From training to education. Lifelong learning in China

Abstract

Lifelong learning was nothing unusual in the Chinese tradition. There was no age limit for education in ancient China, although education in those days was mainly for examinations, which were the testing ground for officials. A system of adult education was established in the 1950s, but that was to complement the formal education system as an instrument to implement state manpower planning. Lifelong education as a modern notion was introduced to China only at the end of the 1970s immediately after the Cultural Revolution. The notion did not gain much ground when education was closely associated with state manpower plans, and individuals did not have much room for personal development. The break away from strict manpower planning in the early 1980s has given rise to individual aspirations for education. Such aspirations have integrated with the long tradition of self-motivation in learning and have given rise to spectacular expansion in all kinds of adult education. While the motives for such learning are still very much related to jobs and incomes, alternative objectives for learning are fast developing outside the formal sectors of education. This article analyses the recent development of lifelong education in China, and uses Shanghai, the most developed city, as an illustration.