China
In February 2006, the government pledged to provide completely free nine-year education, including textbooks and fees. Annual education investment went from less than US$50 billion in 2003 to more than US$250 billion in 2011. However, there remains an inequality in education spending. In 2010, the annual education expenditure per secondary school student in Beijing totalled ¥20,023, while in Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces in China, only totalled ¥3,204. Free compulsory education in China consists of primary school and junior secondary school between the ages of 6 and 15. In 2011, around 81.4% of Chinese have received secondary education. By 2007, there were 396,567 primary schools, 94,116 secondary schools, and 2,236 higher education institutions in China.
History of education in China
Communist moral education versus informal career education was another struggle within itself. Due to such communist control, continued government education wasn't an option for most. That also includes females. "Most of factory girls believed they were so poorly educated that taking a class wouldn't help." With that being said, many still decided to take night schooling along with working in factories to help better themselves. Eventually it started to become more common between workers to start changing work schedules between one another to help make the extra time needed for education. However, creating the personal time needed for such independent success was not easy. "The post socialist state has further controlled workers' self-organization and, consequently, wages to facilitate low-cost exports." Migrant workers were also highly important to this operation making up over 75%.