Since 2023, Beijing, Guangzhou, Jinan, and Dalian have issued compulsory education degree warnings. Beijing’s 2023 government work report stated that from 2017 to 2022, Beijing has accumulatively increased 180,000 primary and secondary school places, and plans to continue to increase 20,000 primary and secondary school places in 2023. These degree pressures stem from the substantial increase in the birth population in the year when the "universal two-child" policy was implemented in 2016.
But the other side of the story is that after just one year of the baby boom, my country's birth population has continued to decline rapidly since 2017, from 17.23 million in that year to 9.56 million in 2022. The large fluctuations in the birth population also have a series of chain reactions on different stages of education. Ye Zhaohui, a chair professor of social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong and a former population consultant to the SAR government, described it as a "domino effect". He warned that the decline in the number of births will first It affects kindergarten, then schools and colleges, and ultimately the workforce.
After China has entered the era of negative population growth, how can education respond to population changes? How should local governments scientifically plan the allocation of educational resources in the next few decades according to the changing trend of the school-age population? Will the educational gap between urban and rural areas widen further?
Qiao Jinzhong, an associate professor at the Research Institute of Higher Education, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, and director of the Regional Education Branch of the China Educational Strategy Society, has specialized in research on the relationship between population changes and educational resource allocation, and participated in policy consultation for multiple departments and bureaus of the Ministry of Education, preparation of provincial, city and county education planning and Government assessment. On related issues, he recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Weekly.
In 2035, the number of students enrolled in compulsory education may decrease by 30 million
China News Weekly: In 2022, China will officially enter the era of negative population growth. As newborns continue to decline, the school-age population will decrease accordingly. How will population changes affect the demand for educational resources at different stages?
Qiao Jinzhong: In fact, as early as the 1990s, China's total fertility rate had dropped to about 2, and this number should reach at least 2.1 in order to reach the normal generation replacement level of the population. In 2016, the "universal two-child" policy was implemented in China, but the effect was not satisfactory, and the policy effect was released soon. Since 2017, the number of births in the whole year has continued to decline. In 2018, there will be a decrease of 2 million people compared with 2017. In 2020 and 2021, there will be a decrease of about 2 million compared with the previous year. The trend of continuous decline in China's birth population in the future is basically irreversible. .
Now the obstetrics and gynecology department has become overcrowded from the shortage of beds in the past, and kindergartens have not been as difficult as before in the past two years. Therefore, preschool education is the first to experience negative population growth. The impact is most obvious at this stage, but in the longer term, compulsory education will be most severely affected in the future.
Our team used a model to predict the changes in the school-age population in the compulsory education stage from 2020 to 2035, and found that the number of students in the national compulsory education stage rose slowly in the short term, peaked at about 146 million in 2024, and then showed an accelerated decline. From 2025 to 2028, the average annual number of students will decrease by one to two million, and from 2028 to 2035, the annual reduction will be three to four million. Specifically, the peak demand for primary school places will appear in 2024, about 4.85 million more than in 2020, and the peak for junior high school places will appear later in 2029. Finally, by 2035, the number of students enrolled in compulsory education will be reduced by about 30 million compared with 140 million in 2020. In fact, the total fertility rate figure we used when making predictions was 1.5, but the total fertility rate in 2021 has dropped to 1.15. The reality may be less optimistic than we predicted.
China News Weekly: The number of students at school has decreased by 30 million. Should schools be reduced accordingly?
Qiao Jinzhong: In fact, since 2003, the number of schools in the national compulsory education stage has shown a downward trend, and this trend will continue during 2020~2035, and the rate of decline will gradually accelerate. The forecast shows that in 2035, the demand for primary and junior high schools nationwide will be 92,800 and 47,900 respectively, a decrease of 51,400 and 3,800 respectively compared with 2020. Obviously, negative population growth has a greater impact on primary schools than junior high schools, because primary schools are more densely distributed and have a smaller service radius during planning, so the overall base is also larger, while junior high schools cover a larger area, so there is more redundant space .
China News Weekly: That is to say, due to the reduction of students, the number of primary schools will be reduced by at least half in 12 years. Which schools may be closed or collapsed in the first wave in the future?
