Taking Basic Education in China Forward

In the past 30 years, the inspiring progress of the basic education in China has attracted global attention, not merely for China's determination of developing national education, but for the workable strategies adopted by the Chinese government to implement the right to education as well. The achievement of expanding education to all children for minimum of nine years in China, to a certain extent, is a quantitative triumph of universal access to basic education. However, beyond the statistical victory of enrollment in schools, the increasing disparity of access to good quality education among different social groups remains the biggest challenge for China to fully meet the requirement of right to education in the international human rights treaties. This work attempts to explore the factors related to policy-making, institutional governance and legal protection, which may result in the gaps in qualitative development of the basic education in China. The purpose of the research is not only to address the current problems existing in the field of basic education, but also to explore the adoptable measures to further improve the enjoyment of the right to education in China.