CHARACTERISTICS OF MARKET
The British government in China has one Embassy in Beijing and three Consulate-Generals. The Embassy in Beijing covers north China, Consulate-General in Shanghai covers east China, Consulate-General in Guangzhou covers south China and Consulate-General in Chongqing covers south-west China.
North China
The areas that the British Embassy in Beijing covered are Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Jilin, Liaoning, Shannxi, Shangxi, Shangdong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.
Beijing
Beijing, the capital, political and cultural centre of China has taken education development as one of its priorities. Last year, the per capita GDP of Beijing residents surpassed US $5,000 and the per capita consumption payout amounted to RMB13,244. Education is one of three continuous high expenses, alongside medical treatment and housing.
Statistics from Beijing Municipal Commission of Education showed that, as at 2005, there are 1358 kindergartens, 1403 primary schools, 404 junior high schools, 69 senior high schools, 266 middle schools (with both junior and senior secondary school courses), 75 vocational secondary schools, 52 specialised secondary schools and 79 colleges and universities. Among the 79 colleges and universities, 51 universities are accredited to accept postgraduate students. In recent years postgraduate education in Beijing has developed rapidly: since 2000 numbers of PhDs have increased fourfold and postgraduate students 3.5 times. The top 50 universities in China are listed in Annex 3: TOP 50 CHINESE COLLEGES IN 2004, which gives an indication of the academic strength in Beijing.
Education equipment assets in primary schools are RMB570m; high schools are RMB1,086m; vocational secondary schools are RMB335m; specialised secondary schools are RMB387m; colleges and universities are RMB11,565m.
China currently has nearly 3,000 registered translation firms, with more than 400 in Beijing alone, according to the Translators Association of China. But many of them are briefcase companies with only a telephone, a computer and one or two full-time employees. The part-time translators and interpreters they hire are not always qualified. The accuracy and efficiency in translation are essential in the globalisation drive.
The number of foreign students studying in China has risen more than 20 percent annually over the past five years. Beijing is one of the most popular places for foreign students. There were 110,000 foreign students studying in China in 2004. The number in 2005, which has not come out yet, should be much higher. Since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, it has received students from more than 170 countries. The rapid development of China's higher education and high-quality universities is attracting more and more foreign students. China has become a popular destination for foreign students. More than 500 Chinese universities have met conditions of admitting foreign students.
Other Provinces
Among the regions that Beijing covers, Shananxi, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia are the 7 among 12 west provinces/autonomous regions. The Chinese Government has allocated RMB3.69bn (US $461m) in subsidies in advance for free compulsory education in western part of the country.
China aims to increase spending on education to 4 percent of GDP from 2.7 percent. China has recently vowed to increase spending on nine-year compulsory education to make sure students in poor regions have access to education. The move was designed to help western China to implement the central government's decision to abolish school tuition fees and incidental charges for primary and junior middle school students, and increase funding for education. The fund includes RMB3.02bn in subsidies for those schools involved to exempt school fees and incidental charges, and RMB670m for school budgetary spending.
Nnorthwest China's Qinghai Province, for example, has announced it is allocating more than RMB1.4bn (around US $175m) in the coming five years to improve minority education. The funds will be spent on improving nine-year compulsory education, senior high school education and vocational education in the autonomous ethnic prefectures of Haibei, Hainan, Huangnan, Guoluo, Yushu and Haixi.
The province also plans to build or enlarge 120 boarding schools in the six prefectures from the year 2007 and to provide subsidies to poor ethnic minority students there who study in vocational schools, senior high schools and colleges.
Meanwhile, Qinghai has pledged to train 7,000 primary and middle school teachers and build 700 laboratories, language labs and library rooms in the schools in ethnic minority prefectures.
Competitors
China is conducting some non-governmental education and exchange projects with European countries. The UK has been very active in this market, with involvement in projects such as the Sino-UK leadership development network project and DFID UK Bangladesh ESTEEM project. China is also working with Germany in engineering education and accreditation, vocational and technical teachers training; and with Ireland in English training.
East China
The Consular area of the British Consulate-General in Shanghai covers the Shanghai Municipality, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces in east China. Though covering only 1 percent of China’s total land area, its GDP accounts for more than one-fifth of the whole China economy.
The Yangtze Delta Region comprises South Jiangsu and North Zhejiang with a cluster of 16 medium-large cities. As the ‘dragon head’, Shanghai takes the lead. The medium-term target set up by Shanghai government is to develop a modern international metropolitan city and become an international centre of finance, trade and logistics. In the following five years, the major events in Shanghai will be the Special Olympic Games in 2007 and the World Expo in 2010 (see details at www.expo2010china.com).
