Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2024, published 113rd ILC session (2025)

Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) - China (Ratification: 1999)

Article 2(3) of the Convention.Compulsory schooling. The Committee notes the Government’s indication that, according to the national educational development statistics, the consolidation rate of nine-year compulsory education reached 95.7 per cent in 2023 (compared to 94.8 per cent in 2020). The Government also states that “the issue of dropouts in compulsory education has been essentially resolved”. The Committee notes the Government’s extensive information on the measures adopted to increase school enrolment and reduce drop-out rates, including: (1) the establishment of a joint control and support mechanism for drop-out control and student retention, allowing, through big data comparison, to promptly identify drop-outs and to provide targeted support measures to help students return to school; (2) a student aid system has been established, covering “all education levels, all schools and all economically disadvantaged students” and providing assistance to nearly 1.3 billion students between 2012 and 2022, so that “no student is left behind or drops out due to family economic difficulties”; (3) in addition to the national basic educations programmes, central fiscal funding was significantly increased, focusing on improving the schooling conditions of rural primary and secondary schools in central and western regions; and 4) the continued efforts to ensure quality education in rural areas and to improve schooling conditions in ethnic minority areas, especially through the implementation of the “Special Posts Programme”, for the recruitment of 1.03 million teachers in more than 30,000 rural schools and the nutrition improvement programme for rural compulsory education students.

The Committee takes note of the Government’s continued efforts to ensure access to compulsory education for all children, including those in rural areas. It notes that the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), in its concluding observations of 22 March 2023, expressed concern: (1) over trends in recent years of reducing expenditure on education as a percentage of the gross domestic product; (2) of the fact that compulsory education is still not de facto free and is often unaffordable for children in rural and poor urban areas; and (3) that unequal geographic distribution of funds is increasing the disparities between urban and rural areas with respect to access to, and the availability of, education. The Committee also notes that both the CESCR and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern about reports of closures of schools providing instruction in minority languages, as well as in the Tibetan, Uighur and Kazakh languages (E/C.12/CHN/CO/3, paragraphs 86 and 88 and CEDAW/C/CHN/CO/9, 31 May 2023, paragraph 39(d)). The Committee therefore requests the Government to: (i) intensify its efforts to ensure that, in practice, all children have access to free compulsory education, paying particular attention to children from rural and poor urban areas and children of ethnic minorities; and (ii) continue to provide information on the progress made, and results achieved in this regard.

Compulsory education for children of internal migrant workers. The Committee takes note of the Government’s continued efforts to ensure that children of internal migrant workers have equal access to compulsory education, including: (1) the National Programme on Child Development (2021–30), which sets the goal of further improving the service mechanism for migrant children; (2) the effective implementation of policies for the enrolment of children of internal migrant workers in cities; and (3) by ensuring that migrant children in compulsory education receive the same “Two Exemptions and One Subsidy” policy (exemption from miscellaneous fees, free textbooks, and subsidies for living expenses for students from impoverished families) as students with local household registration. The Government adds that, in 2021, the total number of children of internal migrant workers receiving compulsory education in cities reached 13.724 million. The Committee takes note of the Government’s efforts and encourages it to continue: (i) its efforts to ensure that the children of migrant workers have equal access to compulsory education; and (ii) to provide information on any progress made and results achieved.