing universities to enroll fee paying students with a lower national

examination scores was implemented. Those students who got into the

universities with this policy were called “outside of the system” students, and in

that first year the proportion of cadre/serviceman was only 32.3%. After that year,

however, the proportion of peasants/workers went down and cadre/serviceman‟s

proportion picked up aggressively. Ultimately, the twin track system ended in

1997, when all of the universities started to collect tuition and fees.

In the late 1990s, new kinds of social stratification were used to describe

patterns of access to tertiary education. Some researcher‟s uses location and some

use parent profession (there is reclassification of the professions). During this

period, more attention was given to the rural poor. Yang (2006) noticed that in

the three top universities of the country, the proportion of rural students

fluctuated and, largely, decreased during this period. The following table show

rural students proportion in Tsinghua University, Peking University and Beijing

Normal University between 1990-2002.

17

Rural students proportion of new entrants in three universities between 1990-2002.21

Years Tsinghua university Peking University Beijing Normal

University

New

entrants

Rural

students %

New

entrants

Rural

students %

New

entrants

Rural

students %

1990 1994 21.7 1260 28

1992 2080 18.3 1810 22.3 1358 40

1994 2403 15.9 20.1 1330 35

1996 2298 18.8 2164 19.6 1470

1998 2462 20.7 2240 19.0 1472 30.9

2000 2929 17.6 2425 16.3 1686 28.3

2002 2105 22.3

It is interesting to notice from the table that in the three universities, all have

an increase in enrollments between 1990-2002, but the proportion of rural

students went down continuously. Though Beijing Normal University is heavily

subsidized by the national government, the student population does not reflect a

full complement of the national population, particularly with regard to students

from the countryside. Instead, the beneficiaries of the enrollment increase in 1999

have, not surprisingly, been the urban and well-connected students who already

dominated the enrollments in university.

This research reflects how the nation‟s best education resources are distributed.

In their earlier research, John Hawkins et al. 22

used the same sets of data and

made a comparison on family income and access to tertiary education. They

selected two universities as examples to explain the situation—o ne national

university and a provincial university. They concluded that more low-income

students were enrolled in the provincial university.

A comparison on two universities of student‟s family income level. (5%)

Income 20%

lowest

20%

Middle low

20%

Middle

20%

Middle high

20%

Highest

A national

university

10 10.7 20.6 30.9 27.8

A provincial

university

21.8 26.5 23.8 16.7 5.2

Hawkins et al (2008).

21

Yang,Dongping (2006) Access to Higher Education：Widening Social Class Disparities in Tshinghua Journal of Education,

2006:1:21. 22

Hawkins, Jacob and Li (2008):“Higher Education in China: Access, Equity and Equality in Higher Education in

China” in Donald B. Holsinger & W. James Jacob (eds.) In Inequality in Education. Springer, p. 215-239.

18

As the table shows, more than 58% of students in the national university

come from high income families, while the student population of the provincial

university was 72.1% students from low to middle income families. This

indicates that there are barriers to entry for the lowest income students to the

most prestigious and highest quality tertiary education.

In research on how national tertiary education resources are allocated, Min

et al (2009) conducted a national survey, which covered 18 universities and

colleges from Beijing, Guangdong, Hunan, Shandong, Tianjun, Zhejiang and

Chongqing. Based on the survey data, with 15,536 questionnaires returned,

researchers find the net payment for students from provincial universities is

actually higher. The following table shows the details of the finding.

Net payment and public resource allocation in three kinds of universities, unite Yuan..

23

Different

Universities

Average

tuition

Living

cost

scholarship loan Work

study

Net

payment

Net cost

in average

family

income%

Net cost

in gross

family

income%

“985”

“211”

Regular

universities

Average

4,886

5,067

6,107

5,340

864

887

963

905

1,550

1.096

946

1,145

673

546

427

537

397

421

253

370

2,872

3,721

6200

4138

33.0

51.9

101.7

56.5

10.1

15.3

29.9

16.9

In China, the “211 project” and “985 program” universities not only enjoy

elite educational status but are also heavily regulated by the MOE, have low

tuition and living costs, provide more money for scholarships and loans, and pay

students through work study programs. In provincial and local universities, on

the other hand, tuition is high, living costs are high, and there is less money for

scholarships. Even the availability of loans is low, and students paid less in work-

study programs.

Because of these dramatic differences, students with poor family

backgrounds who are able to access “211 project” and “985 program” institutions

are more likely to get financial support than in universities that are not part of

those initiatives. So, theoretically, students from low income families would have

strong incentives to attend top universities in order to reduce cost. In practice,

however, their opportunities to access 211 and 985 universities are very limited

by practices and circumstances mentioned earlier. As with tertiary education

23

Min, Weifang (2009) Educational Input, Resource Allocation and Returns to Human Capital: Studies on the

Issues of Chinese Education and Human Resources<Jiaoyutouru, Ziyuanpeizhiyurenlizibenshouyi-

zhongguojiaoyuyurenliziyuanwentiyanjiu> Beijing: Economic Science Press.p.253.

19

across the globe, the better the family background, the more education resources

students can access.

Similar things happened to other well-known universities in the country. In

her research on Wuhan University of Science and Technology (WUST),

Xiao(2007) utilized „father‟s profession‟ as an education stratification indicator.

She found, that, from 2001 to 2005, the proportion of enrolled students with

parents as peasants was relatively low, and the proportion of students with a

family background as workers actually decreased from 31.3% in 2001 to 22.1%

in 2005. While proportion of students with a family background as public

officials and executives in different types of enterprises go up quickly.

WUST is one of the 7 public provincial key universities in Hubei, an

agriculture and heavy industry province. Given the local economy of Hubei, one

would expect to see more students with family background as workers and

farmers, but the following table showing Xiao‟s research shows that this is not

the case. She found, instead, that the proportion of students with family

background as officials and executives increased faster while the proportion of

students with less illustrious family backgrounds decreased about 10%.

2001-2005, new entrant family background in Wuhan University of Science and Technology 24

2001 2003 2005

workers 31.3% 25.3% 22．1％

farmers 13．2％ 16．2％ 15．3％

Professionals 16．6％ 17．5％ 17．6％

Doctors, professors and scientist, 11．％ 13．3％ 14．2％

Public officials 9.8% 10．7％ 12．6％

Executives in enterprises 7．7％ 8．8％ 11．2％

Self employments 3．3％ 1.8% 1.9%

others 3．5％ 2．4％ 2．％

Xiao also used the 1/% Census in 1995 to analyze the social construction

of different occupations in relation to equity of access to tertiary education and

found that public officials and executives of state enterprises were 2.02% of the

employed national population in the country, but their children were 15% of the

tertiary student population.. When including administrators, the total proportion

of elite students would reach 23%. Of professionals such as doctors, lawyers,

designers and scientists, who make up 5.43% of the total population, their

children in tertiary education took 13%, but the proportion of students of

farmers( 69.4% of the total population in 1995) was only 29.4%. Her analysis

24

Xiao Jie (2007) A research on access and tuition in public universities, master thesis, p.27.

20

tells the readers that in China, the wealth and social status are two important

aspects for better education.

Yue (2009) used the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA) as the

indicator of enrollment opportunity. He considered father‟s occupation as a

proxy variable. Yue defines types of father‟s occupations as: Type I

Occupation—Government official, organizational staff, manager and specialist,

all of which enjoy highest social prestige; Type II Occupation—Individual

businessman, sales, private entrepreneur and laborer, all of which enjoy medium

social prestige; and Type III Occupation— Rural migrant worker and farmer,

both of which enjoy lowest social prestige.

21

RCA Index based on fathers’ occupation25 2003 2005 2007 2009

Key

Univ.

Ord.

Univ.

Key

Univ.

Ord.

Univ.

Key

Univ.

Ord.

Univ.

Key

Univ.

Ord.

Univ.

Government

official 1.17 0.85 1.14 0.91 1.53 0.90 1.22 0.89

Organizational

staff 1.06 0.95 1.09 0.94 1.41 0.93 1.24 0.87

Manager 1.31 0.72 1.23 0.85 1.61 0.89 1.10 0.95

Specialist 1.14 0.87 1.09 0.94 0.97 1.00 1.31 0.84

Individual

businessman 1.13 0.89 1.05 0.97 0.88 1.02 0.78 1.11

Sales 1.25 0.77 0.96 1.02 0.50 1.09 0.90 1.05

Private

entrepreneur 1.04 0.96 1.10 0.93 0.44 1.10 0.87 1.07

Workers 1.08 0.93 1.06 0.96 0.90 1.02 0.93 1.04

Rural migrant

worker NA NA NA NA 0.50 1.09 0.88 1.06

Farmer 0.77 1.20 0.84 1.10 0.86 1.03 0.87 1.07

According to Yue, in years 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, students with Type I

occupational background had a greater chance to enter key universities, as almost

all RCA indexes are greater than one (only a minor exception). Second, for these

same years, students with Type III occupational background had lower chances to

enter key universities, as all RCA indexes are less than one. Third, as time goes,

the potential for students with Type II occupational background to enrolled in key

universities decreases, as almost all RCA indexes turn from greater than zero in

2003 and 2005, to less than zero in 2007 and 2009(only a minor exception). In

2003 and 2005 only students with Type III occupational backgrounds were

disadvantaged, but in 2007 and 2009 even students with Type II occupational

background became disadvantaged. So Yue concluded that with the expansion of

tertiary education, the allocation of educational resources of superior quality

became increasingly unequal.

As noted above, more farmer and worker children study in regular local and

provincial universities. The other sources of tertiary education for farmer and

worker children are the Minban institutions. In 2005, a research was conducted in

5 Minban universities and colleges in Shanxi province to see educational

opportunities in those universities. From the 3,612 returned questionnaires,

researchers found that the proportions of students with self-employed and

farmers/fisherman background were much higher than students with business

executive, governmental official and professional family background. Adding up

25

Yue Changun(2009), Expansion and Equality in Chinese Higher Education, unpublished conference paper, p.3-

4.

22

the farmer/fisherman and self-employed together, the total proportion was about

61.3%. The following table shows the details.

Student‟s family occupational backgrounds in the Minban universities in Shanxi 26

Types of career Father Mother

Number

(person)

Proportion

（%） Number

(person)

Proportion

（%）

laid-off workers 208 5.9 350 10.1

farmers or fisherman 793 22.6 1169 33.7

workers 531 15.1 467 13.5

professionals 117 3.3 74 2.1

common employees 316 9 393 11.3

Government officials 246 7 113 3.3

technicians 303 8.6 97 2.8

executives 140 4 65 1.9

self-employed

entrepreneurs 830 23.6 684 19.7

others 26 0.7 57 1.6

total 3510 99.8 3469 100

the missing data 114 115

In China, Minban colleges, like private universities in other countries, are very

much dependent on tuitions and fees, and their tuition and fees are much higher

than regular public universities. In some of the most expensive universities, the

tuition is three times higher than that of regular universities. The following table

provides some idea about tuition scales in the most expensive Minban

universities.

