China Raises Education Spending, But More Needs to be Done.
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The central government spending on education will account for 4% of the country's GDP this year. Local financial organizations should decide their budgets accordingly, said Premier Wen Jiabao, when delivering the government report at the opening ceremony of the annual session of the National People's Congress.
The 4% is the most familiar percentage to China's educational circle. China's education has been pursuing the "4%" for about 20 years. It was a long and rough journey. If in 1993 some parents, holding their newly-born child, read the newly-printed "Reform and Development Program for China's Education" and regarded China's promise of realizing the goal of putting 4% of the GDP into education by the middle of the 1990s or the end of the 20th century as a luscious apple, then, in 2012, the child, who has graduated from high school, has ultimately picked up this luscious "apple."
According to international standards, this "apple" shows the importance of education to a country. During the mid-1980s, China's spending on education had been lower than 3% of GDP. In the late 1980s, the State Education Commission made a suggestion to the CPC Central Committee and the State Council that the percentage should be increased to 4% by the mid-1990s or 2000. However, the percentage had been lower than 3.5% till 2011.
Higher spending on education is beneficial to almost every family in China. Why did it take the country 19 years to increase education spending to 4% of GDP?
First, as the central government has taken economic development as the country's primary task, almost all local governments are thirsty for investment, and are least willing to invest in education. Due to their obsession with GDP growth and lack of transparency and supervision, education always takes the smallest share of government spending.
Second, the transfer payment for education from the fiscal revenue has met with much resistance. Although the central government has decided to increase spending on education, the reform of the country's fiscal and taxation system has been too slow, and local governments have been unwilling to spend much on education. The central government has taken a series of measures to boost local governments' enthusiasm for education, which is a gradual process.
Third, China has achieved rapid economic growth over the past 20 years, and even 4% of its GDP is a large number, making it more difficult for the country to increase education spending.
The hardship experienced by pursuing "4%" enabled us to have an insightful vision of the great resistance and difficulties in revitalizing China's education. Besides, pursuing "4%" has increasingly become the focus of media attention, demonstrating the Chinese people's great concern and deep expectations for education.
Today, the goal of "4%" is finally realized. By pushing aside all obstacles and difficulties, this government fulfilled its promise, just as Premier Wen said, "it eventually paid this debt". It is safe to say that the realization of the "4%" goal can be called a "Chang-e flying to the moon" of China's education in terms of rough courses, long period and profound significance. This fulfillment of promise not only established the government's reputation, but also enriched China's education, thus when the state is solving problems for which Chinese people have strong feelings, such as equality in access to basic educational services, rational allocation of educational resources in rural areas, and improvement of higher education quality, will be more confident and contained. After all, 4% is not a small number given China's huge GDP.
What should be reminded is that to have this "apple" invested in education fall to the ground firmly still faces intangible resistance, so the accountability mechanism should be started if necessary. What Chinese education needs most are not just money but more ideas and courage for system reforms.
It is also clear that when we are about to eat this "apple" of "4%", others have picked a greater and sweeter "apple". The investment in education of the United States had reached 7% of GDP in 1999, and the percentage had reached 5% in India in 2003. Although we are pleased about the achievement we have made, we also have to speed up cultivating the next "apple".
Read more at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-03/13/c_131464418.htm
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Showing posts with label Needs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Needs. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Despite More College Grads US Workforce Needs Even More
Despite more college grads, U.S. workforce needs even more.
The number of adult Americans who have earned college degrees has been increasing, but not fast enough to keep up with workforce demands, according to a report released Monday.
At the current rate, employers in 2025 will need about 23 million more degree-holders than the nation's colleges and universities will have produced.
"We are nowhere near at the pace that we need to be says," Jamie Merisotis, president of the non-profit Lumina Foundation, which released the report. "Look at it as an alarm, an urgent call to action."
The foundation wants to increase the percentage of working-age Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% in 2025 — a goal similar to one set by President Obama in 2009. Obama said he wants the United States to reclaim its position as the world leader in the proportion of college graduates by 2020. If the current pace continues, that figure will reach just 46.5% by 2025, the Lumina report says.
The Lumina Foundation report released Monday, based on 2010 Census data, found a positive overall trend: 38.3% of Americans ages 25 to 64 had at least an associate's degree in 2010, up from 38.1% in 2009 and 37.9% in 2008.
Last month, the Census Bureau noted a historic high in the number of adults with at least a bachelor's degree. That figure, 30%, represented an "important milestone," said Kurt Bauman, the chair of the Census Bureau's education branch.
