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author | lanse

editor | heavy rain

zhigu trend | id:zgtrend

the wave of school closures has spread from kindergartens to primary schools.

just a few weeks ago, a private primary school in shuozhou, shanxi province, quietly closed down. many parents went to the school to get their student id cards only to find that the entire school was deserted. the education bureau’s notice was even more shocking:

the school stopped operating without approval.

in july, lishan primary school in yonghe town, jinjiang city, under the jurisdiction of quanzhou, fujian, issued a notice of proposed cancellation. it is worth noting that 22 primary schools in quanzhou have issued cancellation notices since the beginning of this year.

looking beyond shanxi and fujian and overlooking the vast land of china, in 2023 alone, the laughter and bells of more than 5,600 primary schools came to an abrupt end.

this is a continuation of the trend of kindergarten closures in an era of declining birth rates.

in fact, china's birth rate has been declining since 2017, and the chain reaction is happening gradually like bamboo blooming:

in 2021, the number of kindergarten children showed negative growth for the first time, and a wave of kindergarten closures arrived;

in 2024, the first wave of declining birthrates will see children turn 7, and the closure of primary schools will begin.

it can be foreseen that junior high schools in 2030, high schools in 2033, and higher education in 2038 will all reach turning points one by one.

the trend of school closures is almost irreversible. since 2017, the number of births in my country has dropped for seven consecutive years, and the desire to have children continues to decline.

a turbulent educational reform is taking place, and no one can stay out of it.

some people may ask: the closure wave has come, but why don’t i see any kindergartens or primary schools around here closing down?

in fact, there is a sequence for "going to the execution ground".at presentthe first to close were rural schools and private schools.

the closure and merger of rural schools is not new. in the early 21st century, the state launched a campaign to close and merge rural primary and secondary schools, but it was stopped in time because of the adverse consequences of blindly closing and merging schools.

now that the era of declining birthrates is upon us, rural schools are facing a new round of mergers and closures. in 2023, the ministry of education issued the "opinions on implementing the action plan for expanding and improving the quality of basic education in the new era", proposing to "appropriately integrate small, scattered and weak rural schools".

in the future, it will be normal to not have a school in many villages.

the pace of closing and merging rural primary schools and teaching points is clearly accelerating. for example, wannian county, shangrao, jiangxi province, adjusted 23 village primary schools this autumn.

for example, qingxin district of qingyuan city, in light of the actual decrease in the rural permanent population, has formulated the "work plan for the removal and merger of rural compulsory education schools (including teaching points) (2021-2023)", which clearly states that 16 complete primary schools and 44 primary school teaching points will be removed and merged before 2023.

here is the direct reason why rural schools were the first to be hit:the scale is reduced and the distribution is too scattered.

another hard-hit area is private schools, and clues can be seen from the previous wave of kindergarten closures. the number of children in private kindergartens began to decline in 2020, and by 2023 the decline had reached 32.38%. in contrast, the number of children in public kindergartens only began to decline in 2023.

for this reason, many private kindergartens are having a hard time attracting children and have started a "battle for students": a private kindergarten in linyi, shandong once shouted slogans such as "pay 100 yuan and you can get 300 yuan, pay 200 yuan and you can get 1,000 yuan"; some kindergartens even privately offer elementary school english courses to meet parents' expectations for their children to "win at the starting line."

in this initial wave of primary school closures, the first to be affected are basically private primary schools.

this is understandable.public schools are funded by the government.private schools lack official endorsement due to government funding, are highly dependent on tuition income, and are more affected by the number of students enrolled.

in addition, schools in economically underdeveloped areas with population outflows are more likely to be the first to be affected.

northeast china was the first to experience a "student shortage". reports show that between 2013 and 2022, the number of primary schools in northeast china disappeared at an alarming rate:

nearly 60% of heilongjiang's primary schools have "disappeared", totaling more than 1,900;

nearly 50% of jilin's primary schools, totaling more than 2,600, have "disappeared";

more than 2,200 primary schools also "disappeared" in liaoning, a drop of nearly half.

compared with the rest of the country, northeast china has long been far ahead in terms of negative population growth.

on the one hand, the economy has entered a "long season", forcing people in northeast china to leave shanhaiguan to seek a living. in 2011, the population of northeast china experienced negative growth. during the seventh census, the net population decrease ranked among the top three in the country. in ten years, 11 million people left the country, which is equivalent to emptying the entire city of harbin.

