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In the context of a sudden drop in the fertility rate, some members of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference have paid attention to the issues of investment in educational resources and proactive response.

Recently, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education admitted in response to the above proposal that the risk of a downward trend in my country's population fertility level has been increasing in recent years. The seventh census data showed that my country's total fertility rate in 2020 was only about 1.3, and the number of births nationwide dropped from 17.86 million in 2016 to 9.02 million in 2023. Low fertility will become one of the main risks facing my country's population development. As the committee members proposed, the ultra-low fertility rate is bound to bring huge impacts and challenges to my country's economy and society, among which the impact on the investment and layout of educational resources is very far-reaching and lasting.

The reply stated that in order to cope with this impact and challenge, Jiangxi has actively explored fertility support policies and supporting related policies. Since the implementation of the universal three-child policy, local governments have actively explored childcare subsidy policies based on their actual conditions, aiming to significantly reduce the costs of childbirth, raising children and educating them, and stimulate fertility potential.

Jiangxi has also strengthened the systematic deployment of basic education development. Focusing on the educational gaps between regions, urban and rural areas, schools, and groups, the province has strengthened the systematic deployment and issued the "Implementation Plan for the Action Plan for Expanding and Improving Basic Education in Jiangxi Province" (Gan Jiaojizi [2023] No. 46) and the "Implementation Plan for Building a High-quality and Balanced Basic Public Education Service System" (Gan Banfa [2024] No. 11), which clearly proposed to rationally allocate educational resources, strengthen the analysis of the trend of urban and rural population changes, and scientifically formulate urban and rural school layout plans. Establish a basic public education service supply mechanism that is coordinated with the changes in the permanent population, accelerate the construction of a high-quality basic education system with excellent education for children and excellent education for students, improve the level of basic public education services, and effectively enhance the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security in education.

The reply revealed that Jiangxi, based on the trend of changes in the school-age population, rationally planned the layout of primary and secondary schools and kindergartens, and strengthened the coordinated sharing of teachers and campus buildings between school stages and between urban and rural areas. In terms of solving the problem of "crowded urban areas", the focus is on the layout of a number of new, renovated and expanded primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in hot spots and areas with concentrated population inflows, and continuously resolve the phenomenon of "large class sizes" in various school stages. In terms of solving the problem of "weak rural areas", starting from May 2023, Jiangxi Province has carried out a pilot project to optimize the allocation of compulsory education resources in counties in 14 counties (cities and districts), driving other counties (cities and districts) to actively carry out the optimization of compulsory education resource allocation.Through the reform, the number of small rural schools with less than 100 students in the province has been reduced by 1,640, a decrease of 20.1%. This has alleviated the pressure on school supply in urban areas and made the layout of rural schools in the province more scientific and reasonable.In 2024, the province-wide reform work on optimizing the allocation of compulsory education resources in counties was launched in succession, further optimizing school layout, filling in gaps and weaknesses, scientifically allocating resources, and improving the quality of education. It will promote the basic optimization of small-scale rural schools with less than 30 students in the province, concentrate efforts on running township central schools and larger village primary schools, and promote the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education.

In addition, in terms of teacher allocation and structure, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education introduced that in recent years, the Provincial Department of Education has attached great importance to the construction of the teaching team under the situation of a sharp decline in the birth rate, and actively considered the response strategies for optimizing the teacher allocation and structure under the changing population background. Rationally arrange the recruitment plan for primary and secondary school teachers in the province.Based on the actual needs and staffing situation of teachers in each prefecture-level city, the province plans to publicly recruit 4,968 teachers for primary and secondary schools and kindergartens (including special posts) in 2024, a decrease of 54.7% from the planned number of 10,967 in 2023.

The reply concluded that it will further strengthen the forward-looking analysis and scientific decision-making of the trend of changes in the school-age population, and properly deal with the changes in the contradiction between education supply and demand brought about by population changes. Through the exploration of the construction of education data models, it will provide a decision-making basis for scientific planning of school layout and reasonable allocation of education resources.

In response to changes in the school-age population, Jiangxi's neighboring province of Hunan has begun to adjust and optimize the layout of primary and secondary schools and kindergartens.

In November 2023, the Hunan Provincial Department of Education issued the "Notice on Adjusting and Optimizing the Layout of Primary and Secondary Schools and Kindergartens in Response to Changes in the School-Age Population", requiring all cities and prefectures to scientifically formulate work plans and planning plans for adjusting and optimizing the layout of primary and secondary schools and kindergartens from 2024 to 2035 based on regional birth rates, changes in school-age populations and urbanization trends in the next 5 to 10 years, combined with local economic and social development plans, land space planning and population agglomeration.

Specifically, it includes: organizing the establishment, merger, relocation and withdrawal of kindergartens in an orderly manner, and in principle no new kindergartens will be added in rural areas; rationally arranging compulsory education schools, and in principle the scale of new compulsory education schools shall not exceed 2,000 people; moderately expanding the resources of general high schools, optimizing the layout of secondary vocational education, adjusting and merging a number of weak secondary vocational schools, and running a number of high-quality secondary vocational schools.