Education opportunities in China
Published 27 October 2014
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1. Market potential
The China education and training market is a priority market for UKTI Education owing to:
- Potential for significant future business
- Potential opportunities existing across a number of sub-sectors – including financial and professional education, training and qualifications, higher education, international schools and English language training (ELT)
- UK education and training expertise being highly valued in China across a range of industry verticals
2. Large-scale education and training opportunities in 2015/16
China is a UKTI Education priority market and a China high value education and training opportunity has been identified based on the following areas:
- education, training and qualifications for the financial and professional services industry
- higher education reform – collaborative programmes to support policy for 600 universities to become vocationally/professionally focused
- opening and operating international schools
View all education opportunities in China
3. Additional market information
3.1 Economic context
The People’s Republic of China is rapidly becoming the world’s leading economy. Since overtaking Japan in 2010, China has established itself as the world’s second-largest economy after the US and has clear aspirations for the number one position. China is currently the largest exporter of goods in the world. China has seen significant investment from foreign companies, which are attracted by lower overall production costs. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), China is projected to overtake the US in 2016 in purchasing power parity terms.
3.2 Education sector overview
China represents a significant potential opportunity for education and training organisations as the largest education system in the world. This is evidenced through total education spend totalling 7.79trn Yuan (£781.6bn) between 2008 and 2013. As the economy becomes more sophisticated, demand for the import of professional services is expected to increase rapidly, and as China moves towards the lead position in the global economy and engages more with the global market, the demand for tertiary education is also expected to soar. Furthermore, plans to provide skills to 5 million more workers in manufacturing, IT, environmental protection, agriculture and tourism by 2020 and to increase the number of people having received higher education from 98.3 million in 2010 to 195 million by 2020 also reflect the scale of China’s ambition.
Key issues for the education sector in China include the need:
- to narrow the gap in provision between the more developed eastern provinces and less developed west, and between the stronger and weaker institutions
- to reform teaching and learning pedagogy, so that it is relevant to China’s changing economic and social needs - this includes reforms in higher and vocational education
- for governance reform, both within institutions and in their relationships with government, in order to give universities/institutions more autonomy and flexibility in meeting academic and market needs
- to mobilise resources, including private investment, to fund the development of education and innovation