The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concluded on October 22^nd. In addition to selecting China’s central leadership over the coming five years, the meeting also reviewed performance over the last five years and set the roadmap for both the Communist Party and the country in a number of areas, including education.

The most widely reported result of the Congress has been the re-selection of Xi Jinping as the country’s leader. As a result, the priorities set out for coming years are broadly in line with existing policies, with the country’s strategy in the education field being “accelerating the construction of a high-quality education system, developing quality education, and promoting education equity”.

More specific goals in the education field include:

• Achieving high-quality and balanced compulsory education, integrating urban and rural areas
• Achieving inclusive development in pre-school education and special education
• Developing more diversity in higher education
• Popularising vocational education and integrating science and education with industry
• Innovating systematically in higher education
• Building a "high-quality" education system

In the areas of technology and innovation, the report set out by the 20th National Congress calls for the country to “expand international scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation” and form “an open and innovative ecology with global competitiveness”. But at the same time it aims for China to “accelerate the realization of self-reliance in high-level science and technology” and to “enhance our capacity for independent innovation”, as well as to “accelerate the implementation of a number of major national science and technology projects”.

Outside the area of education, another strong message from the CPC Congress was that China will continue to maintain its Zero Covid strategy, despite previous reports that the country’s policies in this areas would be relaxed.

Why does it matter?

The report itself doesn’t give any specific measures of how these policies will be implemented. But it gives a signal of the country’s direction and lays out the importance of education, science and technology.

All the priorities set out in the report – including increasing education quality, making education more inclusive, promoting vocational education, and increasing international scientific cooperation – have been among China’s core education policies for many years. However, the focus on these areas in the report of the CPC Congress shows that these are the key areas that the country’s leadership see as important over the coming years.

From the perspective of UK education institutions, this shows that China continues to welcome international collaboration across many areas, including transnational education, TVET, and scientific and research collaboration. There may also be more opportunities in areas related to education quality. At the same time, the maintenance of the Zero Covid policy will continue to cause difficulties for UK-based staff visiting China for teaching or research purposes.

Sources:

Gov.cn report on Xi Jinping’s emphasis on science and technology, talent and innovation: http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2022-10/16/content_5718815.htm (in Chinese)

Sina.com analysis of the country’s education strategy as set out in the report of the 20^th National Congress: https://news.sina.com.cn/c/xl/2022-10-19/doc-imqqsmrp3035169.shtml (in Chinese)