Year 2004 |
Area (sq. km) |
Population (millions - residential) |
GDP (billion RMB) |
|---|---|---|---|
Shanghai |
6341 |
13.52 |
745.03 |
Zhejiang |
101800 |
47.20 |
1124.30 |
Jiangsu |
102600 |
74.32 |
1551.24 |
Anhui |
139600 |
62.28 |
481.27 |
(National Bureau of Statistics of China, www.stats.gov.cn) |
Education
Most educational institutions are public with a small number of private/social funded schools that started a few years ago. By the end of 2004 the number of social-funded colleges, middle schools, private school and kindergartens in Shanghai were 16, 127, 17 and 225 respectively (Shanghai Statistics Bureau).
Annexes 1-4 show the detailed figures of the Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui education market.
The British Council in Shanghai has more detailed information on overseas studies/short-term summer school vacations.
There are 19 international kindergartens and schools in Shanghai accepting students with non-Chinese passports only. Four Chinese middle schools also accept those students and put them in a special class.
Education Equipment
National expenditure on education equipment in 2003 reached US $48bn, with US $9bn on higher education and US $11bn on basic education. For imported equipment, German and Japanese products take the majority of the market share.
Major projects include:
- With an investment of US $ 1.8bn for the first stage, the second stage of “211 project” has been launched. For the next five years, educational financial investment for lab equipment is estimated to be more than US $1.9bn.
- Modern long-distance educational programme in rural areas: within the next five years, the programme plans to equip:
- 110,000 primary schools with CD players and teaching software (an average of US $363 for each school);
- 384,000 primary schools with satellite signal receiving facilities (an average of US $1935 for each school);
- 37,500 middle schools with computer rooms (an average of US $18,100 for each school).
- “985 Project” aims to build a number of first-rate universities and disciplines. Ten leading universities - including Fudan University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China University of Science & Technology and Zhejiang University - have received an investment of US $145m each.
- Over 100 national key laboratories have been built since 1984 and over 20 national engineering research centres have been established since 1992. The central and local government plans to spend US $12m on updating and upgrading every year to ensure that these institutes work well.
- A vocational educational programme will be started for some vocational disciplines such as numeral control (CNC), auto service, computer application & software, electrical-technology and architecture. The total amount of investment should be about US $242m.
Training
Training is a newly established industry in China, and most training companies are private. There are around 10,000 private training companies in Shanghai with all kinds of programmes.
Focus areas are:
- Language Skill Training. It is estimated that the expenditure in this type of training will reach RMB1bn in Shanghai, and will increase due to the World Expo event in 2010. English remains the majority part. Both test-preparation courses (like IELTS, TOFEL, local interpretation certificate) and non-test courses offered by foreign language companies (such as Wall Street and Berlitz) are popular among students. Japanese follows behind.
- IT Skill Training. Includes software programming, webpage design, internationally recognised certificates (such as Cisco and Novell) and game design.
- Professional Training. Includes training for accountant certificates, project management, custom clearance certificates. According to statistics from Shanghai Vocational Skills Training Centre, in the third quarter of 2005 admissions to training courses reached 90,000, an increase of 34 percent over the same period of 2004.
South China
The Consular area of the British Consulate-General in Guangzhou covers Guangdong province, Fujian province, Hainan province, Guangxi province and Hunan province.
Guangdong, the largest province with a population of around 110 million (including about 34 million migrant workers from other provinces in China), is located in the south east of China, neighbouring Hong Kong. Guangdong is the wealthiest province in China. Guangdong's GDP grew 14.2 percent to RMB1610bn in 2004. The Economist Interlligence Unit describes Guangdong as "by far the biggest success of China's economic reform". The provincial economy is now bigger than the economies of most South East Asian countries; of ASEAN members, only Indonesia has a higher total GDP. In a report by Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences in 2004, Guangdong's overall competitiveness ranked the 6th in the country. Major cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen have some of the highest disposable income in China. (For more detailed information on Guangdong and its major cities such as Guangzhou & Shenzhen, economic briefs are available on the Consulate-General’s website at www.uk.cn/gz).
Total education funding in Guangdong has increased rapidly in recent years and ranks first in the country. In 2004 Guangdong's education funding reached RMB74.7bn, RMB10bn more than 2003, and accounting for 2.74 percent of the province’s GDP. However, the proportion of education funding is still far less than the central government recommended standard of 4 percent. The Guangdong provincial government will therefore continue to increase its investment in education, trying to reach 4 percent and 5 percent of GDP in 2007 and 2010 respectively. It will also implement the strategic decisions made by Guangdong CPC and Guangdong government - to build Guangdong as a strong province in education.
