Graduates throw their caps during the graduation ceremony at Shanghai Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China, on June 20, 2005. (Photo : Getty Images)
An estimated 37 million students are attending colleges or universities in China--the world's largest student population--with one in every five college students worldwide living in the country, according to a recent government study.
In contrast, only 117,000 were studying in colleges or universities when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, according to a quality report on higher education released by the Ministry of Education on Thursday.
The report, the first of its kind published in China, has noted that the country's higher education system has evolved quickly and contributed greatly to the country's development in the past seven decades.
The number of colleges and universities in the country now stands at nearly 2,900, and is second only in number to the United States.
The report also noted that expenditures on higher education have risen greatly in recent years, as well as the number of teachers and the amount of real estate and teaching resources.
"The fast development of higher education in China has offered more ordinary Chinese people the opportunity to attend college," said Wu Yan, director of the Higher Education Evaluation Center, an institute under the Ministry of Education that conducted research for the report. "It has also provided intelligent support for the dramatic transformation of Chinese society."
"Colleges and universities are playing increasingly important roles in the country's efforts to innovate," said Wu.
However, the report also highlighted the challenges of China's higher education system, including a low transfer rate for scientific research achievements, inadequate education in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship, and a general tendency to give more weight in an educator's performance assessments to research success than to actual teaching ability.
Zhong Binglin, director of the Chinese Society of Education, said that solving these problems will take time.
"There is still much to be done for most colleges and universities to catch up with world-class universities," Zhong told China Daily on Friday.
"To improve China's higher education, reforms should be continued, more resources should be allocated and advanced educational ideas should be introduced to create a good learning atmosphere and to cultivate students' innovative abilities," he added.
