The importance of compulsory education

Among the remarkable achievements of the People's Republic of China in the 70 years since its founding is the nine-year compulsory education system. Thanks to the nine-year compulsory education, China has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, which is a great achievement considering that in 1949, the country's primary-school enrollment rate was only about 25 percent.

Efforts to raise the literacy rate in China didn't yield the desired results until the nine-year compulsory education system was introduced in 1986. The rapid growth of the Chinese economy played a big role in making the literacy campaign a success, especially because governments at all levels included the progress in the nine-year compulsory education system in the officials' work performance.

On Jan 1, 2001, the Chinese government declared that the country had basically succeeded in promoting the nine-year compulsory education from the primary to the middle school level and thus eradicated illiteracy in most parts of the country.