At present Guangdong has 22,000 primary schools, with 10.5 million students enrolled; a further 4.5 million students studying in 3,200 junior middle schools; and 1,000 ordinary senior middle schools and 700 vocational schools, with 2.3 million students. 94 higher education institutions exist with 0.73 million students, of which 34 are ordinary universities and the rest polytechnic schools. Currently, the enrolment rate of senior school is 52 percent, 7.3 percent higher than in 2002. The rate of enrolment in regular higher education has reached 20 percent in Guangdong, compared with the national figure of 19 percent, with the province ranked 17th in the country. According to the "The Strategy of Education Development in Guangdong in 2004-2010" published in 2005, the enrolment rate of senior school is expected to reach 65 percent in 2007 and 80 percent in 2010. The rate of regular higher education will reach 25 percent in 2007 and 28 percent in 2010, with 1.3 million school students.
Study abroad
With the increase in wealth and disposable income, people are more willing to invest money in education than before. In 2004 consumer spending per capita in Guangdong amounted to RMB10,695, of which RMB720 was spent on education, an increase of 6.1 percent on 2003. (Consumer spending is significantly higher in major cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which account for over 20 million of the province’s population). Parents’ willingness to spend money on education for their children has become the trend, represented not only by the rapid increase in consumption of domestic education, but also the surge of children being sent to study abroad.
In the Pearl River Delta (the rich industrialised southern region of Guangdong province, neighbouring Hong Kong), the number of primary and middle school student studying overseas accounts for 50 percent of the national figure. In addition, from 2003 to 2004, according to Chinese government figures, 47,740 Chinese students studied in more than 100 higher education institutions in the UK, accounting for one sixth of the total of mainland Chinese students abroad. In 2004 the British Consulate-General in Guangzhou received 5,244 student visa applications from south China (the four provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan and Guangxi), of which 74 percent, i.e. 3,880 visas were issued, accounting for 19 percent of the national total.
Among the four provinces, Guangdong has the most mature and informed market, mainly due to its strong economy and proximity to Hong Kong. In south China, the UK accounts for a third of the study-abroad market. However, competition in the international education market is becoming more aggressive, with Australia and the US being the strongest competitors. There are 93 Higher Education Institutions in Guangdong providing degree and diploma courses. Universities and polytechnics are active in establishing links and welcome various kinds of co-operation with foreign institutions. So far in Guangdong there are around 50 joint courses or links with UK institutions. More information on the study-abroad market in south China can be obtained from the British Council, however, please note that some of the detailed information is restricted for non-ECS (Education Counselling Service) members.
Guangzhou University City
In order to build a first-class mega-university campus in Guangzhou, some RMB30bn (US $3.66bn) is being invested in building the Guangzhou University City, which is located in Panyu district of Guangzhou municipality. The university combines various functions of higher education, scientific research, technology manufacturing, culture, commercial, accommodation, services, and leisure and tourism. The total area of the University City is around 43.3 sq kms and will accommodate a total of 180,000 to 200,000 students once the construction is completed in 2010. The City has been opened for enrolment since September 2004. Currently there are 110,000 students living and studying there. Ten famous universities in Guangdong have already moved parts of their campuses into the City, namely Zhongshan University, South China University of Technology, South China Normal University, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and Xinghai Conservatory of Music. Other institutions such as Jinan University and the Affiliated Middle School of Guangzhou University will move into the City and start enrolling soon.
Educational equipment
Guangdong invested some RMB2.25bn in educational equipment for primary and middle schools in 2004, a 30 percent increase on 2003. Of this amount, government allocated RMB0.72bn and RMB1.53bn was self-funded. In particular, additional funds were invested in laboratory equipment. The accumulated total assets of educational and technology equipment for primary and middle schools is valued at RMB6.37bn.
An education programme on IT (Information Technology) has been rolled out in six major cities in the Pearl River Delta (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan and Foshan). Schools in those cities have been equipped with internet facilities.
In addition, the curriculum for senior schools is in the process of being reformed. To accommodate the reform of the curriculum and improve the general level of laboratory instruments in Guangdong, all laboratories are required to be equipped to meet the standard, which will be promulgated by Ministry of Education shortly (though they have been unable to specify a timetable).
All of the above factors, plus the newly built University City and 24 new standard Senior Middle Schools put into use recently, create the potential for business opportunities for educational equipment suppliers.