on the other hand, people in northeast china don't like to have children. the birth rates in heilongjiang, liaoning and jilin in 2022 were only 3.34‰, 4.08‰ and 4.33‰ respectively, ranking the bottom three in the country, even lower than south korea (5.5‰), the lowest in the world.

parts of central chinathere is no exception.for example, in shuozhou, shanxi, where the private primary school was closed without approval, the permanent population began to decline in 2010, and by 2023 it had decreased by 134,700. the birth rate also began to decline in 2018, and by 2023 it was only 5.75‰, which is about the same as south korea.

shuozhou is just a microcosm of shanxi. the permanent population of shanxi province began to decline in 2011, and by 2023 it had decreased by 1.0801 million people. from 2021 to 2023, 411 kindergartens closed down.

even hunan, which has a relatively good economy among the provinces with large population outflows, proposed to organize the orderly establishment, merger, relocation and withdrawal of kindergartens in 2023, becoming the first province in the country to propose adjusting the layout of kindergartens at the provincial level.

northeastyesterday，chinaverymany places today and tomorrow.

however, while it is difficult to enroll a child in schools in northeast china and shanxi, an abnormal scene has been staged in beijing, guangzhou, hangzhou and other places. last year and this year, these cities experienced the "most difficult year for primary school enrollment."

some parents complained that because the school is overcrowded, their children were forced to be transferred to schools farther away from home.

why are primary schools in northeast china and shanxi already "fighting for children", while it is still "hard to get a place" in beijing, guangzhou and hangzhou?

to put it bluntly, in addition to the baby boom brought about by the two-child policy in 2016, the more important impact is the impact of urbanization.

china started its new urbanization program in 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 1.39 percentage points. by the end of 2023, it had reached 66.16%.

the acceleration of urbanization means that the urban-rural dual system has been broken, and restrictions on settling in medium and large cities are also being relaxed, accelerating the flow of population from rural areas and small cities to large cities such as beijing, hangzhou, shenzhen and guangzhou, delaying the arrival of the wave of bankruptcies.

but，thisstill can't change the trend of school closuresthe trend of the times。

along withchinadeclining birthrateofif the situation continues, the next schools to close down may be urban schools, public schools,beijing, shanghai, guangzhou, shenzhen, etc.population flows into area schools.

don’t disbelieve it, in the past, it was hard to get a place in a public kindergarten, and parents tried their best to send their children there, but now some public kindergartens are facing the situation of not being able to enroll children.

for example, a kindergarten for a central enterprise stationed in wuhan is recruiting students from outside for the first time in 20 years due to insufficient student enrollment.

according to the latest "china population forecast report 2023 edition", under the premise of medium and low forecasts, china's birth population will maintain a downward trend until around 2035.

it should be noted here that the low forecast is that no substantive and effective policies to reduce the burden of childbirth are adopted, while the medium forecast is that the burden reduction efforts reach the average level of developed countries. (the high forecast is to adopt a fertility burden reduction effort that exceeds that of all countries, which can be left aside for the time being.)

so when will we see a wave of closures of middle schools, high schools and even universities?

compulsory education is relatively easy to estimate, just add the corresponding age.

the results predicted by the model are also the same:2024 marks the turning point in the decline of the primary school-age population;

junior high school age populationthere is still a slow upward trend until 2029, but byit will also begin to decline rapidly in 2030。

due to the existence of the college entrance examination and the senior high school entrance examination, there are admission thresholds for high schools and universities, and their enrollment situation is more complicated.

in terms of high schools, after taking into account the different ratios of vocational to general education and the gross enrollment rate, two scholars gave the answer that the "turning point of student source" will be in 2032 and 2033.

as for universities, some scholars believe that higher education will2038around the corner, we will see a "turning point in student sources" because higher education will experience“the number of students decreases - admission scores decrease - the quality of students decreases - the quality of teaching declines - serious enrollment shortages - the crisis of survival and closure”there is a certain lag in the process.

no matter which prediction is correct, it shows that the wave of school closures will be a protracted war, and no stage of education will be immune.

of course, school operations are not as simple as closing the gates. this involves the placement of regular teachers, the reuse of existing school assets, in-depth changes in education, and so on.

in this chain reaction, teachers are the ones who suffer the most. some scholars predict based on the birth population model that by 2035, there will be about 1.5 million primary school teachers and 370,000 junior high school teachers in the country that are in surplus.