Yet Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data show that the USA has slipped, to 16th, in the share of adults ages 25 to 34 holding college degrees. South Korea, Canada and Japan are the top three.
The Lumina report's analysis of attainment rates for the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, where about two-thirds of all Americans live, also reveals differences by region. Completion rates are among the lowest for working-age adults in fast-growing metropolitan areas in the South and West.
Read more at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-26/college-degrees-adults/53793160/1
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
The number of adult Americans who have earned college degrees has been increasing, but not fast enough to keep up with workforce demands, according to a report released Monday.
At the current rate, employers in 2025 will need about 23 million more degree-holders than the nation's colleges and universities will have produced.
"We are nowhere near at the pace that we need to be says," Jamie Merisotis, president of the non-profit Lumina Foundation, which released the report. "Look at it as an alarm, an urgent call to action."
The foundation wants to increase the percentage of working-age Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% in 2025 — a goal similar to one set by President Obama in 2009. Obama said he wants the United States to reclaim its position as the world leader in the proportion of college graduates by 2020. If the current pace continues, that figure will reach just 46.5% by 2025, the Lumina report says.
The Lumina Foundation report released Monday, based on 2010 Census data, found a positive overall trend: 38.3% of Americans ages 25 to 64 had at least an associate's degree in 2010, up from 38.1% in 2009 and 37.9% in 2008.
Last month, the Census Bureau noted a historic high in the number of adults with at least a bachelor's degree. That figure, 30%, represented an "important milestone," said Kurt Bauman, the chair of the Census Bureau's education branch.
Yet Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data show that the USA has slipped, to 16th, in the share of adults ages 25 to 34 holding college degrees. South Korea, Canada and Japan are the top three.
The Lumina report's analysis of attainment rates for the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, where about two-thirds of all Americans live, also reveals differences by region. Completion rates are among the lowest for working-age adults in fast-growing metropolitan areas in the South and West.
Read more at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-26/college-degrees-adults/53793160/1
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Monday, January 23, 2012
Efforts Are Under Way to Tie College to Job Needs
Efforts Are Under Way to Tie College to Job Needs.
Assaying the output of higher education in Texas, Michael Bettersworth evoked the image of a crippled Apollo 13 craft hurtling into space, its future uncertain.
“Houston, we have a problem, and it’s not that too few people are going to college,” said Mr. Bettersworth, an associate vice chancellor at the Texas State Technical College System. “It’s that too many people are getting degrees with limited value in the job market.”
Students throughout Texas are amassing college credits without knowing whether they will lead to employment, and many face serious debt when they graduate.
Meanwhile, the state’s population of skilled laborers is aging and approaching retirement, and there is a dearth of recent graduates with two-year vocational degrees who can take on those jobs.
Experts say a retooling is in order if the state hopes to expand its manufacturing industry.
As the economy begins to show signs of life, efforts are under way at two-year colleges across the state to make programs more responsive to the labor market. Some Texas leaders are trying to reverse the trend toward encouraging students to attain the highest degree possible.
“It’s not that we don’t need engineers and Ph.D.’s and research scientists,” said Joe Arnold, a government affairs manager with B.A.S.F., a chemical company. “We do, but that’s not all we need. We need skilled craftsmen. We need operators.”
The Texas State Technical College System was established in 1969 with the mission of supplementing the state’s work force. Recently, the four-campus system joined Credentials That Work, a new project run by the Boston-based nonprofit Jobs for the Future, which uses new technology that scrapes information from online job postings and provides real-time labor market information. The technology also offers information on which skills — in addition to simply which degrees — employers are seeking.
“Schools have to nail it pretty much in terms of producing graduates that respond to the needs of the marketplace,” said John Dorrer, the director of the Credentials That Work program.
However, even when degrees can be tailor-made to fit companies’ needs, students still must be persuaded to pursue them. Mike Reeser, the college system’s chancellor, said there was “a misperception in the country that the worst bachelor’s degree is more valuable than the best associate’s degree.”
Tom Pauken, the chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, said one of his top priorities this year would be countering that notion. “I think we’ve got to revisit this entire issue,” he said. “We’ve gotten completely away from the idea that we’ve got different talents and there are different approaches in terms of education.”
Should Mr. Pauken’s campaign be successful, there will remain the matter of financing. With budgets being slashed at all levels of education, resources are tight, and the more highly specified training is expensive.
“We have to be more efficient, we have to be more effective, and we have to rely on employers for more support,” said Mr. Bettersworth, the associate vice chancellor.
Increasingly, manufacturing companies are taking the initiative by investing in community colleges in order to produce the workers they need.
