Introduction

China’s education, like its economy and society, is moving forward but facing challenges. It has achieved spectacular progress since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), even though it had suffered tremendous losses before the reform era. Since 1978, the education policy has shifted gear from being mainly politically oriented to meeting the goal of the modernization of the country. In 1949, 80 per cent of the Chinese population was illiterate or half-illiterate; the total school enrollment accounted for only 4.76 per cent of the population. Out of every 100,000 people, there were only 22 college graduates, 230 middle school graduates and 4500 elementary school graduates. Yet the 2005 population survey showed a totally different picture: out of every 100,000 people, there were 5173 college graduates, 47,477 middle school graduates and 31,131 elementary school graduates.1 In 2002, the Chinese government declared that it had accomplished the national goal of popularizing nine years of compulsory education “on the whole” by 2000.2 This is indeed an amazing achievement for a country with a GDP per capita of less than 1000 US dollars.