The tuition scale in a sampling of Minban Institutions27

Institution name Provinces Science

average

Humanities

average

Jiangxi Lantian Jianxi 10,000 8,000

City University Beijing 11,750 11,750

College of Foreign Affairs in Xian Shanxi 10,000 8,500

Fuan University Fujian 14,500 14,500

Wuhan Bio-Technology University Hubei 11,500 11,500

Shanghai Jianquao University Shanghai 13,000 13,000

Heilongjiang Dongfang university Heilongjiang 9,750 9,500

26

Min, Weifang & Wang, Rong ( 2006)(eds.) China Education and Human Resource Development 2005-2006,

Peking University Press, p.29. 27

http://edu.sina.com.cn/gaokao/2008-05-28/2136141882.shtml

23

Foreign Languages University of Overseas

in Jilin

Jilin 12,500 12,500

Qingdao Haibin College Shangdong 8,800 8,800

Ningxia College of Science and Technology Ningxia 5,800 5,600

Anhui Xinhua College Anhui 7,500 7,500

As noted earlier, more workers, farmers, and self-employed people send their

children to Minban universities and colleges. If that is the case, again workers

and farmers with lower family income may end up paying disproportionately

more for their children‟s education than wealthier families.28

The urban/rural students and discipline stratification

In the recent 30 years, China has experienced a process of “urbanization,”

but this process does not seem to have had much of an effect on the rural

population‟s access to tertiary education, because of the residence regulation.

The following table shows the proportion change of rural population from 1964

to 2000.

Trend of Rural population in China (1964-2000)29

Total population

In 10,000

Rural population

In 10,000

As % of

Total

1964 72,307 59,591 81.6

1982 103,188 82,529 79.4

1990 116,002 86,351 73.7

2000 129,533 83,939 63.9

.

The table shows that currently, 63.9% of the population has rural residence,

but in tertiary education only 31.6 %of students come from rural areas, while

68.4 % of students come from urban areas in the sampling institutions of Li‟s

study discussed previously. This means that rural children are very much in an

underrepresented in tertiary education, most starkly in the elite institutions.

Researchers have found that the proportion of students from rural family

background enrolled in tertiary education is not only low in the higher quality

28

Note: as there is no more such cases to compare, here it is hard for the author to make the definite conclusion,

what the author can say for sure is that more disadvantage children are pushed down to the low quality higher

learning institutions. 29

Wang Li& Helen Genandoy (2004) Proceedings of the International Conference on Transforming the Digital

Divide into Digital Opportunities for Rural Populations into Conjunction with INRUED 10th

Anniversary ,

Baoding, China 17-19, Oct. 2004. p.160.

24

universities, but they also tend to study “cold” subjects. Here “cold” means of

low social status, less economic return, or even difficult in parlay into

employment after graduation. The following table shows a developmental pattern

of rural student distribution in different areas of study at Peking University.

Patterns of rural new entrants‟ choice of major at Peking University from 1978 to 2005

The diagram shows change and the distribution of areas of study for rural

new entrants in Peking University between 1978-2005. Beginning from 1990s,

the rural student proportion went down gradually, while those who had the

opportunity to enroll into Peking University, tended to major in humanities and

basic social sciences, such as archeology, political sciences, philosophy, history

and literatures. In sciences, more rural students studied applied field such as

technical physics, applied chemistry and geography. In recent years, it has been

hard to find employment in technical physics and geography.

Whereas urban students show a different pattern of selection of their

academic majors, they tend to major in subjects who are likely to have a good

income, high social status, and better employment opportunities. The following

diagram provides an explanation in comparison with the previous one.

25

Urban new entrants by academic major at Peking University from 1978 to 2005

From the diagram one can observe that urban new entrants choose

humanities and social sciences as their majors, but in most cases they majored in

the subject areas as languages, advertisement, economics, management and law.

In hard sciences, they majored in biology, electronics and chemistry ——those

subject areas that have higher academic status than basic sciences as math,

physics or technical engineering and geography.

In discussing the reasons for rural student‟s choice of majors, Liu (2009)

considered that rural students have limited opportunities to make their own

decisions because of the national enrollment quotas. For example, in 2004, the

universities only allocated language enrollment quotas to Tianjin, Jilin, and

Beijing, but not to Shandong, Zhejiang, and Henan provinces, though those

provinces have a higher rural participation rate for national examination.

According to the author‟s understanding, due to limited understanding of

current social economic structure and lack of academic support and advice, many

rural applicants may not have clear ideas about their own interests and potentials.

In making the choice of where and what to study, rural students are very much

frustrated and disadvantaged by their lack of information or networks to help

them make the most advantageous choices.

Rural students have another pressure that urban applicants do not have,

which is that a college education in many cases is their sole opportunity to get an

urban residence. In Chinese “getting out of the rural gate” has become the dream

of many rural children. “Get out of the rural gate” does not mean to get out of the

26

village physically but to change their rural residence into urban one. To be

educated in top universities and to get a position in government sector in cities

would grantee the change of residence.

In fact, there is a miss match with rural student aspirations for tertiary

education, because those who major in cold subjects may not be able to get well

paid position after graduation, and in many cases, and they often end up un-

employed. The current discussion on “Ant Groups” (youths living in a crowded,

cheap dorms, with no stable jobs) in Beijing also describes the very condition of

those graduates from rural villages. When rural students discover the problem

with their subjects of study, some start to make up for their initial mistakes by

continuing their education into master and Ph.D. degree programs. A report on

the development of academic degrees and graduate education in China reveals

that a significant percentage of master and Ph.D. students have rural family

background.

The following table shows the proportion of students in master and PhD

degree programs with father‟s occupation.

Master and PH.D students with father‟s occupational status. 30

The table shows more master and PhD students with father occupations as

farmers and workers. 31

30

Task Group on degrees and graduate education development in China: Report on the development of Academic

Degrees and Graduate Education in China, Higher Education Press 2006, p55. 31

The date was collected in 2005, when master and PhD programs were totally provided by the Chinese government. In 2006, a policy was issued to collect tuitions from master and Ph.D. students. Now，situation might have changed, there is a need to conduct another survey.

Father's occupational status

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

others

farmer

worker

private business

staff member

professional and technical personnel

high level manager and executives

government departments

Master Doctor

27

Research conducted by Zhang and Zhou (2006) shows a similar situation. In

Renmin University in 1995, undergraduate students with a farmer family

background made up 30% of the student population, while at master‟s level, they

were 49.4%, and in PhD degree programs they are 60% of the total student

enrollments. 32

When those PhDs or masters were interviewed for a reason, a

story was frequently told that it was difficult to find a decent job as they expected

after their first degrees, and with a lack of social connection to find a decent job,

they believed pursuing further degrees would help them to locate a position.

After they get Ph.D. degrees, they will at least find a teaching position in

universities, a job without decent pay, perhaps, but with high social status.

The issue of inequities in academic majors is not only happening at Peking

University and Renmin University, but also in all the “211 project” and “985

program” universities. In his research on the new entrants in the University of

Technology and sciences at Beijing in 2003, Yang also noticed that more

students with professional family backgrounds major in “hot” subjects, while

more students from farmers and laid-offs family background major in “cold”

subjects.

Proportion of students family background and major distribution in Science and Technology University in

Beijin in 2003. 33

Student family background Information

technology (hot)

Mechanical

engineering (cold )

Design and

arts

Executives and professionals 57．3 35．3 58．3

Management staff, self-

employed, and others 17．2 21．6 12．2

Worker, farmer and laid-offs 25．4 44．1 29．5

Total 100

100 100

The difference is stark as presented in Yang‟s table. In Shanghai‟s Finance

University, the situation is even worse for rural students. As indicated in its

name , Finance University is clearly a university with a focus on financing,

banking, investment, and international trade. In that university, the proportion of

rural students in degree program is very low.

The survey result of Shanghai Finance University in 2001 (％)34

urban rural

32

Zhang, Dexiang & Zhou Yunzhi (2002) <sociology of higher education> Beijing: Higher Education Press, p71. 33

Yang, Dongping 34

Zhao, Haili (2003): Public policy for higher education. Shanghai: Shanghai Finance University Press: p.182．

28

total 76.2 23.8

Short cycles 64.4 35.6

Four year undergraduate 78.1 21.9

Master 73.8 16.2

There are several explanations for this enrollment disparity: the enrollment

quotas for local provinces are not only low, but also major prescribed by external

actors. If one wants to come from the rural regions to Beijing or Shanghai for

tertiary education, there might not be many choices for what he/she could major

in or which universities he/she can choose.

Part III: Gender in tertiary education

Behind the simple gender parity

With the national enrollment increase, women got more opportunities to

access higher education, and the proportion of female students in tertiary education

comes closer with the proportion of male students. Statistics in 2008 show that, the

proportion of women in colleges and universities reached almost 50 percent. But

behind the simple proportion parity, there are many disparities. This section will

provide an analysis on the pattern of gender disparity by examining female student

distribution in the system of Chinese tertiary education. The analysis will focus on

discipline disparity, the role of residence in access to tertiary education, the

relationship between culture stratification and education stratification for female

students.

Historically, female student participation rate has been very low. In 1947,

before the establishment of PRC, female student proportion was only 17.8%.

Since the early 1950s, female proportion in tertiary has been increasing gradually,

guided by Chairman Mao‟s slogan that “in a different era, man and women

should be the same.” Even so the proportion of female students had never

reached 40%, until the beginning of the new century. No doubt, the enrollment

increase at the end of the 20th

century definitely provided more opportunities for

females to get into tertiary education; in 1999, the proportion of female students

had risen to39.7%. A decade later in 2008, the proportion of female students had

29

risen to almost 50 percent.. The following table shows the change of female

student proportions in the past 60 years.

Proportion of female students in higher education between 1947 一 2008

35

YR 1947 1960 1965 1975 1980 1985 1995 1999 2004 2006 2008

% 17.8 24.5 26.9 32.6 23.4 30.0 38.5 39.7 45.65 48.6 49.86

From the table, one can see that the proportion of female students to male

students in tertiary education almost reaches the gender parity. Due to this change,

some researchers started to circulate the theory that current teaching models in

compulsory and senior secondary education are in favor of females, thus enabling

girls to outperform boys academically. The thesis of “feminized” education

( Leathwood & Read, 2009)36

can also be observed in the Chinese educational

research.

