China's higher education system surpasses 44.3 million
On July 7, 2019, graduates attended the commencement ceremony of Tsinghua University in Beijing. A senior education official said on Tuesday that a total of 240 million Chinese people have received higher education as a result of the country's historic strides in tertiary education development over the past decade.
The Ministry of Education's Department of Higher Education, Wu Yan, said 44.3 million students are attending colleges and universities in China, making it home to the largest higher education system in the world.
The tertiary education gross enrollment in 2012 reached 57.8 percent, up 27.8 percentage points from 2012, he said at a news conference highlighting the achievements of China's higher education since the 18th Communist Party of China National Congress in 2012.
More than 13.8 years of education are received in people who have recently joined the labor force, according to Wu.
China has a number of world-class universities, and the nation's higher education development in general is among the best internationally, he said.
The nation has the largest and best higher education for engineering in the world, nurturing millions of engineers and supporting the country's drive to become the largest manufacturing powerhouse in the world, Wu said.
In order to serve national and industry development, 17,000 undergraduate majors have been opened since 2012, while 10,000 have been removed or suspended from enrolling new students, he said.
He said that the country will continue to improve the quality of its higher education institutions, ensure that such education serves major national development strategies and promote the development of universities and colleges with Chinese characteristics.
The university has cooperated with 37 world-renowned universities in the past 10 years, and it now has cooperation with almost 200 universities worldwide, according to Wu Zhaohui, president of Zhejiang University.
The university has 61 academicians at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Chinese Academy of Sciences, up from 27 a decade ago, he said. All faculty members with national-level professional titles are required to teach undergraduate courses.
He said that it has also established strategic cooperation agreements with more than 330 State-owned enterprises and leading private enterprises.
Liu Jianlin, director of the Shaanxi Provincial Education Department, said the number of higher education institutions in the province grew from 98 to 111 in the past decade, and the number of students increased from 1.37 million to 1.98 million during the period.
Total investment in higher education in the province jumped by 74.2 percent over the decade to 62.7 billion yuan $9.3 billion, with the average investment on an individual college student reaching 16,800 yuan per year, he said.
Xie Weihe, senior education professor at Tsinghua University, said the strength and quality of China's higher education have reached their best level in history.
He said that China's higher education is based on Chinese characteristics and the country has the autonomy to nurture high-level innovative talent through its higher education system.