China has a famous tradition on education for thousands of years. Nowadays the number of universities is increasing rapidly, and are attracting thousands of students from other countries to study there.
The country has a nationwide system of public education, which includes primary schools, middle schools (lower and upper), and universities. Nine years of education is technically compulsory for all Chinese students.
The government announced the decision of making education a national strategic priority. The government’s goal is pledging to grant completely free nine-year education, including fees and textbooks in the poorer western provinces.
China's youth (age 15 to 24) literacy rate is 98.9% (99.2% for males and 98.5% for females) in 2000. But for the adult population the figures are (2002), 90.9% (male: 95.1%; female: 86.5%) of the population over the age of 15 are literate.
Many parents are often investing large portions of the family’s income on education, they are highly committed to their children’s education.
Private lessons and recreational activities, such as in music or foreign languages, are popular among the middle-class families, when they can afford them.
Universities
The consistently top-ranked universities in mainland China include Tsinghua and Peking in Beijing, Fudan and Shanghai Jiaotong University in Shanghai, Nanjing University in Nanjing.
Furthermore the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei (Anhui district), Wuhan University in Wuhan and Zhejiang University in Hangzhou.
Budget
The central budget of the national scholarships will be tripled in two years and 223.5 billion Yuan (28.65 billion US dollars) extra funding will be made available from the central government in the next 5 years to improve the compulsory education in rural areas.