This year, for example, B.A.S.F. will give Brazosport College in Lake Jackson the final installment of a $1 million grant for the creation of a new facility devoted to the petrochemical, energy and nuclear industries. This academic year was also the first of five years in which the company would provide $50,000 in scholarships.
“Community colleges are workhorses for us,” Mr. Arnold said. “The problem is there aren’t enough people going to them seeking education that will put them to work for us.”
Mr. Arnold is on a Texas Association of Manufacturers committee that is looking into the causes. So far, he said, there certainly seems to be an image issue.
“People know that we need more manufacturing, but they don’t think of those jobs as something they want to send their kids to go do — or to do themselves,” he said.
But Leo Danna, 20, who enrolled at the T.S.T.C. campus in Waco after two years at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, said the switch has worked for him.
“That kind of college wasn’t right for me,” he said. “I couldn’t focus and didn’t understand what I was going to do when I graduated. Here, in the first semester, you’re already talking to companies in your field.”
Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/us/texas-educators-encourage-more-two-year-college-degrees-and-vocational-training.html
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
Assaying the output of higher education in Texas, Michael Bettersworth evoked the image of a crippled Apollo 13 craft hurtling into space, its future uncertain.
“Houston, we have a problem, and it’s not that too few people are going to college,” said Mr. Bettersworth, an associate vice chancellor at the Texas State Technical College System. “It’s that too many people are getting degrees with limited value in the job market.”
Students throughout Texas are amassing college credits without knowing whether they will lead to employment, and many face serious debt when they graduate.
Meanwhile, the state’s population of skilled laborers is aging and approaching retirement, and there is a dearth of recent graduates with two-year vocational degrees who can take on those jobs.
Experts say a retooling is in order if the state hopes to expand its manufacturing industry.
As the economy begins to show signs of life, efforts are under way at two-year colleges across the state to make programs more responsive to the labor market. Some Texas leaders are trying to reverse the trend toward encouraging students to attain the highest degree possible.
“It’s not that we don’t need engineers and Ph.D.’s and research scientists,” said Joe Arnold, a government affairs manager with B.A.S.F., a chemical company. “We do, but that’s not all we need. We need skilled craftsmen. We need operators.”
The Texas State Technical College System was established in 1969 with the mission of supplementing the state’s work force. Recently, the four-campus system joined Credentials That Work, a new project run by the Boston-based nonprofit Jobs for the Future, which uses new technology that scrapes information from online job postings and provides real-time labor market information. The technology also offers information on which skills — in addition to simply which degrees — employers are seeking.
“Schools have to nail it pretty much in terms of producing graduates that respond to the needs of the marketplace,” said John Dorrer, the director of the Credentials That Work program.
However, even when degrees can be tailor-made to fit companies’ needs, students still must be persuaded to pursue them. Mike Reeser, the college system’s chancellor, said there was “a misperception in the country that the worst bachelor’s degree is more valuable than the best associate’s degree.”
Tom Pauken, the chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, said one of his top priorities this year would be countering that notion. “I think we’ve got to revisit this entire issue,” he said. “We’ve gotten completely away from the idea that we’ve got different talents and there are different approaches in terms of education.”
Should Mr. Pauken’s campaign be successful, there will remain the matter of financing. With budgets being slashed at all levels of education, resources are tight, and the more highly specified training is expensive.
“We have to be more efficient, we have to be more effective, and we have to rely on employers for more support,” said Mr. Bettersworth, the associate vice chancellor.
Increasingly, manufacturing companies are taking the initiative by investing in community colleges in order to produce the workers they need.
This year, for example, B.A.S.F. will give Brazosport College in Lake Jackson the final installment of a $1 million grant for the creation of a new facility devoted to the petrochemical, energy and nuclear industries. This academic year was also the first of five years in which the company would provide $50,000 in scholarships.
“Community colleges are workhorses for us,” Mr. Arnold said. “The problem is there aren’t enough people going to them seeking education that will put them to work for us.”
Mr. Arnold is on a Texas Association of Manufacturers committee that is looking into the causes. So far, he said, there certainly seems to be an image issue.
“People know that we need more manufacturing, but they don’t think of those jobs as something they want to send their kids to go do — or to do themselves,” he said.
But Leo Danna, 20, who enrolled at the T.S.T.C. campus in Waco after two years at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, said the switch has worked for him.
“That kind of college wasn’t right for me,” he said. “I couldn’t focus and didn’t understand what I was going to do when I graduated. Here, in the first semester, you’re already talking to companies in your field.”
Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/us/texas-educators-encourage-more-two-year-college-degrees-and-vocational-training.html
http://www.languagecorpsasia.com
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