EWBI Highlights Opportunities, Challenges Facing Education in Rural China

Educators Without Borders International held a webinar on the opportunities and challenges facing education in China’s rural areas, on June 8, 2022.

The lecture highlighted the progress made by China in education in general and in rural areas in particular, the impact of socioeconomic changes on the education system in rural areas, and how the development of education contributed to the outstanding economic progress in China.

It discussed the key challenges facing education in rural areas, including the gender gap, internal migration, social classes, and high illiteracy rates among minorities, along with the lessons learned from the plans launched by the Chinese government to address these challenges.

The lecture indicated that post-literacy campaigns and vocational training programs were designed to sustain newly acquired literacy skills, as well as ways of bolstering school enrollments through compulsory education programs and universalization of free education by providing the necessary funding to support rural schools.

It also presented the current challenges facing education in rural areas, mainly less access to schools, poor academic performance, lack of resources or trained teachers, and the high dropout rates to join the workforce instead, given that secondary education is not free and the high cost of university education.