The theoretical foundation for the current educational system in China may be traced to the "Decision on the Reform of the Educational Structure", a decree issued in 1985 by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, which was formalized a year later by the National People's Congress with the ratification of the "Compulsory Education Law." The new law would serve as the basis for reform at all levels within China's system of education, while underscoring the leadership's commitment to basic education both as a legal and a moral imperative in congruence with the ideologies embodied by Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations, a set of reforms aimed at strengthening the areas of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology.
Select a region for the latest news and information.
Chinese University Rankings
As a companion to this month’s feature on Chinese secondary school credentials and higher education admissions, we are offering a quick guide to Chinese university rankings and some of the issues surrounding the industry. This should be considered an update to our August 2006 look at Chinese university rankings, which delves a little deeper into the methodologies of the various different rankings.
The first point to consider when thinking about Chinese university rankings is that ministry of education officials have been fairly consistent in their opposition to university rankings. While government disregard for rankings has not curbed the non-governmental production of university league tables, it has impacted the availability of official information and data and thus the robustness of ranking methodologies and criteria, making the ranking of colleges somewhat problematic and unreliable.
