Universalizing Nine-Year Compulsory Education For Poverty Reduction in Rural China

Abstract

According to the 2000 census, China's rural population is 810 million-64 percent of the country's population. Over 80 percent of primary schools and 64 percent of lower secondary schools are in rural areas. The poor are concentrated in rural areas because of the gap between rural and urban development. The government focused on universalizing nine-year compulsory education to eliminate illiteracy among youth and adults and to upgrade the rural population's quality of life. Its longer-term goals were to eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable social progress. Since the 1986 passage of its compulsory education law, China has fundamentally achieved the national goal for the two basics, namely, extending universal nine-year compulsory education among the school-aged population and literacy among those less than 20 years old. The average years of schooling have risen from fewer than five in the early 1980s to more than eight now, a gain of three years. Nine-year compulsory education was universalized in the area where 90 percent of the population lives-up from just 40 percent in the early 1990s. In addition, the illiteracy rate for the 15-45 age cohorts was reduced to 4.8 percent from 10 percent over the same period. Consequently, the enrollment rates at the primary and lower secondary levels reached 98.6 percent and 90 percent, respectively, in 2002. The two basics were achieved in 2,598 counties, and 90 percent of the total number of counties in China.