A number of developing countries are currently promoting vocational education and training (VET) as a way to build human capital and strengthen economic growth. The primary aim of this study is to understand whether VET at the high school level contributes to human capital development in one of those countries—China. To fulfill this aim, we draw on longitudinal data on more than 10,000 students in vocational high school (in the most popular major, computing) and academic high school from two provinces of China. First, estimates from instrumental variables and matching analyses show that attending vocational high school (relative to academic high school) substantially reduces math skills and does not improve computing skills. Second, heterogeneous effect estimates also show that attending vocational high school increases dropout, especially among disadvantaged (low-income or low-ability) students. Third, we use vertically scaled (equated) baseline and follow-up test scores to measure gains in math and computing skills among the students. We find that students who attend vocational high school experience absolute reductions in math skills. Taken together, our findings suggest that the rapid expansion of vocational schooling as a substitute for academic schooling can have detrimental consequences for building human capital in developing countries such as China. 

The objective of this paper is to assess the nature of China’s human capital. To achieve our objective, we both measure the share of the labor force that has attained upper secondary schooling levels (high school) as well as examine recent trends of 15–17 year olds who are attending high school. Using two sets of national representative data, we are able to show that, while the human capital of China’s labor force is still low (30%), between 2005 and 2015 the share of rural youth who attended high school rose sharply. According to Ministry of Education–reported statistics, in 2015 87% of 15–17 year olds were attending high school, up from around 50% in 2005. Given the recent pronouncements of the government to make high school universal by 2020, the challenges for the education system are to increase the attendance of rural as well as vocational education and training students.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the policy and trends in rural education in China over the past 40 years; and also discuss a number of challenges that are faced by China’s rural school system.

Design/methodology/approach – The authors use secondary data on policies and trends over the past 40 years for preschool, primary/junior high school, and high school.

Findings – The trends over the past 40 years in all areas of rural schooling have been continually upward and strong. While only a low share of rural children attended preschool in the 1980s, by 2014 more than 90 percent of rural children were attending. The biggest achievement in compulsory education is that the rise in the number of primary students that finish grade 6 and matriculate to junior high school. There also was a steep rise of those going to and completing high school. While the successes in upscaling rural education are absolutely unprecedented, there are still challenges.

Research limitations/implications – This is descriptive analysis and there is not causal link established between policies and rural schooling outcomes.

Practical implications – The authors illustrate one of the most rapid rises of rural education in history and match the achievements up with the policy efforts of the government. The authors also explore policy priorities that will be needed in the coming years to raise the quality of schooling.

Originality/value – This is the first paper that documents both the policies and the empirical trends of the success that China has created in building rural education from preschool to high school during the first 40 years of reform (1978-2018). The paper also documents – drawing on the literature and the own research – the achievements and challenges that China still face in the coming years, including issues of gender, urbanization, early childhood education and health and nutrition of students.

Keywords Trends, China, Achievements, Policies, Rural education, Shortcomings

Abstract: Using three-wave survey data for four villages of Jiangsu Province in China, the present paper examines whether and to what extent off-farm employment affects the technical efficiency of agricultural production. The level of technical efficiency is measured using a stochastic frontier production function approach. Based on estimation results from instrumental variable panel quantile regressions we find that there is a positive significant effect of off-farm employment on the level of farm technical efficiency. We also find that fragmentation of farmland is a barrier to the improvement of technical efficiency. In addition, we find a downward trend in the level of agricultural technical efficiency among our sample. Therefore, the Chinese Government should stimulate agricultural mechanization and the development of farming techniques to improve technical efficiency in the context of increasing off-farm employment.

Accumulation of human capital is indispensable to spur economic growth. If students fail to acquire such skills, not only will they have a hard time finding high-wage employment in the future, but the development of the economies in which they work may also stagnate from a shortage of human capital. The overall goal of this study is try to understand if China is ready in terms of the education of its labor force to progress from middle income to high income country status. To achieve this goal, we seek to understand the share of the labor force that has attained at least some upper secondary schooling (upper secondary attainment) and to benchmark these educational attainment rates against the rates of the labor forces in other countries (e.g., high income/OECD countries; a subset of G20 middle income/BRICS countries). Using the Sixth Population Census data, we are able to show that China’s human capital is shockingly poor. In 2010 only 24% of China’s entire labor force (individuals 25-64 years of age) had ever attended upper secondary school. This rate is less than one-third of the average upper secondary attainment rate in OECD countries. China’s overall upper secondary attainment rate and the attainment rate of its youngest workers (25-34 year old workers) is also the lowest of all the BRICS countries (with the exception of India for which data were not available). Our analysis also demonstrates that the statistics on upper secondary education reported by the Ministry of Education (MoE) are overestimated. In the paper, we document when MoE and Census-based statistics diverge and raise three possible policy-based reasons why officials may have begun to have an incentive to misreport in the mid-2000s.