Actually, in comparison, with the age cohort, female students still get fewer

opportunities than male students. In her research, Song (2007) made a

comparative study of male and female students in tertiary education within the

same age cohort and came to the conclusion that the percentage of access

opportunity for males is higher than for that for females. The following table

shows the difference between access opportunities for male and female students..

Access differences between male and female to higher education from 1995-200337

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003

Students in

regular HED.

male 1877143 1989715 2465320 4167654 6115138

female 1029286 1184647 1620554 3023004 4920504

Cohort between

18-21

Male 36397200 33229330 31992827 34132917 34409368

female 36037800 32324803 30638319 32910695 32069246

Access

opportunities

Male 5.16% 5.99% 7.71% 12.21% 17.77%

Female 2.8% 3.66% 5.29% 9.19% 15.5%

According to her analysis, women still have less tertiary education access

opportunities than men. From the table, the access opportunity for males is 17.77%

and for females is 15.5%, with a more than 2 percent gap between the sexes.

Gendered Discipline Stratification

35

Sources: http://www.edu.cn/school_496/20100121/t20100121_441899.shtml and Ma, Wanhua (2005) History , current

condition, and problems for Chinese women‟s higher education in “Exploring Education Development,:3:1-5. 36

Leathwood & Read ( 2009), Gender and the Changing Face of Higher Education: a Feminized Future? Society for

Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. 37 Song Tao (2007), Study on gender difference in access opportunities in higher education in China, Shanxi University,

unpublished master thesis, p.11.

30

Gender distribution by discipline is another aspect for equity in tertiary

education for women. Many researchers have shown that more women are in

humanities and social sciences than in science and engineering. Since there is no

national data for gender distribution across disciplines, cases from individual

researchers are used for explanation.

In her research, Song(2007) studies the distribution of female students across

disciplines in Shanxi University (A comprehensive university in Taiyuan, North

West part of the country). She finds that there is clearly a gender disparity in

disciplines with more female students studying in humanities, arts, education and

tourism, and more male students in sciences and engineering.

Discipline distribution of male and female students in Shanxi University. Unit: person38

38

Song, Tao (2007) A study on gender difference in access to higher education in China, master thesis, p 18.

31

Two important things need to be pointed out from the table. First, in social

sciences, such as economics, the proportion of male and female students is

relatively balanced from 1999-2005; in law, female students consistently

outnumbered male students with from 1999-2005,(though without the knowledge

of what female law students study and what they do after graduation);these two

fields are traditionally male dominated areas. Also in the table, male students still

dominate the fields of sciences, while female students enroll at a higher rate in

literature, English, children‟s education and tourism.

The gender divide is more obvious in Haribin University of Science and

Technology. In 1998 female students were a major proportion of students

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 total %

M 40 26 38 35 36 59 25 259 3.26

F 76 45 73 112 103 132 45 568 7.15

M 15 12 24 33 19 3 10 116 1.46

F 85 69 112 142 65 57 75 605 7.62

M 18 21 22 25 20 16 18 140 1.76

F 71 53 60 53 42 38 34 351 4.42

M 54 42 61 55 66 39 34 351 4.42

F 24 21 15 18 36 8 7 129 1.62

M 25 25 23 --- --- --- --- 73 0.92

F 9 17 15 --- --- --- --- 41 0.52

M 54 41 40 36 35 50 51 206 2.59

F 16 16 19 13 9 9 9 91 1.15

M 120 97 144 111 80 68 92 712 8.96

F 43 42 90 72 42 17 33 339 4.27

M 42 30 33 35 40 --- --- 180 2.27

F 10 15 16 9 8 --- --- 58 0.73

Pre-school M --- --- 4 --- 8 --- --- 12 0.15

Education F --- --- 14 --- 20 --- --- 34 0.43

M 73 65 77 68 42 33 88 446 5.61

F 34 31 19 22 23 14 23 168 2.11

M 16 29 15 12 18 25 19 133 1.67

F 19 16 17 15 19 14 31 131 1.65

M 20 26 27 24 27 25 26 175 2.20

F 26 19 25 15 18 21 28 152 1.91

M 110 99 70 87 51 43 63 523 6.58

F 153 124 73 97 59 73 69 648 8.16

M 27 23 39 23 24 28 30 194 2.44

F 18 23 21 21 25 26 31 165 2.08

M 44 33 32 49 46 37 32 283 3.56

F 18 17 29 21 11 16 29 141 1.77

M 17 15 30 43 35 27 19 186 2.34

F 37 29 43 81 63 40 41 334 4.20

Law

Economics

Information

Management

Tourism

E.Informati&Te

ch.

Computer

Science

E.infom&Engin

eering

Physical

Education

Philosophy

History

Subject/ Year

Chinese and

literature

English

Performing Art,

and Music

Physics

Applied

Chemistry

32

enrolled in foreign languages (66%) and sociology (48.3%), but only a minor

proportion enrolled in computer science and technology (22.9%), engineering

(11%) and mathematics (8.9%).39

A similar situation could also be observed in Peking University where,

female student enrollment in languages is more than 72％；and male student

enrollment in physics and engineering is almost 85％ in 2000. In 2008, the

situation remains the same. The following table shows the gender composition of

Peking University new entrants in 2008.

Gender disciplinary distribution of new entrants in Peking University in 2008 40

39

Ma, Wanhua (2005) Women‟s higher education development in China, history, current situation and problems ,

in Exploring Education Development, 3:1-5. 40

Resources: from the university provost office.

33

This pattern of gender distributions in 2008 is consistent with the gender

distribution in 2000 at Peking University.

When some female students were interviewed in the college of foreign

languages at Peking University, the interviewer was told that in order to have a

few male students in language studies, universities lower test scores to attract

male students. The question then is if such a strategy would be adopted in

sciences and engineering to attract female students?

No doubt, the gender disparity affects female student participation in science

and technology at the tertiary level. At master‟s and Ph.D. degree programs,

colleges Gender Student

number

% Disciplines Gender Student

number

%

M 117 8.69 M 24 1.57

F 24 1.78 F 16 1.04

M 160 11.89 M 16 1.04

F 31 2.30 F 39 2.55

M 128 9.51 M 26 1.70

F 37 2.75 F 35 2.28

M 66 4.90 M 65 4.24

F 53 3.94 F 128 8.36

M 58 4.31 M 26 1.70

F 29 2.15 F 66 4.31

M 12 0.89 M 4 0.26

F 25 1.86 F 23 1.50

M 12 0.89 M 113 7.38

F 1 0.07 F 104 6.79

M 17 1.26 M 267 17.43

F 57 4.23 F 57 3.72

M 26 1.93 M 71 4.63

F 84 6.24 F 13 0.85

M 17 1.26 M 41 2.68

F 25 1.86 F 51 3.33

M 7 0.52 M 10 0.65

F 22 1.63 F 10 0.65

M 20 1.49 M 67 4.37

F 23 1.71 F 94 6.14

M 29 2.15 M 68 4.44

F 78 5.79 F 98 6.40

M 75 5.57

F 113 8.40

Internationa

l relations

Law

Economics

History City and

environment

Archeology Environment

science

Philosophy School of

management

Software,

Micro

Electronics

Yuanpei

college

communica

tion

Information

and

technology

Chinese Engineering

Life

science

Foreign

languages

Earth and

space

science

Marxism

theory

psychology Arts

math Information

management

physics sociology

chemistry Government

administration

34

gender disparity becomes more obvious, particularly in research institutes. For

example, there are far fewer female students in the Academy of Sciences. The

following table shows significant gender disparity in research institutes.

% of female entrants in master‟s and PhD programs in research institutes in the academies

of Science and Social Science in 2006

Ph.D. degree

programs

Master degree

programs

Postgraduate

courses

Total number of

entrants

5877 10481 48370

Female students 1803 3716 16462

Sources: Education statistics yearbook 2006.

The data includes both graduate students from the Research Institutes of

both the Academy of Science and the Academy of Social Science. But the

number of students enrolled in the research institutes of the Academy of Social

Science takes is limited in comparison with enrollment in the research institutes

of the Academy of Science. Even if female students get the opportunity to study

in research institutes in the Academies of Science, many of them are likely to

end up taking non-degree postgraduate courses. As the table shows, in

postgraduate courses, the proportion of female students is much higher than in

the master‟s and PhD degree programs. Students in post graduate courses are

more likely to work as research assistants in labs rather than as faculty or

scientists tutoring Ph.D. students.

Gender and Education Stratification

As previously mentioned, Chinese tertiary education is hierarchically

organized with “985 program” and “211 project” universities in the first tier of

the hierarchy, the provincial and municipal universities in the second tier, the

acknowledged Minban and independent universities and some three four public

funded colleges at the third tier, and the public short cycle and Minban

technical schools at the fourth tier.

The dramatic expansion in enrollments in 1999 has, in turn, resulted in

increased competition among students to attend more selective colleges and

enroll in particular fields of study as discussed previously. Another trend to be

noted that many more female students are in non degree programs than in degree

programs, and the higher the education level, the lower the proportion of female

students. The following table shows female student proportions in different levels

of the Chinese regular tertiary education system.

35

Proportion of females in short cycle and different degree programs

YR/ level of

education

short cycle

courses %

Bachelor

degree

program%

Master degree

program%

PhD degree

program %

1999 35.9 22.2

2002 46.95 41.81 39.9 28.1

2004 47.82 43.89 44.15 31.37

2006 50.13 46.32 46.36 33.87

2008 51.92 48.15 48.16 34.7

Sources: China statistics year book, 2006,

http://www.edu.cn/school_496/20100121/t20100121_441899.shtml

According to the table, one may be able to conclude that after the enrollment

increase in 1999, female students‟ participation has been improved, especially in

Ph.D. program, the proportion of females was only 22.2% in 1999, and in 2008,

and it went up to 34.7%. But the table also shows that the proportion of female

students in short cycle courses is higher than the proportions in any degree

program. The proportion of female students is over 51.92% in short cycle courses.

Here the short cycle courses refer to vocational or technical colleges.

From the above analysis, it is evident that female students are down-streamed

to vocational and short cycle courses. In his research, Wen (2005)41

made a

comparative study on two sets of data (one collected by the center for education

development at MOE in 1998 and the other by the graduate school of education,

Peking University in 2003) on the situation of graduate employment in the

following years. The first project surveyed 11,229 students from 49 universities

country wide and the second project surveyed 15,222 students from 34

universities country wide. From these two surveys, the author finds that there is a

tendency of education stratification based on gender, male/female, family

residency, ethnicity, and choice of academic discipline.

Female Proportion in two tiers, residencies and discipline distribution in 1998 and 2003

1998 2003

Total % 38.2 41.0

Academic

training

Short cycle 38.4 48.0

Four years 38.1 37.2

Ethnicity Han 38.0 40.8

Minorities 38.5 44.3

Family

residencies

cities 48.5 47.8

County and town 40.1 43.2

41

Wen, Dongmao (2005) A comparative study on Gender disparity in higher education opportunities, school

achievement, and graduate employment in China in Tsinghua Journal of Education, 5:17.

