Education Lays Foundation for Development and Promotes Exchanges and Mutual Learning
教育奠基伟大发展，促进交流互鉴
Chinese Ambassador to Canada, H. E. Cong Peiwu Published a Byline Article on Ottawa Life Magazine
驻加拿大大使丛培武在《渥太华生活》杂志发表署名文章
29 December 2022
2022年12月29日
At the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in October, General Secretary Xi Jinping reviewed the work of the past five years and the great changes in the first decade of the new era in his report, which elicited warm response. The international community has highly praised the two miracles of rapid economic growth and enduring social stability that China has created.
在10月召开的中国共产党第二十次全国代表大会上，习近平总书记作大会报告，回顾总结了过去五年的工作和新时代十年的伟大变革，引发热烈反响。国际社会纷纷赞叹中国创造了经济快速发展和社会长期稳定“两大奇迹”。
Facts have proved that all of China’s development attainments cannot be achieved without the country’s emphasis to education, as education plays a fundamental, guiding, and all-encompassing role in the drive for modernization. Giving strategic priority to the development of education, China has managed to keep fiscal spending on education above 4 percent of GDP for ten consecutive years, which surpassed all other expenditure items in China’s general public budget. China has made historic strides in making education universally available and has built the largest education system in the world. It has nearly 530,000 educational institutions of all kinds and at all levels, with over 290 million students enrolled. Following its full coverage of education nationwide, the completion rate of free nine-year compulsory education reached 95.4 percent. The gross high school enrollment rate rose to 91.4 percent. The gross enrollment rate for higher education climbed to 57.8 percent, up 27.8 percentage points over the past decade. More and more rural children, especially those in remote and backward areas, are able to finish their education, thanks to the country’s poverty alleviation policies that combines helping the poor build the confidence and capacity to help themselves.
事实证明，中国所有发展成就的取得离不开教育在现代会建设中所发挥的基础性、先导性和全局性作用。过去十年，在优先发展战略指导下，教育成为中国财政一般公共预算第一大支出，国家财政性教育经费支出占GDP比例持续保持在4%以上；中国的教育普及水平实现历史性跨越，建成了世界上规模最大的教育体系。全国共有各级各类学校近53万所，在校生超2.9亿人。在实现全面普及的基础上，九年义务教育巩固率达到95.4%，高中阶段教育毛入学率91.4%。高等教育毛入学率达到57.8%，十年间提高了27.8个百分点。特别是在一些偏远落后地区，在国家扶贫、扶志、扶智相结合的政策支持下，越来越多的乡村孩子得以完成学业。
Liu Xiuxiang, a delegate to the 20th CPC National Congress from the once impoverished Wangmo County of Guizhou Province, said that only 70 students of his county were admitted to colleges in 2012, while the number rose to over 1300 in 2022. A growing number of rural students have started a new life outside the deep mountains. Data show that over the past decade, higher education institutions in China have trained over 77 million high-caliber individuals, and secondary and higher vocational schools have produced a total of 79 million graduates. Higher education, together with vocational education have brought about structural changes in China’s labor force quality, met the needs of transformation of economic growth model and upgrading of the industrial structure, boosted high-quality economic development, and laid a solid foundation for eliminating extreme poverty, winning the battle against poverty and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
来自贵州的二十大代表刘秀祥介绍说，2012年，他所在的贵州省望谟县只有70人考上大学，2022年，有1300多人考上大学，越来越多的乡村学子走出大山，开启了新的人生。据统计，十年来，中国高等教育累计培养了高素质专业人才7700多万人，中高职学校累计培养毕业生7900多万人。高等教育和中高职教育共同发力，引领了中国劳动力素质的结构性变化，满足了中国经济发展方式转型和产业结构升级的需要，成为经济高质量发展的助推器，也为消灭绝对贫困，打赢脱贫攻坚战、全面建成小康社会夯实了基础。
At the National Education Conference held in September 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward that “education is of critical importance to the future of our country and our Party”, raising the understanding of the position and role of education to a new historical height. In the report to the 20th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed developing education that meets the people’s expectations. He stressed the necessity of following a people-centered approach to developing education, moving faster to build a high-quality educational system, advancing students’ well-rounded development, and promoting fairness in education. He also emphasized the importance of developing basic disciplines, emerging disciplines, and interdisciplinary subjects and speeding up the development of world-class universities and strong disciplines with Chinese features. All these statements have charted a new course for the development of China’s education in the future.
在2018年9月召开的全国教育大会上，习近平总书记提出“教育是国之大计、党之大计”，把关于教育地位与作用的认识提高到了一个新的历史高度。习近平总书记在党的二十大报告中指出，要办好人民满意的教育。强调坚持以人民为中心发展教育，加快建设高质量教育体系，发展素质教育，促进教育公平。加强基础学科、新兴学科、交叉学科建设，加快建设中国特色、世界一流的大学和优势学科。这些重要论述为中国教育未来发展指明了新方向。
China and Canada have a long history of educational cooperation. As early as 1973, the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding of the China-Canada Scholars’ Exchange Program. Now, China and Canada enjoy comprehensive and in-depth cooperation in student and scholar exchanges, joint school running, and overseas education. According to the data from the Canadian Bureau for International Education, China is Canada’s second-largest source of international students. Besides, every year, thousands of Canadian students and scholars come to China for further study and research. They have become a strong force driving exchanges in education and culture between the two sides. As China’s education continues to develop, educational cooperation and exchanges between China and Canada at all levels will brim with tremendous vitality.
中加教育合作历史悠久，早在1973年，双方就签署了《中加学者交换项目》谅解备忘录。当前，中加在学生学者互访、合作办学、留学教育等各方面有着全面而深入的合作。根据加拿大国际教育局数据，中国是加拿大第二大国际学生来源国。加拿大每年也有几千名学生学者赴华留学，成为两国教育文化交流的有生力量。随着中国教育不断发展，中加各层次教育合作交流必将焕发更大的生机和旺盛的生命力。