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Macroscope | Why China’s education reform may be no match for the hypercompetitive drive
- The government has zeroed in on rising property prices near popular school districts and unequal access to education as areas in urgent need of reform
- As these reforms gain pace, questions remain over whether they can succeed to lower education costs and convince more young couples to have children
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To help rein in rising education costs and reverse the country’s demographic decline, China recently launched a raft of tighter regulations aimed at private education companies that offer tutoring services, causing stock prices in this sector to tumble.
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Educational anxieties are meanwhile creeping into the property market as real estate bubbles in desirable school districts might be coming into the crosshairs for regulators looking to curb excesses.
In China’s highly competitive education arena, families are in severe competition for limited high-quality education resources at every step from kindergarten to university.
In the race to secure seats in good schools, Chinese parents have to either purchase a residential property in the corresponding public school districts or send their kids to tutoring institutions to improve their performance in enrolment exams for private schools.
The hypercompetitive system and obsession with education have led many Chinese families to invest their hopes and much of their savings on advancing their children’s prospects, sometimes at high cost.
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How much does it cost to raise a child in China?
How much does it cost to raise a child in China?
Taking Beijing and Shanghai as examples, home prices have soared as parents target the best schools, driving the housing prices in the best districts to an average price well above the citywide average.
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