36

Rural villages 27.9 32.0

Disciplinary

distribution

Economics 52.9 43.8

law 42.0 54.7

literature 69.8 64.4

sciences 34.0 41.8

Agriculture 34.8 26.4

Engineering 20.9 21.2

Wen‟s finding is in correspondence with Song‟s research which was discussed

previously. Female students in humanities and urban students have a higher rate

of access to tertiary education. There are some improvements for ethnic

minority‟s access to tertiary education.

In her research, Song (2006) who did some analysis on gender distribution in

adult higher learning institutions from 1998 to 2002, finds the proportion of

female students to be higher.

Male and female access to adult higher education from 1998-2002：unite 10thousand

42

1998 1999 2001 2002

Total

population

M 63242.2 61745.2 65355 64275.4

F 61095.5 59451.2 61228 61619.7

Number of

students

M 24 28.2 25.4 110.5

F 21.7 25.5 25.8 111.5

Proportion in

per 1000.

M 0.379 0.458 0.389 1.722

F 0.379 0.429 0.421 1.809

The above table show illustrates that in 1998 in adult higher learning

institution, the proportions for both male and female were equal, but following

the enrollment increase, the proportion of females grew faster. In 2002, female

student proportion increased significantly from 0.379 to 1.809.

In her research, Yang (2009) makes a comparative study on the difference of

opportunity probabilities for male and female students in different categories of

Chinese universities using a set of survey data collected in 2004-2005. The

following table details her finding.

Gender and enrollment opportunities in different categories of universities43

42

Song, Tao (2006) Some comments on gender difference in access to higher education in China, in Youth Study,

2006:8. 43

Yang qian (2009): “Study on gender difference in access opportunities in higher education in China” in Modern education

management (Xiandaijiayuguanli), 1:16. In 2004-2005, Xiamen University conducted a survey on current university

students in 51 universities of 10 provinces, the survey covers the gender, residence, discipline, subject, parent

37

items Male female total Derivation of

Opportunity

Probability

Proportion of age Cohort A(%) 51.72 49.28 100

Gender Proportion in MOE universities 61.75 38.25 100

Opportunity probability 1.22 0.78 1.56

Gender proportion Regular public

universities B2

46.87 53.13 100

Opportunity probability (B2/A) 0.92 1.08 0.85

Gender proportion in technological

colleges B3

40.74 59.26 100

Opportunity probability(B3/A) 0.81 1.20 0.67

Minban four year universities (B4) 64.39 39.35 100

Opportunity probability (B4/1) 1.27 0.72 1.76

Minban technical colleges (B5/A) 44.88 55.12 100

Opportunity probability(B5/A) 0.88 1.20 0.79

Independent colleges(B6) 44．46

55．45 100

Opportunity probability(B6/A) 0.88 1.13 .079

The author divided Chinese tertiary education into 6 categories as shown in

the above table: key universities under MOE, regular four year university, public

technological colleges, Minban four years colleges, Minban technical colleges,

and independent colleges. The research finds that in key universities under MOE

and Minban four year universities, male students have far more access

opportunities than female students, but in public technical colleges, female

students have more opportunities than male students. More female students are in

the less prestigious education institutions.

Residence, Gender and Education stratification

As discussed previously, residence in China is a very important indicator for

education stratification. The following section will continue the discussion on

female student access to tertiary education. In the theme paper, Jamil Salmi used

the word “streaming” to indicate the force of pushing down or up a stream. Here

one could see that there are different streams to push female students from

different social status (or class) up and down the education streams.

Between 2004-2006，Xie, et al (2008) surveyed 50 universities in Shanxi,

Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Anhui, Shangdong, Shanghai

and Inner Mongolia. In the sample, there are 10 key university, 12 non key

regular universities, 16 postsecondary vocation colleges, 2 Minban undergraduate

education. The survey sending out 16,900 questionnaires, 13,873 questionnaires returned with validity. Based on

this set of survey data, Yang made the gender difference analysis.

38

universities, 6 Minban technical colleges, and 5 independent colleges. . The

survey data revealed the advantage urban female students had in access,

irrespective of the type of higher education institution. The previous point is

further illustrated in the following table.

Ratio of urban/rural female students in different category of Institutions Unit %44

Urban/Rural

Categories of higher education

Urban Rural Total

%

Derivation

Key universities 63.7 36.3 100 27.4

Regular non key intuitions 51.3 48.7 100 2.6

Post secondary technical colleges 54.1 45.9 100 8.2

Minban undergraduate universities 81.7 18.3 100 63.4

Minban technical colleges 69 31 100 38.0

Independent colleges 77.4 22.6 100 54.8

Total 59.3 40.7 100 18.6

Whether it is in regular higher education or in Minban higher education, the

proportions of urban female students are much higher than the proportions of

rural female students. Urban female students have much more opportunities in

access to higher education than rural females. But in comparison, the gap in

regular non key institutions between urban and rural female students is much

smaller. This might indicates that the regular non key universities play a very

important role in reducing the urban and rural gap. The above table shows that

more rural female students are in regular non key institutions and post secondary

technical colleges.

Both independent colleges and Minban undergraduate universities are beyond

reach to rural females. The exclusion of rural females from independent colleges

and Minban undergraduate universities can be attributed to the high tuition and

fees they charge..

In part I of this report, a table show a higher proportion of students in Minban

universities and colleges who are children of farmers and workers. But from the

table above, it is clear that there is a disparity based on gender; male students

who are from a farm and worker background make up 81.7% of the enrollment

compared to only 18.3% for females. . The gender disparity might be due to

norms in the Chinese culture that discriminate against the girl child; parents who

are farmers and workers might feel less inclined to pay high tuition and fees for

female education.

44

Xie, Zuoyu, Wang Weihong, and Chen,Xiaowei(2008) “research on Urban/ Rural women‟s access to higher

education: An analysis on different type of higher education institutions,6:80

39

In 2008, Lin conducted research on education problems for women in China.

She found that female students in villages had the least opportunity for tertiary

education when she compared the data of new entrants in Xiamen University

from 1995 and 2000; Xiaman is a 211 project university, which is located in the

south part of China. The following table mirrors the results from Yang‟s research.

The proportion of students with rural family background is low, particularly for

females.

Urban/rural and male/female % of new entrants in Xiamen U in 1995 and 2000

45

yr 1995 2000

city county village city county village

% 50.78 24.01 25.21 54.03 21.91 23.16

Gender M F M F M F M F M F M F

% 55.42 44.58 66.08 33.92 85.04 14.96 49.68 50.32 78.29 24.71 80.43 19.57

From the table, several issues could be observed. First, in both the two years,

urban students get the most opportunities; second, urban/city females‟ access to

tertiary education is improving, and third, the proportion of female students in

villages goes up from approximately 15%to 20%but disparities exist within

females based residence.

Currently in China, in any calculation, be it national GDP or calculation of

individual incomes, there is a tendency to average. The averaging of figures

leads to a cover-up of many issues; issues that are revealed once the numbers are

broken up. This is particularly true in the case of access to tertiary education by

gender. .

In a case study, Liu et al (2009)46

examined the rural/urban and gender gap

between 1978-1998 and 2000-2005 at Peking University. She finds that rural

female students are especially low in Peking University. The following two

graphs show the composition of male and female students in two different time

periods at Peking University. The first graph shows the change in composition of

new urban and rural male and female students at Peking University between

1987and1998.

45

Lin, Xiaomei (2008) Students in the development of women‟s higher education in China, unpublished master thesis,

Xiamen University,p.23 46

Liu, Yunshan (2009) unpublished report on the survey of student‟s values and attitudes in the Capital City of

Beijing.

40

According to the graph, from the mid 1980s, the proportion of rural male

students began to decrease, while the proportion of urban male students

increased gradually from 1985 to 1998. Meanwhile, the proportion of urban

females increased.. In 1998, the proportion of rural students, irrespective of

gender decreased to the lowest level; this pattern became stable between 2000-

2005. The following table shows the composition of students differing by gender

and family background and gender between 2000 and 2005.

Pattern of new entrants family background at Peking University between 2000-2005

. It is interesting to notice that in the above graph, the proportion of new

entrants from largest to lowest is as follows: urban males, urban females, rural

males and finally rural females.

The high proportion of urban females might have something to do with

China‟s one child policy; the birth control policy began in 1982, almost at the

41

same time with the economic reform. The urban one child, whether a girl or a

boy, can get all of the family resources for education, whereas the rural girls

might have a different experience in comparison, because she might have several

siblings to compete for the family education resources, or she may not have a

quality basic education for her to compete for senior secondary education, or she

might simply be considered as not important to be educated.

In 2005, the author participated in a project that surveyed 13 universities and

colleges in Beijing using a random sample on college students‟ values and social

attitudes; there are 3,772 valid respondents in the study. The following diagram

shows the family location composition of the 3772 students. The figure below

clearly indicates the paucity in the proportion of females, irrespective of family

residence.

This pattern shows clearly in the research survey in University student value 47

Furthermore, a comparison of parental occupation of students found that

the proportion of female students with fathers as professionals, clerks and

entrepreneurs is higher. In the following diagram, 24.2% of females have fathers

as clerks, while males with father as clerks are only 17.8%. This is in clear

contrast with female students who have a father who is a farmer. The proportion

of male students with a father as a farmer is much higher than the proportion of

female students. The proportion of female students whose father is a farmer is

only 13.9% compared to 21.6% for males. .

47

Liu Yunshan (2009) Ibid.)

42

In term of equity and access to tertiary education, many researchers use

“urban and rural”, “parental professions” and “regions” as indicators to show the

patterns of access.

Du (2008) in her research shows the same pattern for females‟ access to

tertiary education in Jiangshu province. The proportion of rural female students is

lower than urban female students and this proportion steadily decreased from

2001 to 2003. .

2001-2003 urban/rural and M/F% of undergraduates in Jiangsu province48

year location Female % Male %

2001 urban 66.2 57.1

rural 33.8 42.9

2002 Urban 66.7 57.3

rural 33.3 42.7

2003 urban 68.3 56.7

48 Du Jing (2008), “Issues on Gender equity in higher education in Feminism perspective” , Inner Mongolia University,

unpublished master thesis , p.18.

43

rural 31.7 43.4

The above table shows that urban females have more opportunities than rural

females in gaining access into tertiary education; this is also true when comparing

urban males to rural males. In a related note however, rural males have more

opportunities than rural females.

