China education: parents decry 50-50 shot at academic degree, and they’re rolling the dice on a costly plan B overseas for the kids

This is the second installment in a series discussing the evolving state of education in China and its significant economic implications. The first part can be found here. Over the past three years, Joey Lu has been subjected to an intense study schedule at her junior high school, involving approximately three additional hours of rigorous study almost every evening. Despite her hard work and the substantial financial investment in private tutors, she was unable to secure admission into an academic high school in Guangzhou, a city in southern China. This is a crucial step towards gaining admission into a domestic university. This situation has left her entrepreneurial parents at a crossroads: they must decide whether to spend over 70,000 yuan (US$9,800) for a year of additional tutoring and a retake of the high school entrance exam next year, or to apply to overseas high schools.

Across China, an increasing number of middle-class families have been grappling with similar difficult and anxiety-inducing decisions over the past few years. Many attribute their frustration to a policy implemented by the Ministry of Education in 2017, which aimed to divert approximately half of all junior high graduates to secondary vocational schools, with the remainder proceeding to academic high schools. This move was designed to strengthen the nation's skilled workforce, as part of China's strategy to emulate Germany, a country renowned for its skilled vocational training, in order to maintain a competitive edge in manufacturing.

However, this policy has had unintended consequences. Parents are investing increasingly larger sums in their children's education, often ineffectively, which escalates the cost of child-rearing and consequently suppresses the desire among Chinese couples to have children. Furthermore, the slim prospect of gaining university admission can disproportionately impact urban residents, particularly those residing in major cities. Middle-class parents are generally averse to secondary vocational education, as a university degree remains a prerequisite for upward mobility, especially among China's elite. Consequently, a growing number are evaluating their options and devising contingency plans, which increasingly involve immigration and studying abroad if their children are unable to outperform domestic competition and progress to an academic high school.