Let’s start with a very interesting news: in September 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Education held a press conference about the great achievements in the field of education in the current year: the number of dropouts from compulsory education in China dropped significantly from 600,000 in the previous year to 2,419 in the current year, which has almost completely eliminated the dropout phenomenon.
With this very interesting evolution of data, of course we cannot help but ask some follow-up questions: since the official compulsory school dropout figures were as high as 600,000 in 2019 and only dropped significantly after September 2020 (when middle school has been completed), what was the situation in each of the previous years? What is the cumulative number of dropouts?
Well, this is actually easy data to calculate: every year the statistical bulletin publishes the number of elementary school enrollments, the number of elementary school graduates, the number of middle school enrollments, and the number of middle school graduates. By calculating the difference between these four figures, we can easily calculate the number of dropouts from compulsory education in each year.
Looking at the data for 2010-2020 alone, the peak of dropouts occurred in 2014, with 4.69 million dropouts in that year. Note that the caliber of calculation here is outcome data, back-calculated from the number of graduates, whose dropout outcome is already decided and is almost impossible to return to school. The explanation I can give for the phased peak dropout figure in 2014 is that previously the Chinese economy actually suffered great difficulties, especially the recurring money shortage in 2013, which hit various industries hard, resulting in a large number of families losing their economic resources and causing children to drop out of school, a consequential figure that was reflected in 2014. Since then, China’s economy has gradually recovered under the stimulus of an unprecedented “price hike and inventory removal” strategy, and the dropout phenomenon has also been gradually reduced, with the number of dropouts dropping to 380,000 by 2020, a 91.9% drop from 2014. This is actually a very good result.
Again, the 380,000 dropouts in 2020 in this table are outcome data, children who have previously left school and whose dropout results are confirmed in 2020 by back-calculating the number of graduates. According to the Ministry of Education’s statistics in September, after excluding this group of confirmed dropouts, there are only about 2,000 children left in school. I have only one explanation for these figures: in 2020, a large number of peasants are stuck at Home, unable to go out to work, and dropping out of school is meaningless, so they simply return to school. But anyway, once again: by any caliber, China has made amazing achievements in recent years in stopping the dropout problem ……
Folks, although the table above counts a staggering figure: from 1990 to the present, China has added a combined 133 million illiterate people who did not graduate from junior high school, which means that there are more than 100 million illiterate people inside the post-80s. However, as the premier data guru in China, the author’s analysis of course cannot stop at this level, but of course there will be further analysis, which is a very serious issue: within 3 years, China’s serious oversupply of education degrees will kick in.
To illustrate the problem more clearly, here are the data tables of enrollments and births in the country after 2010.
Data table of enrollment and population births in China after 2010
In 2016, after reaching a peak of 17.91 million births, the number of births in China began a dramatic decline. 2020 births are not yet available and will need to wait for the 2020 census results to be released. However, the fact is that the public security department’s household registration has long been fully electronic and birth certificates are all processed online. There may be a small number of missing population in individual areas that have not been entered into the public security system, and there will be a delay in the registration of some of the population, but this phenomenon will occur every year, continuing into the next year, and the pattern will not change. 1.03 million newborns were born in 2020 and have been registered with the public security authorities, a decrease of 14.9% from 11.79 million in 2019. This drop is available as an overall law to project the births in 2020. 14.65 x (1-14.9%) = 12.46 million births in 2019. This is probably a more optimistic projection of the birth population in 2020.
According to this data, only four years after the peak in 2016, the number of births in 2020 has dropped by 30.4%. And, as the number of marriages declines even more rapidly during this period, it will certainly bring an inevitable decline in the birth population, and mothers who have had their second child are now generally over 40 years old, and it is difficult to expect them to have a third child. So thereafter, China’s birth population is bound to maintain its rapid decline.
Most of the births that peaked in 2016 will enter school seven years later, in 2023. This means that after 2023, China will have an overall surplus of primary school places, and the surplus will develop so quickly that people will be caught off guard and the education sector will simply not have Time to respond. Think about it, the overall birth population shrinks by 30% in the four years from 2016-2020, so by projection, the education sector will have to cut 30% of elementary school with great efficiency after 2023, and as the size of the newborn population continues to decline, more and more elementary school will be forced to cut because they can’t recruit students.
At the current rate of decline in China’s newborn population, the probability is that by 2023 China’s newborn population will be below 10 million, which means that by 2030, elementary school will have to be cut by about half of what they are today. 2019, China’s elementary school staff totaled 5.85 million, and even if small class sizes are considered to leave more teachers, by 2030, at least one-third of this group will have to be eliminated. That is, at least 1.9 million elementary school staff are bound to lose their jobs.
And, please be sure to remember is: this layoff is bottom-up, from the elementary school step by step to continue to middle school, then high school, college. This is the objective law and there is no way to resist it. So, elementary school teachers will face the fate of being laid off within 3 years, and at least one-third within 10 years; then middle school teachers are within 6 years, high school teachers within 9 years, and university teachers within 13 years, all face the fate of being significantly eliminated, this is the objective law, there is absolutely no way to resist. Considering that the education authorities will definitely be proactive and initiate layoffs in advance to deal with the situation of excess education, this time will be pushed further forward. At the earliest, next year, there will be a nationwide wave of school mergers in elementary school.
Based on such considerations, we can make further inferences.
First, the so-called investment in school places will become the biggest joke in history, and at least half of the schools will be abolished within 10 years, and more schools will be abolished as long as the declining trend of newborn population remains unchanged. There is no concept of restricting enrollment, so there is no such rule of thumb as buying a house to get into school! According to the trend, by 2023 at the earliest, and no later than 2025 at the latest, the practice of mandatory allocation of school places based on residence will disappear and become a historical memory incomprehensible to the new generation of Chinese people. And the investment in degree houses will be repeatedly ridiculed by history for its chic folly. The absurdity of this matter is estimated that only the infamous Dutch tulip speculation can be compared to it.
Second, the next batch of college entrance exam candidates, please do not apply for teacher training majors. The teacher training program is about to become the worst professional in terms of employment prospects, which does not need to be explained.
At the end of this article, by the way, spit: China’s universities after several expansions, now has basically close to 100% college entrance examination admission rate, candidates have been basically all the universities at all levels of the net. In the data, the number of applicants for the 2020 college entrance examination is 10.71 million, which is significantly more than the number of graduates of general high schools in the current year, 7.87 million, because the college entrance examination also allows vocational high school and junior college students to apply, but also the existence of some repeaters. Well, the admission result is this: the total enrollment of 9.67 million in 2020 college and university undergraduates, the overall admission rate is as high as 90.3%. Take the admission rate of 2020 college entrance examination in Shandong, a large province of college entrance examination, for example, its undergraduate admission rate of 50.2%, the specialist admission rate of 39.4%, basically on par with the overall level of the country. In other words, now to take the college entrance examination, as long as the candidate is willing, basically can guarantee a school can go to mix. Only, soon, along with the dramatic decline in the newborn population, this situation of universities everywhere will quickly change. It is estimated that local colleges like Foshan Institute of Science and Technology and Liuzhou University of Technology will bear the brunt of the cuts due to lack of students. This is not much hard to imagine, soon, everyone will be able to see it ……
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