Summarizing the discussion, Wang (2009)49

states that there is a great

disparity between urban and rural family, between the city well to do family and

lower income family, and between well-developed regions and less developed

regions for women‟s tertiary education. In her research, she finds that urban

females make up 60% of the total female student population.

It is imperative to note that a great proportion of female students get their

tertiary education in adult higher education institutions, vocational and

technological intuitions and self study programs than in regular higher learning

institutions. According to a recent MOE statistics, female proportion in adult

higher learning institutions has reached to approximately 53%.50

Part: IV: Ethnic minority and tertiary education

Current research on ethnic minority enrollment

In China, there are 56 ethnicities, with Han being the majority ethnicity at

90%, other ethnic minorities make up the remaining 10%. The 1982 birth control

policy is flexible towards ethnic minorities; urban families with ethnic

background can have two children in the cities and even more children in the

rural areas. The flexibility in the policy has spurred population growth of ethnic

minorities in China. Statistics shows that in 1953, ethnic minority population in

China was only 35,.32 millions, and it reached to 106.43 millions in 2000. The

proportion of ethnic minority population in 2000 was 8.4% (see note 53, page 21).

In the country, there are 155 autonomous unites, 120 autonomous counties, 30

autonomous states, and 5 autonomous regions.

For tertiary education, ethnic minorities have two choices: to go to ethnic

minority universities and colleges, or to join into the main stream universities.

Since the majority of Chinese ethnic minorities live in the autonomous regions.

Many ethnic minority regions have their own colleges and universities. As of

2005, there were 155 ethnic higher learning institutions to provide direct access

49 Wang,R.(2009) On gender equity in higher education in Science and Technology Innovation Herald,7:216. 50 http://www.edu.cn/jiao_yu_jing_fei_497/20091122/t20091122_423262.shtml

44

to ethnic minorities; they have a total student body of 146,716.51

At the national

level, ethnic minorities make up 6.55% of the total student population.52

Here, ethnic minority tertiary education consists of two aspects: the

development of ethnic minority higher learning institutions and the ethnic

minority students‟ access to tertiary education in general. The difference between

the two aspects is that in ethnic minority universities or colleges, there will be

native language education or bilingual education, whereas in regular universities,

bilingual education might not be an option.

In recent years, more research has focused on ethnic minority education;

there are a few master theses on the subject. In his master thesis, Xu made a

comparative study of ethnic minority enrollment between Han and other ethnic

minorities in the ethnic minority regions. The following table illustrates results

from Xu‟s analysis which is based on the fifth census in 2000 on Han and other

ethnic minority‟s schooling situation.

Comparison of Han and ethnic minority education in ethnic minorities regions in 200053

Education level Han Ethnic minority

Male female Male female

Never be in School 4.16 11.8 8.66 18.8

Literacy class 1.05 2.5l 1.69 3.43

Elementary school 36.15 39.18 44.95 44.3l

Secondary school 40.37 32.71 31.25 23.6l

High school 10.00 7.04 6.57 4.54

High school vocation 3.14 3.56 3.4 3 3.07

Short cycle colleges 3.08 2.23 2.32 1.49

Four undergraduate 1.69 0.91 1.1l 0.72

Graduate education 0.36 0.06 0.05 0.03

In the above table, it is not hard to see that at each level of education, Han

nationality (both for males and females) in ethnic minority regions seems to have

more opportunities to be educated, whereas ethnic minorities have fewer

opportunities. Educational opportunities are lesser for ethnic female minority

students than ethnic male minorities. Xu, from a longitudinal perspective, finds

that ethnic minority education at every level has improved from 1953 to 2000

51

Tan, min &Xie,Zuoyu(2009): “Analysis on the condition of minority tertiary education after enrollment increase”

in Higher Education Exploration, 2:28. 52

Xu,Qingchu: “Outline on a balance development of minority tertiary education in the West” in Journal of

Northwest Normal University(Social Sciences), (46)3:84. 53

Xu, Min (2007), A study on the accumulations of human capital in ethnic minority rural areas, unpublished

master thesis, Inn Mengolia University p24.

45

(see table below) .

Proportion change of ethnic minority education at difference levels between 1953- 2000

year % of minority

students at

national level

Percentage of students at different education level

Higher

education

High school

Vocational

normal

schools

Middle

school

Elementary

school

1953 5.9 1.5 O.9 4.7 2.9 2.9

1964 5.8 3.2 2.6 5.2 4.O 4.5

1982 6.6 4.7 4.5 8.4 3.9 5.9

1990 8.0 6.6 6.2 10.0 6.4 8.7

2000 8.4 5.8 5.9 12.3 6.8 9.1

The table illustrates the decline in the percentage of ethnic minorities in

tertiary education from 6.6% in 1990 to 5.8%. Some researchers tied this decrease

to an increase tuition fees. But the decrease in proportion may not indicate the

decrease in real enrollment numbers, because after the enrollment increase, the

proportion of Han nationality goes up faster than the proportion of ethnic

minorities.

From a historical development perspective, ethnic minority education has

been improving. The following table shows the ethnic minority enrollment

change in relation to the population from1953 to 2000. The proportion of Minority students and minority population from 1953-2000.

54

YR/program Minority

students/10

thousands

Proportion of total

student population

Minority

population/10

thousands

Proportion of

minority in total

population

1953 0.55 2.56 3532 6.06

1964 2.00 3.24 4002 5.76

1982 5.37 4.65 6730 6.68

1990 13.79 6.60 9120 8.04

1997 21.68 6.83 10731 8.98

2000 31.73 5.71 10643 8.41

But the table reflects two problems. First in 2000 the proportion of ethnic

minority students went down by more than one percent. Second, the ethnic

minorities make up 8.41% of the total population in 2000, but only comprise

5.71% of the student population. This is pretty low to the national target for

ethnic minority tertiary education, a policy which indicates 10% as a target rate

for ethnic minorities.

After the enrollment increase in 1999, ethnic minority tertiary education

experienced an upswing. The recent national policy for west economic

exploration has contributed to a positive for ethnic minority tertiary education.

54

Tang, Ying (2003 ) An exploration on equal opportunities of ethnic minorities higher education, Education and

Economic, 2:18.

46

In their research, Tan and Xie (2009) present a table to show the changes in

ethnic minority tertiary education over the recent years.

Ethnic minority students in regular universities in 2006,unite 10 thousand.55

Type of education Total

students

ethnic minority students

Number of students Proportion of total

students

Graduate education 110.47 5.14 4.65

Ph.D. 20.80 0.89 4.26

Master 89.66 4.25 4.74

Undergraduate/short

cycles

1738.84 107.55 6.19

undergraduate 943.34 64.84 6.87

Short cycles 795.50 42.71 5.37

The table illustrates that the increase in ethnic minority proportions from

5.71% in 2000 to 6.19% in 2006 in undergraduate and short cycles programs.

And the proportion of four year education became 6.87%. However, there is still

a need to understand gender and social stratification of ethnic minority tertiary

education.

National policy for ethnic minority education

Ethnic minority tertiary education, especially technical education, has been

getting more attention recently. However the national policy for ethnic minority

tertiary education has been in place since 1951 and it plays an important role in

helping ethnic minorities gain access tertiary education.

The content of the comprehensive policy is summarized in the following

table (Ao,2006) .

Contents for the ethnic minority enrollment policy in tertiary education56

Name / standard Ethnic

minority

regions Universal

priority

Some condition, ethnic minority have the right be

enrolled first.

_ + +

Enrolled with lowing scores + + +

Decided the enrollment score independently _ + _

Minority applicant takes examination in minority

language and minority takes the examination in

Chinese

+ + _

55

Tan, Min &Xie,Zuoyi (2009),: “Analysis on the condition of minority tertiary education after enrollment increase” in

Higher Education Exploration, 2:28. 56

Ao Junmei(2006): “Individual equity, or group equity---exploration on enrollment policy for ethnic minority

tertiary education” in Tsinghua Journal of Education.,6:72

47

Preparatory class, minority class + + + direction oriented enrollment and dispatch _ + + Key university enrollment quotas _ + + Training plan for Xinjiang region _ + _

The “+”sign in the table means applicable, and “一”means not applicable。

These specific policy contents are mostly applicable to the autonomous

regions. Besides, there is a general policy that ethnic minorities need to have at

least 10 test scores added to the applicants‟ national examination score as long as

he/she identified him/herself as ethnic minority when registering for taking

national examination. This policy is intended to promote ethnic minority

enrollment nationwide. Any student whose father or mother is an ethnic minority

can be considered an ethnic minority. This policy is adjustable according to each

autonomous region‟s educational need.

Ma2008）,57

a sociologist at Peking University, has conducted research on

the practices of bilingual education and education development in Xinjiang

autonomous region. He finds ethnic minority enrollment in tertiary education is

growing fast in Xinjiang region; the figure grew from a student enrollment of

3,767 in 1990 to 58,653 in 2005. The increase was dramatic after 1999; in 1999,

the enrollment figure was 19,821, but by 2003 it had increased to 44,733.

According to Ma, the national minority education policy played a very

important role in promoting this development. He found that if both parents are

listed as ethnic minorities, the applicants can get an additional score of 150 for

tertiary education enrollment in Xijiang autonomous region.

The following table shows changes/additions to the policy from 1985 to

2006 in the region. The autonomous region has the autonomy to decide the scope

of the adding test scores for ethnic minorities in national enrollment to tertiary

education.

Adding score policy in Xinjiang autonomous region from 1985 to 2006.

year Policy

scores

to add

Criteria for getting the additional scores

1985 10 Muslim minority

30 Applicant, with one parent as ethnic

minority, takes the national examination in

Chinese

57

Ma, Rong (2008) the practices of bilingual education and education development in Xinjiang autonomous

region, in Peking university Education Review,2:37

48

National

examination

For tertiary

education

100 Applicant, with both parents as ethnic

minorities takes the national examination in

Chinese

1987 10 Muslim minority

80 Applicant, with one parent as ethnic

minority, takes the national examination in

Chinese.

100 Applicant, with both parents as ethnic

minorities, takes the national examination in

Chinese, and files to study in regular

universities outside of Xinjiang

150 Applicant, with both parents as ethnic

minorities, takes the national examination in

Chinese and files to study universities

inside Xianjiang autonomous region.

2003 20 Applicant, who wins a national prize on

physical competition, and applicant, who

wants to study “cold major “in the

autonomous colleges.

70 Applicant, with both parents as ethnic

minorities, but take the national

examination in Chinese, and files to study in

regular universities; and applicant, with

both parents as Han, but use minority

language to take the national examination.

2006 50 Applicant, with both parents as ethnic

minorities, files to study in regular

universities; and applicant, with both

parents as Han, wants to study in ethnic

minority universities.

