The Challenge

In China today, millions of children do not have access to a quality education. Children in under-resourced school districts across the country face profoundly limited educational opportunities when compared to their counterparts in high-income communities.

While 70% of students from China’s major cities attend college, less than 5% of students from poor rural areas go on to higher education.¹

Recognizing the severity of the education gap, the Chinese government has begun to take steps to alleviate this inequality.  China has established free compulsory K-9 education for all children, but critical needs are still not being met:  

• Classrooms are overcrowded. Despite incentives to bring teachers to low-income districts, schools in high-poverty communities are overpopulated and understaffed, with classroom sizes often of at least 50 students.
• Teachers are undertrained. Whereas teachers in wealthy urban school districts receive training in modern student-centered pedagogy, teachers in under-resourced schools lack access to quality professional development opportunities.
• Students are falling behind in English. Although English is one of the most important subject tests for the Chinese high school and college entrance exams, limited access to qualified teachers has forced many low-income school districts to delay teaching English until as late as seventh grade.

For students in these under-resourced schools, reduced educational opportunities translate to lifelong limitations in terms of career prospects, wages, and standards of living.

Education provides the means to break the cycle of poverty. If you believe that every child deserves access to a quality education and is capable of achievement when given the resources to succeed, then be a part of the solution. Join Teach for China and a movement of global leaders to ensure that where a child is born does not limit his or her educational and life prospects.