Abstract
China’s ups and downs over the past 50 years reflect the political ideology and the economic reforms applied to its social and economic development. Since the 1990s, China has achieved unprecedented social progress and global economic success. Along with these progresses, new reforms have been implemented to restructure and rebalance China’s education system. In spite of these reforms, disparities in education continue to exist between urban/rural areas and regions in China. At a time when the education system has expanded in size to a point unprecedented in China’s history, a crisis of quality education perpetuates the slow development of China’s rural areas. These rural areas are generally found in China’s western and border regions, contain a prevalence of ethnic minorities, and are less economically developed. The poor quality of education in China’s rural areas is evidenced in high drop-out rates, low enrollment, poor teacher quality, lack of resources, and inappropriate school curriculum. Policies and changes are suggested in line with the human development paradigm in order to improve education and participation and foster human development in rural China. Improving infrastructure to overcome geographic barriers is fundamental to increasing western growth, but increasing human capital formation (education and medical care) is also crucial because only through these improvements can China come up with new and better ideas to solve centuries-old problems like unbalanced growth.
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Ayoroa, P., Bailey, B., Crossen, A., A. Geo-JaJa, M. (2010). Education in China: The Urban/Rural Disparity Explained. In: Zajda, J. (eds) Globalisation, Ideology and Education Policy Reforms. Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3524-0_7
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