Ma‟s research shows that local governments of autonomous regions in China

have the autonomy to create/alter the enrollment policy to improve minority

participation in their respective regions. In order to further increase ethnic

minority enrollment, in Sichuan province, the Tibetan living area, after

compulsory, students are asked to study Chinese and Tibetan languages as well

as modern technology for three years. 58

Similarly in Inner Mongolia, there are

predatory courses for students who plan to go to tertiary education. Some other

autonomous states or counties have adopted 9+3 education mode. That is after 9

years of compulsory education, ethnic minority students could get senior

secondary education for free to finish senior secondary education.

But these solutions create problems. When scores are added for ethnic

58

http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64093/64102/116672/9691743.html

49

minorities, these students get into tertiary education; however, they are hard

pressed to keep up with the curriculum.. This is also due to the fact that

educational experiences in ethnic minority regions might differ from mainstream

secondary schools. . Hence, there is a further need to explore alternative

pedagogical techniques and encourage research on ethnic minority social

stratification, educational stratification and gender.

Part V: Main determinants of the disparities

The rapid expansion in Chinese tertiary education enrollment has led to more

access opportunities, but the problem of equity remains. The inequities are

related to both monetary and non-monetary factors. Current development of

Chinese tertiary education shows an increased competition among students to

attend selective colleges and majors. This tendency will no doubt intensify the

issue of equity since the competition actually starts from secondary education.

Senior secondary education and education equity

In China, the first 9 years of education are compulsory; this comprises of 6

years of elementary school and 3 years of junior secondary school. Senior

secondary school (3 years) is not compulsory, but generally taken as a transition

education to college. After compulsory education, students have three choices,

one is to continue schooling by entering into senior secondary schools, two is to

continue schooling by entering into vocational or technical schools, or three by

just joining the labor force. Since senior secondary education is not compulsory,

not all of the teen-agers between the ages of 15 to 17 have the opportunities to

attend, many of them who could not see a path towards tertiary education would

simply give up senior secondary education and join the labor force as mobile

workers.

So in the discussion about equity and access to tertiary education, one has to

notice that senior secondary education in China functions as a filter. Students

who could not pay, who are not highly motivated, and who are less academic

prepared, are filtered out of the education system. This is especially true in rural

areas where there is a lack of high quality senior secondary schools. So the

process of senior secondary education is focused on exclusion but not on

inclusion.

50

In the big cities, senior secondary education is already universalized. In

2008, the gross enrollment of senior secondary education was 74.% at the

national level. 59

But in Beijing, the gross enrollment was96% in 2000. To some

extent, the gap in senior secondary education between rural/urban could be as

high as the gap between rural/urban in tertiary education. In senior secondary

education, all of the key senior secondary schools are in the cities. In many cases,

those teen-agers in rural areas or in country sides stop schooling by simply

joining the labor force after the compulsory education or even before finishing

the compulsory education, because there is no hope for them to receive a high

quality of senior secondary education.

There are two goals for the three years of senior secondary education. First,

it is to help students finish the required coursework in order to get the high school

diploma, and second, it is to prepare students for national examination. In most

cases, the preparation for national examination takes place in the second year of

senior secondary education. In that year, students are asked to decide their field

of study: humanities and social science or science. Their coursework for the

remainder of the senior secondary education is based on their choice of disciple.

For instance, if they decide to study science, they are given more math courses

and if they choose to study humanities and social science they have more classes

on history and Chinese literature.

In China, equity in tertiary education is related and/or heavily tied to equity

in secondary education. As discussed previously, Chinese secondary education is

divided in two parts with the junior secondary education being compulsory and

the senior secondary education being optional. Research finds that from 1998 to

2002, the percentage of transition students from junior secondary to senior

secondary school decreased from 59.7% to 58.3%. This means more than 40% of

students have already lost their opportunities to access tertiary education at the

end of the junior secondary education. In 1998, senior secondary student access

to tertiary education was 46.1% and in 2002, it increased to 83.5%. 60

According

to these percentages, senior secondary education has become a bottleneck for

rural student access to tertiary education. When students see no hope of getting a

good quality tertiary education, they stop their education at the senior secondary

school level.

59

http://www.edu.cn/gai_kuang_495/20100121/t20100121_441887.shtml 60

Resource: from the recent report from the task group on study of equity problem of higher education in China,

http://www.folo.cn/tb.asp?id=6666

51

Due to the importance of senior secondary education in access to tertiary

education, most provinces and cities have established a well-structured tracking

senior secondary education system. In these senior secondary schools, high

quality teachers who are qualified student advisors support students sitting for the

national examination; however this service is not available in the rural schools. If

one wants to see more rural male/female students get equal access to the first tier

universities, or even into regular four years universities, more resources should

be put into senior secondary education in the rural areas. Current policies

referring to education and distribution of resources tend to focus on compulsory

education in the less developed regions; hopefully in a few years, there will be a

shift.

―Institutionalized mechanism‖ in equal access

To access tertiary education, one has to pass senior secondary education and

then take the national examination. The Chinese national examination system has

been passed down from the Chinese academic history. The examination is

content focused, and it is well known for its toughness. The nation examination

takes place in the first weekend of June every year. And all students are required

to take the examination based on their residence; residence here means the place

where students register, but not where they actually live. Therefore, children of

the mobile workers need to go back to their hometown for both their senior

secondary schooling and to participate in the national examination (national

enrollment quotas are decided by residency). Inside the country, the national

examination has been considered as the most fair system in the world by many

people, (students, parents, and policy makers), but careful examination reveals

problems beneath the façade of fairness.

As mentioned before, access to tertiary education in China is dependent on

the national examination score. Generally speaking, the higher the test scores the

better the access opportunity . But in many cases, the assumption may not be

true.

In her research, Luan (2007) 61

finds disparity for students to enter into

different categories of universities across provinces. Applicants, in Beijing with a

516 test score can enter 211 projects universities, while in Hunan provinces, one

61Luan, Zhaoyun (2007) exploration of the problem equal access to higher education in

Shangdong Province, unpublished master thesis, Shandong Normal University ,p32.

52

may need to have 593 test scores or above to get into 211 project universities.

The following table shows the variation.

Test scores for access to higher learning institutions in different provinces in 2006.

categories

Humanities and social science (test scores) Sciences and engineering(test score)

regions

211/985

regular

university

local

colleges

short

cycles

211/ 985

regular

university

local

university

short

cycles

Shandong 568 549 526 280 583 553 527 280

Beijing 516 467 442 338 528 476 442 350

Hunan 593 556 513 320 547 496 467 280

Zhejiang 583 550 501 491 570 527 466 448

Tianjin 477 436 410 350 505 455 430 340

Qinghai 452 386 348 315 434 374 335 320

Theoretically, in tertiary education enrollment, in less developed provinces,

the test scores to get into the best universities should be lower, like in Qinghai

province in the table. But in fact, this is not always true. For example in Shanghai,

Beijing, and Tianjin, where there are plenty of education opportunities, a student

with a much lower test score can get into good quality institutions, whereas in

other provinces like Hunan and Shandong provinces, the situation would be very

different.

Recently, the Association of Higher Education in China presented a set of

analysis by looking at the first tier universities enrollment national test scores. It

reveals the same problem.

Comparison of test scores from some provinces to be in the first tier universities in 2008 and 2009

62

Year 2008 2009

provinces

Humanities and

social science (test

scores)

Sciences and

engineering(test

score)

Humanities and

social science (test

scores)

Sciences and

engineering(te

st score)

Beijing

515

502 532 501

Henan

557 563 552 567

Anhui

553 563 543 579

Jiangxi

520 512 515 518

Zhejiang

550 550 606 605

Fujian

547 534 569 582

62

Special Report on Academic Activities of Association of Higher Education in China, 2009: 6: 24.

53

The above table shows the minimum test scores needed for students to get

into four year undergraduate universities in several provinces. In Beijing to get

into four year universities in 2009, the minimum test score was 532 in

humanities and social sciences, while in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, the

required test scores were 606 and 569 respectively.

In her research, Yao (2007)finds that at Ocean University in Tsingdao, a

coastal city in the Shangdong provinces. New entrants in the university come in

with different test scores; students from Shanghai can get into Ocean University

to study humanities with a score of only 501 whereas students from Shangdong

have to have a test score of 592 as of 2006. And for science majors, in 2006,

students from Shanghai just needed a test score of 468, whereas students from

Shandong had to have a test score of 618.

Enrollment test scores of Ocean university of China63

provinces Humanities sciences

2004 2005 2006 2004 2005 2006

Shandong 600 593 592 637 624 618

Beijing 480 492 532 500 472 542

Tianjin 548 510 508 533 462 541

Shanghai 464 484 501 463 476 468

Hebei 537 517 560 566 546 548

Guizhou 551 564 546 520 551 560

Qinghai 501 504 452 518 478 474

Many reasons contribute to the current inequity in access to the first tier

universities. In his research, Prashant Kumar Loyalka (2009) used the term

“ institutional mechanisms” 64

Here institutional mechanism consists of two parts:

pre-college entrance exam and post college entrance exam. In China, for access

to tertiary education, an applicant has to follow the path that is institutionally

prescribed. So the pre-college entrance exam institutional mechanisms include

residence permit (rural/urban), tracking system in senior secondary school, the

university and major enrollment quotas, the decision on the adding score criteria

and the decisions on the minimum enrollment test sore by provinces.

The phenomenon discussed above is related with the national enrollment

quotas system. Every year, before the national examination, national universities

63

Yao, Zhaoyun (2007), Research and Analysis on the Issue of the Equal Opportunity of the

Higher Education Enrollment of Shandong Province, Shangdong Normal University, unpublished master

thesis,p.33. 64

Prashant Kumar Loyalka (2009) Institutional mechanisms and sorting across China‟s higher education system, unpublished

conference paper for 2009 International Academic symposium on Higher Education Finance.

54

will set up enrollment quotas among the 31 regions and provinces under the

direction of MOE. Generally speaking, the quotas system is always in favor of

provinces and cities with a strong tertiary education, that is, higher the gross

enrollment of the provinces or cities, lower the test score needed to get enrolled.

Currently, there does not seem to be much research on how the enrollment

quota is set up, but the following table shows Peking University enrollment quotas

in a few provinces in 2008.

The planned enrollment quotas of Peking University in some provinces in 200865

provinces Numbers

planned to

enroll in

Humanities

and social

sciences

Numbers

planned to

enroll in

science and

engineering

Total

enrollment

Numbers

registered for

Peking

University (10

thousand

people

%Opportunity

to get into

Peking

University

Beijing 106 180 280 10.37 17.94

Henan 30 49 79 90.5 0.88

Jiangxi 18 27 45 38.44 1.17

Anhui 20 23 43 61 0.70

Hubei 25 42 67 52.5 1.28

Gansu 10 10 20 30 0.67

The above table indicates that Peking University planned to enroll 280

students in Beijing in 2008, the total number of students the university planned to

enroll in Henan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei and Gansu was 254 students. The number

of students the university planned to enroll in Beijing is more than the total

number of the other five provinces. Therefore, the possibility for a student to get

into Peking University in Beijing is much easier than the possibility for students

in other provinces.

