China is embarking on one of its most transformative education reforms in decades, with plans to expand free education and potentially extend compulsory schooling as part of the forthcoming 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). This strategic shift represents a fundamental reorientation toward human capital investment, aiming to reduce household education costs while building a more skilled workforce for the future.
The reform initiative gained momentum following the State Council’s August guideline implementing free preschool education, which currently waives fees for public kindergarten final-year students, benefiting approximately 12 million children. The recommendations adopted at the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in October further solidified this direction, proposing a steady expansion of free education coverage.
Education experts hail these changes as a crucial step toward educational equity. Professor Gao Hang, Vice-Dean of Renmin University of China’s School of Education, characterizes this as a strategic move from traditional infrastructure investment to human development, strengthening the government’s commitment to safeguarding every citizen’s educational rights.
The reform approach demonstrates pragmatic consideration of demographic and fiscal realities. With declining birth rates reducing preschool-age populations, free preschool education becomes financially feasible under China’s current fiscal system. In contrast, senior high school expansion faces greater fiscal challenges due to growing student numbers.
Professor Xue Eryong of Beijing Normal University envisions 15 years of free basic education as an ideal goal, proposing gradual extension of free preschool education from one to three years and expanding free senior high school education in resource-adequate regions. He clarifies that while free education may be achieved for preschool, making it compulsory would require ensuring mandatory enrollment and standardized quality nationwide.
The reforms also address broader social objectives. Compulsory education expansion helps curb school dropouts due to financial difficulties, improves foundational knowledge, reduces household education costs, and supports fertility-friendly policies.
China faces multiple challenges in implementation, including debates over upward or downward expansion, trade-offs between prolonged learning and workforce entry timing, and balancing educational demands with fiscal constraints. Regional initiatives have laid groundwork, with Beijing targeting 90% affordable kindergarten coverage by 2025, Shandong province working toward adequate high school capacity by 2026, and the Xizang autonomous region already practicing 15-year free education since 2012.
Wu Ni of the Chinese Academy of Education Sciences emphasizes the importance of phased, region-specific approaches, encouraging economically developed regions to pilot reforms first while establishing dynamic resource allocation mechanisms aligned with demographic trends and fiscal capacities.