teacher surplusthe direct result is thatiron rice bowl”brokenover, this has already happened.

at the beginning of this year, a document from fengtai district, beijing proposed to explore the establishment ofteacher exit mechanismif a teacher fails the annual assessment during his/her contract period, the school may not renew the contract after the end of the contract period, or may demote or transfer the teacher to another position.

previously, guiyang gui'an, zhejiang ningbo, shandong pingyin and other places have also issued documents related to the teacher exit mechanism for primary and secondary schools. according to incomplete statistics, more than 10 provinces and cities have clearly announced the teacher exit mechanism.

the introduction of the teacher exit mechanism has made teachers’ hands tremble in fear of holding on to their iron rice bowls.

the situation may be even more severe in the future. local governments have become more cautious about recruiting new teachers. for example, the teacher recruitment in xiang'an district of xiamen, which attracted much attention this year, did not provide a quota directly, but adopted a contract management system. the recruitment and exit mechanism is more flexible, but it also means that the "iron rice bowl" attribute has disappeared.

the wave of school closures is not entirely a bad thing. for children who will go to primary school after 2024, junior high school after 2030, high school after 2033, and college after 2038, the degree of schooling has been relaxed, and it will become easier to go to school, and they will not have to compete so hard.

judging from the experience of japan and south korea, which are "east asian experience servers", relaxed education and small-class teaching are not far away from us. we can shift our focus from scores and rankings to knowledge itself. the number of students served by teachers will also decrease. the "jiangsu education modernization 2035" proposes that in order to improve the quality of compulsory education, by 2035, the ratio of primary and secondary school students to teachers will be reduced from 15.5 to 13 (including the ratio of primary school students to teachers from 18 to 15).

it is worth noting that the teacher surplus mentioned in the previous article is a model based on the current student-teacher ratio. if the student-teacher ratio is lowered in the future, there will not be such an exaggerated teacher surplus.

scenarios like south korea and taiwan province of china, where people can go to college even with 0 points, are likely to happen in mainland china.

in the context of taiwan's numerous universities and sparse student population, university admission scores are incredibly low:

in 2006, taiwanese students only needed to score 15 points in each subject to enter university;

this record was broken in 2007, when the total score of the four subjects was only 18 points;

it was even more exaggerated in 2008, you could become a college student with a total score of 7 points.

the unspoken consensus among young taiwanese at the time was, "twenty years ago, we celebrated our college entrance exams by throwing a party and setting off fireworks. twenty years later, we go to college by paying tuition, picking up girls, and waiting for a piece of paper."

there are all kinds of tricks to attract students. some universities in taiwan have even launched "choose one of three" promotions such as free accommodation, free ipads, and free laptops.

finally, regarding the transformation and way out of schools, we can refer to south korea’s practices.

as we all know, south korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world. the wave of school closures came early and has now spread to universities.

what about schools and teachers?south korea said: if there are no students, we will create them.

in march 2023, at the entrance ceremony of ulsan elementary school in south korea, there were no elementary school students, but 140 senior freshmen over the age of 55. in addition to general education courses such as history, they can also participate in campus activities such as club activities, picnics, sports days and school trips.

to put it bluntly, it is just a university for senior citizens.

kindergarten enrollment is insufficient, middle-aged and elderly people fill the gapchina has also taken the first step in its exploration.a kindergarten in huadu, guangzhou, has taken the lead in transforming itself into a university for senior citizens, offering courses in tea art, chess and cards, health preservation, beauty and dressing, calligraphy and painting, and flower arranging.

what’s even more amazing is that their target group is the grandparents of the children in the kindergarten. after sending their grandchildren to kindergarten, the grandparents go directly upstairs to the classes, so they can both send their children to school and study at the same time.

in shandong, a couple who opened 11 kindergartens planned to close three of them in 2023 and transform into elderly care services, opening up a new model of "childcare + elderly care". they envision that if more kindergartens are closed, teachers can also choose to work in elderly care centers.

from now on, kindergarten teachers will no longer teach 3-year-old children how to make clay figures and draw, but 60-year-old children how to edit short videos, do body shape and dance.

no matter what aspect the exploration is, it is worthy of recognition.

after all, ordinary people cannot change the direction of the tide of the times, but they can choose their own surfing posture.