The same situation applies to other “985 program” and “211 project”

universities, such as Fudan University in Shanghai, Zhongshan University in

Guangzhou, and Nankai University in Tianjin. Here, the well-known public

universities, which are heavily invested with national funds, seem to benefit local

needs. The problem of the localization of national universities has been among

public concerns recently. Zhang, Quanta, a professor from Peking University

considered this to be unfair due to the redistribution of public tertiary education

resources; it should be considered as location discrimination.66

As Zhang says, in

65Special Report on Academic Activities of Association of Higher Education in China, 2009: 6: 25. 66

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2010-01-06/041519406695.shtml

55

remote areas, there are not many education resources; children there may not

have even a high quality compulsory education in comparison with children from

areas like Beijing and Shanghai. Public universities should take the responsibility

of bringing equity to children with a lower quality of initial education. The

problem is that in China in tertiary education enrollment, more attention is given

to national examination test score, but discrimination in enrollment quotas is

neglected.

Tertiary education policy related problem

Inequity in access to tertiary education could also be policy related. At the

beginning of 1978, when all of the students were supposed to be enrolled based

on the results of the national examination, there were some new entrants who

entered under the “walk and reading” policy program. Then there was a policy

for universities to admit a few extra students, by asking them not to use

university accommodation, (then universities were asked to provide every student

a bed in dormitories). That policy provided a path to children from urban cadres.

Based on that policy, in 1985, a so-called “ twin-track” system started. In 1985

when universities first experienced financial difficulty, the national government

gave universities some kind of autonomy to keep a few slots for fee-paying

students. Statistics shows that in 1988, nationwide, there were 422,000 fee-

paying students in public higher learning institutions, 67

though there was no clear

idea on policy quotas for the percentage of fee-paying students, but the number

increased each year until 1997, when the twin track policy was stopped, As in

1985, when the twin-track system was first adopted, the students who can get into

the fee-paying track were not likely to be the children of farmers or workers.

Similar thing still in practice now is the “Gongjian policy.” In 1993, when

<the outline for education development> was published, there is a phrase in the

document termed “gonging.” Gonging means that the local government should

take some financial responsibility to build higher learning institutions together

with the center government. Traditionally, Chinese tertiary education was solely

sponsored by the central government, but following the explosive growth of the

tertiary system, it is no longer possible for the central government to be the sole

sponsor, so even before the decision to establish the cost sharing system, the

central government issued a call for the local governments to support tertiary

education.

67

“Debate: is tuitions in higher education “evil”

http://xzx.shnu.edu.cn/Default.aspx?tabid=421&ctl=Details&mid=1043&ItemID=1825&SkinSrc=%5BL%5DSki

ns/zhixing1/zhixing1

56

When local governments started to put money toward national universities, it

is conditional on universities accepting more students from the local cities or

regions.. In 2007, eight MOE universities in Wuhan get additional 1,770 students

into the universities from Wuhan city areas because the Wuhan municipal

government has supported those universities. The students who got into the

universities were called “gongjian students”. They got into the eight universities

with test scores that were 20 below the minimum Hubei province tertiary

education entrance test score. And this has been in practice since 2002. 68

As

national universities, this act favors local students, and it is unfair to student‟s

nation-wide. Whether this “gongjian” enrollment only happens in Wuhan city

needs further investigation, but obviously it reflects the side product to the

original idea of the “Gongjian” policy.

Rural girls and the compulsory education law

In my research on girl‟s education in a minority county in Hebei province from

2002 to 2004, I found that more girls dropped out of schools earlier than boys.

Mostly they dropped off at the beginning of second year of junior secondary

schools.69

There are many reasons for this dropout of the schools. Too poor to

pay the school fees, distance to schools and no hope of entering into good senior

secondary schools and lack of motivation for school all are reasons for the female

drop-out rate. In his research, Xing (2003)70

found that even in economic

developed areas in Shan Dong province, when the family economic situation is

much better than in my sample county, rural girls tend to leave school sooner

because there are more opportunities to get paid jobs.

In their research on basic education development and policy suggestions, both

Wang & Lang (2007)71

did a case analysis of a few less economic developed

counties in Gansu province; two of the six counties are ethnic minority counties.

86 center schools are included in this research, Research shows that enrollment

for girls are high in elementary schools but not in junior secondary schools. In

one of the minority counties, female enrollment was only 34% and in another

county, female enrollment was 84%. This shows that though there is a

68

Question and answers on the enrollment of “gongjiansheng” http://www.hb.xinhuanet.com/zhuanti/2007-

05/28/content_10140029.htm 69

Ma, Wanhua (2003) why do girls stopping going to schools?—a case analysis on girls dropping out of schools

in one of the Hebei County” Peking University Education Review, 3 :70-77 70

Xing, Zhiqiang ( 2003) analysis for girls dropping off schools in economic developed areas, master thesis. 71

Wang Jiayi & Liang, Yongping (2007) Developmental condition and policy research on basic education in the

North West poverty areas in Peking University Education Review, 2:148-156.

57

compulsory education law, it is not fully carried out in the rural local community.

According their research, the dropout rate in one of the county was 57.89%.

As a result, rural women‟s education level is very low. In <the developmental

report in China: society and development---a research on the gap of Chinese

regional development gap> report in the rural areas, almost 59 percent of women

have an elementary education, only about 42% of women have a junior

secondary education and about 14% of females are illiterate。At the age of 20,

only 14.5% of females are in colleges.72

Now that the low enrollment of rural female students in every tier of tertiary

education has become obvious, it is also clear that they do not have the

opportunities to finish junior secondary education. In China, except for the

central government‟s role in pushing compulsory education, local governments,

especially communities do not seem to pay much attention towards getting girls

to finish their junior secondary education. When parents stop girls from going to

schools, there is no law enforcement for protection.

Monetary factors and educational equity

The cost of tertiary education

Many researchers have examined the monetary factors that create barriers for

access and success in tertiary education for poor students. In China, national

GDP spending on education was only 3.48% in 2009. With this low education

expenditure, the only choice for universities is to increase fees and tuition or take

loans from the bank to maintain daily operations.

Chinese tertiary education was free until 1993. Even in 1985, when the dual

track system was adapted, those who were selected in the tuition track only

needed to pay 200RMB per academic year, amounting to mostly a symbolic

contribution. In 1993, when the “Outline for Chinese education reform and

development” was published, there began a real discussion of collecting tuition

and fees for college students, which was then called a “cost-sharing mechanism.”

In 1994, the Chinese government decided to implement tuition and fees in a few

universities, with tuition of only 800 RMB. In 1997, all universities began to

charge tuition and fees, the tuition were 2,000 RMB. At the time, there were few

protests to the change, perhaps because the annual tuition was low in comparison

72

http://www.china.com.cn/lady/txt/2005-03/02/content_5799481.htm

58

with 6,000RMB ( About 750 US dollars), which was the fee rate in 2004. 73

In

1999, when the increased enrollment policy was implemented, all of the

stakeholders seemed to be satisfied—s students in senior secondary schools and

their parents were especially pleased, because this would mean they likely would

have more opportunities to access tertiary education. Presidents of regular

colleges and universities felt that tuition and fees would help the universities with

their finances and operational capacity. The center government was supportive

because it meant the universities were able to take more students without asking

for support. Only the Minban institutions felt pressured for lack of

competitiveness to get good senior secondary graduates.

Following the enrollment increase, the tuition was increased too. Such as in

Beijing, the average university tuition is between 4,200 to 5,500RMB. In science

and engineering, the tuition is between 4,600-5,500RMB, and in languages and

medical sciences, the tuition is between 5,000-6,000RMB. 74

Besides tuition

increases, living expenses also increased, with accommodation costs growing

from about 270 RMB in 1997 and in 2004, to 1200 RMB currently. Factoring in

meals, books, and transportation, a student‟s expenses for an academic year could

easily top more than 10,000RMB. The rapid increase of tuitions and fees

definitely became a big burden to many families.

As calculated in 2004, urban citizen‟s annul net family income was

9,422RMB, and rural family annual net income was 2,936RMB. 75

Based on that

calculation, for an urban household to support a college student to finish his/her

education it needs to spend four years of net family income, whereas a farmer

needs to spend 13.6 years of net family income to support a college student. In

the less developed regions in the west, where the tuition and fees could be a bit

lower, about 7,000RMB, four years expenses would be 28,0000RMB, equivalent

to a farmer‟s 35 years net income. In order to find alternatives to support poor

students, every August, CCTV and other public media ask for donations.

Then there are the cases of poor new entrants, who could not pay and have to

give up the opportunities. The tuition increase caught the attention of the central

government, so in 2005, there was another administrative order to stop the

increase by setting up a fixed tuition rate for public universities with more

73

Li, Zhifeng, (2007)” Analysis on the relevance of national loans to tuition in China” in Journal of southwest

Jiaotong University, 2:27. 74

Gao, Guijuan & Chen, Hui (2005), “The evolution of tuition in higher education in China” in Journal of Qujing

Normal University, 1:86 75

Graduate unemployment due to university enrollment increase in from 1999,

http://news.ifeng.com/special/gaokao/30year/200705/0523_1193_122847.shtml

59

government subsidies. Now in “211 project” and “985 program” universities , the

tuition is about 5000 RMB.

60

Tuition levels at the six top public universities in 200676

Universities Regular programs

（RMB）

Programs in Art and

Music (RMB)

Tsinghua University 5,000 12,000

Chinese Renmin University 5,000 10,000

Beijing Normal University 4,800 8,000

Beijing University of

Technology

5,000-6,000 10,000

Fudan University 5,000-6,500 10,000

Huadong University of

Technology

5,000-6,000 10,000

In Minban universities and independent colleges, tuitions and fess could be

three times or four times higher than that of regular public colleges and

universities. Legally, in China, all higher learning institutions are not for profit.

But profit seeking could be clearly observed in Minban universities or colleges.

Students loans and assistance program

Actually the national policy in providing financial aid has been in practice

since 1999. The national support system includes needs-based aid and, merit aid

from the center government, university aid, society aid, different loans and work

study program. In the following table, Loyalka (2009)77

provides a detailed

description of those aids and loan programs.

