"Xuexiao", School in Chinese

School in China has a long term history and evolves a complex revolution. Nowadays it has various forms and generates special educational systems.  This article will focus on how to say school in Chinese, and a brief introduction on China education systems.

Pronunciation and Meaning

The pronunciation of school in Chinese is "xué/ʃuə/ xiào/xjɑʊ/ ". "Xue" has the meaning of learning and studying. The character "Xiao" refers to a site or place that provides learning atomosphere.

Different Types of Schools

There are various of types of schools in China, which are mainly divided into full-time school and part-time school. Based on the perspective of educational phase, full-time school could be subdivided into different types, including primary education school, such as kindergarten（youeryuan）and primary school（xiaoxue）；junior secondary education school,  like junior high school and senior high school; and college (daxue) as higher education school.These schools meet the different needs and obey the learning curve of student in different ages.

Education in China

History of "Xuexiao"

As one of the four ancient civilizations, education in China could date back to thousands of years ago in Xia dynasty (B.C 2070-B.C.1600). Confucius who originated Confucianism is the representative teacher before century.

In acient China, schools were set up mainly for rich persons, the poor seldomly gain the opportunities to receive education. The main purpose of education at that time was to cultivate political talents for government. Schools in modern sense originated from 19 century and were largely influenced by western countries.

The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 pushed the perfection of educational system. Then the reform and opening-up in 1978 significantly improve the emphasis of science and technical knowledge, while the booming of economy also made it possible to allocate more funds into educational industry. The developing of internationalization enhanced the combination of western and eastern culture.

China Education System

Nine-year compulsory education is an important part of Chinese eduactional system. Law implemented from year 2006 regulates that all school-age children and adolescents in Chinese nationality, regardless of their sex, ethnic group, race, family property status and religious belief, have the equal obligation and right to participate compulsory education.

The nine-year compulsory education includes both primary school and junior school education. It is a free public welfare which means the tuition fee is covered by governments. Mandatory nine-year compulsory education now effectively covered 85% of the population.

Key schools mainly exist among high schools. The existence of key schools is due to the scare educational resources and the high demand for education. Students who come to key schools will capture high possibility of receiving high quality education and entering a better colleges in the future. Nowadays, some cities like Shanghai tries to abolish key schools system.

Training schools or training centers, is different from the public schools. They belongs to private education groups and subject to help students performs better in specific academic courses such as English, math, or Chinese. Since they are founded by private persons so they exist anywhere and have different scales.

International Education in China

International schools can be defined as school which conducts course in English in countries where English is not the native language. Recent year, international education becomes popular in China especially in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. In 2013, there are 338 international schools in mainland China and the number of enrolled students is up to 184037, which keeps increasing. International universities also grow in China, such as CEIBS and Yale Center Beijing etc.