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.
Prison education
Changes were made to prison system in China in the 1920s, following the establishment of the Republic of China. Resulting from criticism of the lack of education for inmates at the time, there was a shift in the prison system away from religious and moral teaching, to intellectual education and hard labour as the primary means of rehabilitation. Authorities took considerable effort to develop an effective and diverse educational curriculum. As well as teaching literacy and arithmetic, classes also included music and composition, popular ethics, confucianism and patriotic and political doctrine; the teaching of party doctrine increased significantly in the 1930s. In 1981, the People's Republic of China incorporated prison education into its national education program, significantly increasing access for inmates.