Text | Da He
“The population of school-age children in the high school stage in our country will continue to grow, and is expected to reach a peak in 2029.”
Excerpt from an article in China Education News.
A simple sentence actually contains a lot of information.
Because according to the previous birth population data, it is generally believed that the high school population will reach its peak in 2032.
According to the birth population statistics over the years, our newborn population peaked in 2016 and began to decline in 2017.
Generally speaking, starting kindergarten at the age of 3 and starting primary school at the age of 6, according to this time calculation, the impact of the declining birth rate will lead to the peak of junior high school students in 2029, the peak of high school students in 2032, and the peak of college students in 2035.
But the official statement is that the scale of primary school students has reached its peak in 2023, the junior high school stage is expected to reach its peak next year, the high school stage will reach its peak in 2029, and the population of school-age people in higher education will reach its peak in 2032.
The trend of students reaching the peak has been advanced by three years.
Why?
I saw a more reasonable explanation online, which is the adjustment of data after the Seventh National Population Census.
There are differences between the data of the Seventh National Population Census and the data of non-census years, mainly because the caliber of these two data is different.
The population data of non-census years are obtained through sampling and estimation, so there are errors in the sampling survey.
The census year is obtained through a comprehensive survey, and the data is more comprehensive and accurate.
The population trend in the picture above is obtained according to the statistics before the Seventh National Population Census, according to the annual statistical bulletins.
The birth population data used by the Ministry of Education is the data revised by the Seventh National Population Census.
The problem is that the revision of the Seventh National Population Census will not modify the population data of the previous statistical bulletins, and it needs to be calculated based on the revised fertility rate.
So according to the data before the revision of the Seventh National Population Census, the year with the most births since this century is 2016,
But according to the data after the revision of the Seventh National Population Census, the year with the most births since this century is 2012, so the Ministry of Education predicts that the population of school-age people in the high school stage in our country will reach its peak in 2029 (the population born in 2012 will be 17 years old in 2029).
Statistics is really a profound subject.
It is said that time is the best medicine to solve problems, but the problem is that we don’t have much time left.
We are saying that although we know this day will definitely come, we didn’t expect it to come so quickly, and some concepts and plans need to be adjusted in advance.
For the country, this is the question of “how to allocate educational resources”.
The “15th Five-Year Plan” proposal has emphasized the need to improve the mechanism for allocating educational resources in line with population changes.
A recent trend is that primary schools are gradually merged, or changed to junior high schools, or at least share dormitories.
For universities, this is the question of “who can live well”.
The “15th Five-Year Plan” proposal also mentioned promoting the improvement and expansion of higher education, expanding the enrollment scale of high-quality undergraduate education, improving the school-running capabilities of vocational schools, building distinctive higher vocational colleges, guiding and regulating the development of private education, and expanding the opening up of high-level education to the outside world.
Simply translate:
Expand the enrollment scale of high-quality undergraduate education: expand the enrollment of undergraduates.
Improve the school-running capabilities of vocational schools and build distinctive higher vocational colleges: no mention of expanding enrollment, only mentioning the quality of education.
Guide and regulate the development of private education: the environment is not good, don’t open schools to lose money, at least don’t expand when you see more students in the past two years.
Expand the opening up of high-level education to the outside world: international students, we need to recruit more.
For teachers, job transfer may come soon, especially for primary school teachers.
The flow of primary school teachers to middle schools (or even high schools) to solve the contradiction of surplus primary school teachers and insufficient teachers in middle schools is a trend in the future development of education.
It is recommended that teachers prepare for a rainy day, understand the policies in advance and take the initiative to plan and choose, which is more relaxed than adapting in a hurry in the future.
For students, this is a more realistic question – how should I choose a school, choose a major, and plan my own path.
The value of academic qualifications will definitely depreciate in the future, there is no suspense about this.
Because the number of college students has skyrocketed from tens of thousands twenty years ago to tens of millions now, it is not rare at all.
Things that are not scarce will definitely not be priced up, unless you make yourself scarce, such as passing Tsinghua University and Peking University, but most people really can’t pass, and they can’t pass even if they die.
Especially in the past two years, good jobs have actually shrunk dramatically, which has further intensified the competition.
For most ordinary students, the “scarcity” of a college diploma itself will become weaker and weaker, but “what kind of person you have grown into in these years of undergraduate study” will become more and more important.
The elites have various means to become scarce, but ordinary people have only one general direction: to become relatively scarce labor.
By 2030, the eligible labor force will be about 800 million. Even if delayed retirement can supplement tens of millions, it is only auxiliary labor.
Note, you must tend to skill accumulation and residents’ consumption.
Doing some blue-collar or self-employed work that does not come into contact with dangerous chemical machinery environments will definitely be stronger than low-paid pseudo-white-collar workers.
Finally, for parents, don’t be path-dependent and follow the example of seeking a sword by marking the boat.
I am not advocating the uselessness of academic qualifications, but as ordinary people, we should realize that personal efforts are important, but we should also look at the progress of the times.
Education investment is both an investment in life and a consumption.
What is invested? Of course, it is the improvement of production factors.
But our current higher education, which has spent a huge amount of resources from the country and parents, has not created equivalent benefits – what is produced is not talents, but an atmosphere of involution.
In fact, in most cases, academic qualifications are not the fundamental reason for class advancement.
The vacancies above are the reason for the advancement below.
Academic qualifications are just a screening tool in this process.
If the top is full, what are you screening below?
Individual struggle can be replicated, but historical opportunities cannot be replicated,
Most are heroes of the times, not the times of heroes.
-END-
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