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To prosper, China must become a magnet for international students
China must seize the opportunity to become a global education hub. Reform of its universities should begin now
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Wang Huiyao is the founder of the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based non-governmental think tank.
Last month, 12.9 million students in China sat for the National Higher Education Entrance Examination, or gaokao, the number sliding for a second year, and down from 13.3 million last year. Given that births have fallen below 8 million annually to a record low, in 18 years, the country’s more than 3,100 universities will find themselves fighting over an even smaller cohort.
This will coincide with a growing global competition for talent. In a knowledge-driven economy, the countries that prosper will increasingly be those capable of attracting researchers, entrepreneurs and skilled workers. Yet demographic trends are changing: declining fertility is no longer confined to the wealthy, ageing societies in Europe and East Asia.
The global fertility rate has fallen from 2.9 births per woman in 1994 to 2.2 in 2024, and more than half of all countries and territories are now below the replacement level of 2.1. Even where fertility remains comparatively high, the direction is unmistakable: around one-third of all countries and territories had fertility rates of four or higher in 1994 but this had dropped to just 13 per cent in 2024.
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