Students in rural China are dropping out of secondary school at troubling rates. While there is considerable quantitative research on this issue, no systematic effort has been made to assess the deeper reasons behind student decision making through a mixed-methods approach. This article seeks to explore the prevalence, correlates and potential reasons for rural dropout throughout the secondary education process. It brings together results from eight large-scale survey studies covering 24,931 rural secondary students across four provinces, as well as analysis of extensive interviews with 52 students from these same study sites. The results show that the cumulative dropout rate across all windows of secondary education may be as high as 63 per cent. Dropping out is significantly correlated with low academic performance, high opportunity cost, low socioeconomic status and poor mental health. A model is developed to suggest that rural dropout is primarily driven by two mechanisms: rational cost-benefit analysis or impulsive, stress-induced decision making. 

We estimate the impact of two early commitment of financial aid (ECFA) programs—one at the start and one near the end of junior high school (seventh and ninth grades, respectively)—on the outcomes of poor, rural junior high students in China. Our results demonstrate that neither of the ECFA programs has a substantive effect. We find that the ninth-grade program had at most only a small (and likely negligible) effect on matriculation to high school. The seventh-grade program had no effect on either dropout rates during junior high school or on educa- tional performance as measured by a standardized math test. The seventh-grade program did increase the plans of students to attend high school by 15%. In examining why ECFA was not able to motivate significant behavioral changes for ninth graders, we argue that the competitiveness of the education system successfully screened out poorer performing students and promoted better performing students. Thus by the ninth grade, the remaining students were already committed to going to high school regardless of ECFA support. In regards to the results of the seventh grade program, we show how seventh graders appear to be engaged in wishful thinking (they appear to change plans without reference to whether their plans are realistic).

The lost decades for China in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s look remarkably like the lost decades of Africa in the 1980s an 1990s.  Poor land rights, weak incentives, incomplete markets and inappropriate investment portfolios.  However, China burst out of its stagnation in the 1980s and has enjoyed three decades of remarkable growth.  In this paper we examine the record of the development of China's food economy and identify the policies that helped generate the growth and transformation of agriculture.  Incentives, markets and strategic investments by the state were key.  Equally important, however, is what the state did not do.  Policies that worked and those that failed (or those that were ignored) are addressed.  Most importantly, we try to take an objective, nuanced look at the lessons that might be learned and those that are not relevant for Africa.  Many parts of Africa have experienced positive growth during the past decade.  We examine if there are any lessons that might be helpful in turning ten positive years into several more decades of transformation.

Researchers typically explain inequalities in access to elite high schools by looking at gaps that appear before the high school admissions process. However, even when disadvantaged students reach the stage of high school admissions with identical qualifications as advantaged students, mechanisms particular to the high school admissions process may prevent disadvantaged students from accessing elite high schools. The overall goal of this paper is to examine the degree to which the high school admissions process deters disadvantaged students from accessing elite high schools. To fulfill this goal, we analyze longitudinal, administrative data on approximately 24,000 students in one region of China. In this setting, according to our data, the rural-urban gap in elite high school attendance can be larger than 50 percentage points (even though rural students comprise well more than half of the high school student population). Our results show that the five subject exams of the high school entrance exam (HSEE) are biased against rural students. If the HSEE dropped two of the most biased subject exams from the HSEE, access to elite high schools among rural students would increase by 4 percentage points (or 8 percent). Furthermore, conditional on HSEE scores, rural students are 13 percentage points less likely than urban students to apply for elite high schools. Finally, conditional on HSEE scores and application choices, the existence of an alternative admissions channel that charges extra admissions fees further reduces rural access by 18 percentage points.

This paper contributes to the assessment of China’s rural labor markets. According to our data, the increase in off-farm employment that China experienced during the 1980s and 1990s continued during the 2000s. Our analysis shows that migration has become the most prevalent off-farm activity, although the destination of migrants is shifting from outside of one’s province to destinations closer to home. The present paper finds that large shares of male and female individuals, especially those under 40 years, are working off the farm. These findings represent an important contribution to the labor economics field. First, the results of the present paper reveal that the labor transition from the agricultural sector to the non-agricultural sector for key segments of China’s rural labor force is nearly complete. Second, although a large share of China’s rural labor force work in agriculture, most of these workers are older men and women (and likely would not be willing to take low-wage, labor-intensive jobs). Third, the rising unskilled wage rate in China is partially a result of the tightening of the labor force in the young age cohorts. Finally, due to factors associated with the one child policy and other demographic transition forces, successive age cohorts will continue to fall in absolute number in the coming decade. Assuming China’s growth continues, we expect to see further wage increases since it will take higher wages to coax more workers to work off the farm.