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.
Science and technology in China
In the first participation of Chinese student in an international student assessment test, the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment, 15-year-old students from Shanghai ranked first in all of the three categories: mathematics, science, and reading. The Chinese students scored particularly well compared to other nations in mathematics. One explanation for the Chinese results may be a culture emphasizing education and competitive examinations and more time spent studying in part due to less participation in activities such as sports. Teaching have become a higher status occupation. Also, industrialized Shanghai which has done important educational reforms may not be representative for the rest of China. While there was no evidence of cheating or technical problems with the testing, Shanghai which attracts many immigrants from the rest of China may have allowed particularly good students to study in the city and the students may have been told that the test was important for China's image. The OECD director of the testing, Andreas Schleicher, said that the results were expected to produce astonishment and had been examined for accuracy by international experts after the OECD received the Shanghai scores. He also said that the results "refute the commonly held hypothesis that China just produces rote learning" and "Large fractions of these students demonstrate their ability to extrapolate from what they know and apply their knowledge very creatively in novel situations". In 2015 four major cities in China were tested resulting in much lower scores; 531 in mathematics, 518 in science, and 494 in reading.