On Sunday, China unveiled its ambitious blueprint to establish a robust education system by 2035, aiming to support the nation's modernization drive and national rejuvenation. The 2024-2035 master plan, jointly released by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council, outlines a comprehensive strategy to transform China into a global educational leader.
The plan emphasizes a strong education system rooted in socialism with Chinese characteristics, featuring powerful ideological and political leadership, talent competitiveness, scientific and technological support, livelihood security, social synergy, and international influence. This marks a pivotal step in fulfilling the Chinese nation's long-held aspiration to lead in education since the advent of modern times.
By 2027, China aims to establish an initial high-quality education system with significantly improved independent talent cultivation, ensuring a steady flow of outstanding and innovative individuals. The ultimate goal by 2035 is to fully establish a high-quality education system, maintaining world-leading standards in basic education accessibility and quality, fostering a fully developed learning society, and achieving overall educational modernization.
This marks the first national action plan focused specifically on elevating China's educational standing to support its comprehensive modernization efforts.
Advancing Higher Education
The blueprint outlines accelerated development for advanced research universities and encourages high-level foreign universities in science and engineering to offer programs within China. Additionally, it promotes the expansion of professional postgraduate degree programs to strengthen academic prowess.
A key component of the plan is the realignment of disciplines and majors to keep pace with advancements in science and technology and national strategies. The document calls for the urgent establishment of needed disciplines, highlighting foundational, emerging, and interdisciplinary fields while also supporting endangered and less popular areas of study.
China is committed to fostering an environment that nurtures exploration and tolerates failure, aiming to cultivate high-caliber faculty and master scholars. Vice Minister of Education Wu Yan revealed that in 2024, China added 1,673 undergraduate programs aligned with national strategies and removed 1,670 programs that did not support economic and social development, an adjustment he described as \"unprecedented.\"
New majors include intelligent maritime equipment, intelligent material technology, and interdisciplinary engineering, designed to support the upgrading of strategic industries and the development of high-tech sectors in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
With 1,308 undergraduate universities offering 816 majors across 93 subcategories within 12 categories, China's education authorities have been actively expanding and refining academic offerings. Since 2012, the addition of 21,000 undergraduate programs and the cancellation or suspension of 12,000 programs demonstrate China's dynamic approach to education reform.
Reference(s):
China unveils blueprint for building strong education system by 2035
cgtn.com