Qiao Jinzhong: Primary schools in areas with severe population shrinkage may be the first to shrink, which is mainly related to the geographical location and social environment of the school. In addition, a number of private primary schools may also "die", especially in areas where the proportion of private schools is relatively high. In some areas, the number of students in private schools even exceeds that of public schools. This may be due to the relatively weak financial resources of the local government. Insufficient investment in public education. However, at the stage of compulsory education, it should return to public education. In the past two years, the state has been actively adjusting policies, guiding and urging local governments to effectively undertake legal educational responsibilities.
Generally speaking, the relationship between the supply and demand of education in the future will definitely change fundamentally, which will bring about two results: on the one hand, schools will encounter difficulties in enrolling students, and some will go bankrupt; on the other hand, as the number of students decreases, schools will naturally turn to With small-class teaching, the class size will be reduced, and the student-teacher ratio will be reduced accordingly. Teachers will finally have the conditions to shift from focusing on class control to paying more attention to each individual, which is objectively conducive to improving the quality of education and teaching. Other countries in the world that have experienced "population collapse" have also experienced such a trend in education: in the future, China's compulsory education will definitely take the road of small class size and quality improvement.
China News Weekly: The trend of Japan’s declining birth rate has become apparent since the 1980s. Since the 1990s, the Japanese educational philosophy has undergone significant changes: “loose education” has been advocated, and “experiential learning” has been widely introduced in primary schools. Every stage of education in China is still very "volume". In the future, as the relationship between education supply and demand changes, will it follow the path of Japan?
Qiao Jinzhong: There is a great possibility. In the future, it will be easier to go to college, and students will not need to be so nervous. We will also control the pace of education better. Students will also shift from simply focusing on scores and rankings to focusing on knowledge itself, and no longer need to fall into various competitions This is conducive to the overall improvement of the quality of running schools throughout the compulsory education stage.
It is also worth noting that in the process of changes in the relationship between education supply and demand, the timing of the adjustment of school-running conditions and standards is very important, because the number of schools required in each region is related to both the size of the school-age population and the school-running conditions and standards. For example, the Ministry of Education currently stipulates that the class size of primary schools should not exceed 45 students, and that of middle schools should not exceed 50 students. When and how should this standard be adjusted in the future? I personally think that we should try our best to avoid simple large-scale construction or withdrawal of schools in years when the demand for degrees fluctuates greatly. When the government builds and withdraws schools, it should also flexibly adjust the school-running standards to jointly cope with the increase or decrease of the school-age population. Timely adjustments to school-running conditions and standards, such as the regulation of class sizes, can keep school supply relatively stable, with a certain amount of redundancy, and avoid waste of financial resources. If there are too many new schools built just to meet the peak demand, the school-age population will decline rapidly after reaching the peak, and a large number of newly built schools may cause a waste of resources.
China News Weekly: While the number of schools is decreasing, what changes will happen to the allocation of teachers in this process?
Qiao Jinzhong: Similar to the changing trend of the number of students in school, the demand for full-time teachers in the compulsory education stage in my country will decrease in general from 2020 to 2035. According to the current student-teacher ratio standard, by 2035, there will be about 1.5 million primary school teachers and 370,000 junior high school teachers. There is a large excess demand for primary school teachers, and there is a shortage of junior high school teachers first and then a surplus.
In order to cope with these surpluses, in addition to reducing the class size and student-teacher ratio, in the future, while stabilizing the enrollment plans of the Ministry and Provincial Normal Universities, gradually reduce the enrollment of normal students in normal colleges and higher vocational colleges, and maintain a certain number of teachers. and quality. In addition, the teacher training system should also be adjusted, adjusting the professional setting of teachers, expanding the number of students enrolled in subjects such as music, physical education, art, labor, general technology, preschool, childcare and special education, and reducing the enrollment plan of cultural subjects. In fact, there is a relatively serious structural shortage in the current teacher supply. Teachers for major subjects such as language and mathematics are relatively easy to have a surplus, while teachers for small subjects such as art, physical education, and science are even more in short supply.
