Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > FY2003 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology >Part1 Chapter4 Section6

Primary and secondary education in China begins at age six and continues for 12 years. After completing primary and secondary education, students can advance to higher education. Institutions of higher education include short-cycle colleges, universities and junior colleges (two to three years), and technical institutes.

China's current higher education reforms have been placed as part of its basic policies aimed at economic development. In May 1998, then-president, Jiang Zemin, at a celebration ceremony for the 100th anniversary of Peking University, described modern society by saying "science and technology is progressing at a blistering pace, a knowledge-based economy has emerged, and international competition is getting fiercer by the day." He stated that Peking University must form a "huge new powerful army in China's strategy of developing the country through science and technology and education," and appealed to universities, saying, "The level of progress that the world makes must be dictated by the universities."

The Chinese government, based on this thinking, is currently moving forward with reforms incorporating competition to establish a new system which will respond to demands from the market economy. These reforms, which will move China away from a planned economy system, will be the most drastic since the Chinese Revolution in 1949.