Education inequality in China: problems of policies on access to higher education

The past three decades have witnessed great social, political and economic change in China since the adoption of the open-door policy in the late 1970s. A market economy was adopted as a replacement of the planned economy to allocate resources more efficiently. Since then, however, sociologists' attention has been drawn to social inequality. Indeed, notable disparities between urban and rural areas, between regions and between different ethnic groups are noticed across the country (UNDP 2005). Given that much of the public good attached to education has been displaced in the transformation from a planned economy to a market economy, the problem of education inequality should be looked at within the context of social equity and equality (Devaney and Weber 2003). This paper sets out in this context to examine education inequalities in China by investigating the access to higher education since 1977, when the political and social environment became relatively stable. It takes policies on admission into higher education as a focus to probe into inequalities in education in general and higher education in particular. By examining three major policies concerning tertiary enrolment, namely, College Entrance Examinations (CEE), the recommendation mechanism and the extra-score policy, in the last 30 years (from 1977 to 2007), the paper aims to find the problems with these policy initiatives and evaluate how they have intensified education inequity. Some recent responses of Chinese governments to these social problems are referred to as well so as to look at the practical effects in correcting educational disparities.