Achieving education equality
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The pursuit of fairness in education is a significant issue in China. The Communist Party was born to bring fairness to China. It promoted egalitarianism with some success, though at a poor level of nominal equality, and China's inequality of education remains a major challenge despite its overall improvement of education service.
Daunting challenges exist, such as a shortage of educational resources and unfair distribution of those resources. Most importantly, though, is the awareness and willingness to avail educational opportunities fairly.
One example of inadequate resources can be seen in higher education. China currently has about 2000 universities and colleges, public and private, a number that's doubled in the past two decades, yet it still fails to meet nationwide demand.
At present, there are over 20 million university students, with 6-7 million of them graduating each year. Reaching this capacity originated from a controversial idea in the mid '90s of envisioning education as a business or industry, and as a means to postpone employment pressure.
Nevertheless, with a population of some 1.4 billion, too many are kept outside the walls of higher education. In the U.S., some 3,000 universities and colleges serve 300 million people. China is far from competitive in this area because the central government constantly fails its objective, as mandated in its current education platform, which requires 4 percent of GDP to be spent on education. For the past decade and a half, China has never fulfilled this, and no officials are held accountable.
The financial resources for providing ample education could be resolved, but it's a matter of being unable or unwilling to supply the funding, and that's inexcusable.
Let's not give credence to the argument that China's poor economic condition has prevented education spending. During the '50s and '60s, Japan was poorer but nonetheless willing to spend. Now Japan is a rich nation, and it continues to spend generously on education. China has ascended to become the second biggest economy in the world, so how can Chinese authorities justify their failure to invest in the nation's future? When Beijing proclaims itself the second-largest economy, it must consider how to provide free elementary and secondary education to its population.
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