76

Xiao, Jie (2007) A study on tuition of public universities and equal opportunity to higher education,

unpublished master thesis, Wuhan University of Technology. 77

Prashant Kumar Loyalka (2009) Is aid reaching poor students? The distribution of student financial aid across

Chinese higher education system, unpublished paper in paper collection “ 2009 International Academic

Symposium on Higher Education Finance” Beijing, Nov.7, 2009.p. 234-235

61

Main types of college student financial aid in China

Type of aid Description Amount and coverage

Government need-based

Need-based grants All students who faced with

financial difficulties

RMB1,000-3,000 per year,

coverage of 20% of all university

students

Living and meal subsidies Subsidies to defray living and

meal costs

various

Government merit aid

Merit-based scholarships Awarded to top-performing

sophomores, juniors and seniors

RMB8,000per year

0.3% of all university students

Need-based merit

scholarships

Top performing sophomores,

juniors and seniors who have

financial difficulties

RMB5,000.

3% of all university students

Special major scholarship Given to students major in special

need of the country

various

University Aid

Tuition waivers Reductions in student tuition various

Work study program Typical work study arrangement various

Special need subsidies Subsidies for students in dire

need

According to need

University scholarships Merit scholarships given by

university

various

University needs-based aid Subsidies for low-income

students

various

Society aid

Grants and scholarships A hodgepodge of aid from local

government, corporations and

philanthropic organizations.

Loans

National school-based loans Provided by commercial banks in

coordination with the university,

should be repaid within 6 years

after graduation

RMB6000 per year

Government subsidizes interest

while students attends college

Home-based loans Provided by National

development bank, students apply

through country-level students

financial aid offices in their

hometowns, should be repaid

within 10 years after graduation

RMB6000 per year

Government subsidizes interest

while students attends college

From this table, one can see there are different opportunities to get help for

poor students to finish their tertiary education, but a careful examination of those

aid programs, exposes the limitations within each of these categories.

First, need-based scholarships provide the most coverage. The program is

designated to provide coverage to 20% of all university students. But, in his

research, Loyalka finds this aid is subject tracked to the first and second tier

universities. This means more opportunities for science students to get

government need-based aid and fewer opportunities for humanity students and

less opportunity for students in the third tier universities. This finding is not

62

surprising, however, because the first tier and the majority of second tier

universities are national universities, so most of the government aids go to the

national universities.

Though the government need-based aid provides the most coverage, the

amount of money is only 1,000 to 3,000RMB per year, which, for a truly poor

student, may not be enough to support attending and completing tertiary

education.

Second, the merit-based scholarship is ideal for poor students, because the

amount of the money is 8,000RMB. Since it is merit-based, however, it is very

competitive, and only those students with the highest academic ability can get the

scholarships. It is also science subject based. As a result, the two aid

scholarships are difficult for student of average talent to get.

Third, university aid is also favors students in the sciences. In recent years,

28.3% students in sciences and 24.8% students in humanities in the first and

second tier universities have received the aid, so chances to receive this aid in the

third tier universities have been low. Loyalk‟s research shows the distribution of

aid for the first tier students is 32%, versus 27% in the second tier, and 18% in

the third tier universities. This might also indicate that more male students than

female students are receiving the aid, because female students enroll

disproportionately in humanities and social sciences at second and third tier

colleges.

Fourth, endowment funding in Chinese higher education is very limited. Only

the first tier universities like Peking and Tsinghua have education foundations

and collect donations from private sources. The resulting social aid programs

can only provide support to a few students in the first tier universities, regardless,

though the students who get this award occasionally receive significant amounts

of funding, usually 2,000 to 3,000RMB.

Loan programs seem to be a good choice for all need-based students, and

between Jan. and Sept from 2002, four national commercial banks in the country

started to offer such programs. But, according to Li (2004), there are several

problems with this program. First it is hard to measure or estimate household

income in China. Since there is no system to record family income, all of the

information for the loan comes from the student own statement. Second,

commercial banks are all profit seeking in loaning out money, and there are

always disputes between students and banks on the term of the loans and the

63

repayment windows for the loans.

And third, to evaluate the government aid program, there is a need to

understand whether it would provide the coverage necessary for individual

students. According to governmental statistics on tertiary education, the

proportion of needy students is around 20%. But, some research show that in

agriculture and normal universities, the proportion could be closer to 30%,78 and

some statistics also shows that in the west regions, the proportion of poor

students could reach to 40%. 79 In making decisions of where to study, poor

students will usually choose those universities with seemingly lower tuition and

fees, but they are often unaware that, since those universities have less financial

aid, they might be better served by a more elite institution with greater levels of

aid. According to Zhao (2004),80

at the end of 2002, though 19% of students

needed financial supports, only 10% got the loans. Today, the situation has

improved with the new loan policy, discussed in the conclusions..

Conclusion

New policies for equity in tertiary education

This report provides an overview of the issue of equity and access of tertiary

education in China by first looking at the scale of Chinese tertiary education. For

78 Study on the problems and strategies of providing fellowships to poor students in China

http://wenda.tianya.cn/wenda/thread?tid=6a2b7d567ec8d097 79Lin, hong & Tang,Fengtao “Ways to help poor students getting out of the dilemma of

assistantships in less developed regions, “Journal of Jingdezhen Comprehensive College,22:2 80

Zhao, Jianjun (2004), “Some thought on improving national loan policy” in Peking University Education

Review, 2:1:11.

64

over 30 years, gross enrollment in tertiary education has increase from 1.56% to

23.3%. Following the enlargement of the student scale, the number of

institutions has been increased from 400 in 1978 to more than 3500 in 2009.

There are multiple providers to tertiary education. But, due to China‟s

unbalanced economic development, less economic developed regions provide

less opportunity for mass access. In the economically more developed regions,

where tertiary education has mass enrollment levels, there is a serious

competition for the first tier universities; more urban students have opportunities

to access the first tier universities; and more rural students have access to second

or third tier universities. Even when rural students have opportunities to access

first tier universities, in many cases they become vulnerable to “disciplinary

stratification.”

The gross enrollment increases since 1999 have created more opportunities

both for male and female students to access tertiary education. Currently female

proportion has reached more than 49%. With that proportion, it may appear that

women have made great strides toward gender equity, but behind the simple

gender parity, the proportion of female students in master and Ph.D. degree

programs is still relatively low. Female students are still under-represented in

science and engineering, in particularly, and, furthermore, at the undergraduate

level, more female students are in the second and third tier universities than in

first tier institutions.

For the convenience of analysis, much of the research examines gender as a

category to represent all female students. A careful examination of female

student family background in conjunction with the location and quality of the

universities they attended exposes further divides in access, showing that urban

female students experience higher degrees of access to the first tier universities

and more ambitious and, likely, rewarding academic majors than rural males and

females. Rural females with poor family background have the most difficulty to

access the nation‟s best universities. Here in tertiary education, just as in society

as a whole, issues of gender equity are closely related to issues of social class.

Opportunities for ethnic minorities to access tertiary education have

improved with special national education policies and regional governments‟

autonomy in promoting local education development. In order to have ethnic

minority students truly access opportunities for “main streaming” tertiary

education, many regional schools begin to offer “preparatory programs” and,

even, “bilingual education” with governmental financial support, but current

65

research on the impact of such programs on social stratification of ethnic

minorities and gender are still limited, exposing a need for further research.

As explored throughout this report, there is an array of barriers for access to

tertiary education. The non-monetary barriers mostly originate from the

educational system itself. First, all of the key senior secondary schools are in the

cities, resulting in urban children benefitting from this system design at the

expense of rural children. Second, though not many people really understand how

universities enrollment quotas are set, there is a tendency of enrolling local

students in national universities. This raises the question of how to distribute the

best education resources most equitably. Third, in the process of competing for

the best education resources, even national tertiary education enrollment policies

could be used to benefit the local few. Fourth, across the country, there is a

compulsory attendance law, but it does not seem to function as a law in the

reality, when parents intentionally want their girls to drop out of school, and the

law is rarely invoked to protect girls. There is a need to enforce the compulsory

education law in order to have more rural girls finish secondary education.

There are monetary factors to prevent poor students, both male and female, to

access tertiary education. Though the national government has put a lot of effort

in setting up different financial aid programs, it does not seem to be able to

provide access to all of the qualified but under-represented students even in the

second tier and third tier colleges universities.

Three new policies have been in place to further erode those barriers. One is

to invest more money in the less developed regions, to provide more tertiary

education opportunities to ethnic minorities and students from poor families. The

other is to allow poor students to take loans from their hometown before they get

registered at colleges and universities. Many provinces in the country started to

implement this policy, which intends to meet the financial needs of all students,

in 2009. The third policy is to develop technical and vocational education to

complement standard tertiary opportunities in the country. The on-going

“Building 100 model technical colleges” initiative is the governmental effort to

get more students interested in technical tertiary education.

Together with those policies, the Chinese government is strategically

developing tertiary education by locating at least one “211 project” institution in

every province and autonomous region. To increase tertiary education enrollment

and improve the quality of tertiary education in less developed regions, a policy

has been adapted to develop vocational and technical colleges using heavy

66

government investment. For instance,, according to Wang (2007)81

, the center

government allocated 9.5 billion RMB, together with 5.9 billion RMB from the

local government, to establish fellowships to support vocation and technical

education. Poor children in technical schools could get 1,500RMB monthly to

cover their living expenses and those students receiving fellowships pay no

tuition.

Monetary problems for accessing to tertiary education seem easy to be solved,

while non-monetary factors are more challenging. Parents‟ traditional views on

girls and girls‟ education in the countryside will likely require a long time and a

continuous effort to achieve change. Aside from some preparatory programs in

ethnic minority regions to help minority students to access tertiary education,

there is no attention even to understanding ethnic minority girls‟ participation in

education. In this case, it might be necessary to have laws to help rural girls

complete their schooling.

81

http://www.gov.cn/zxft/ft34/wz.htm

67

Suggestion for further research

In term of equity and access, some final proposals for follow-up efforts to

continue this examination of equity of access and success in tertiary education in

China. The first is to establish a national statistics database, to monitor the

changes of tertiary education, particularly to capture data on access and equity.

Second, it is imperative that the quality of rural senior secondary schools is

improved, to attract more rural children. Third, more attention should be given to

rural girls in helping them to finish secondary education and take advantage of

opportunities to access tertiary education. And fourth, there should be more

research on ethnic minority participation in tertiary education, to further

understand the social, education and gender stratification of ethnic minorities in

tertiary education, so that educational policies would be more relevant and

specific.

In the Chinese tertiary education system, the best quality universities are all

public or national. Since they are national universities, everyone should have

equal opportunity to access. One important issue that emerged through the

execution and analysis of the research for this report is how to distribute the

country‟s limited best education resources in order to be fair to everyone. This

provides a challenge to “211project” and “985 program” universities: to look for

the best students with creativity and explore as broadly and honestly the role they

should play in driving equity in terms of access and success for the future of

Chinese tertiary education.