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Educational Equity Essential for Common Prosperity

Feb 16-2022   



What Prof. Yao Yang, Dean of the NSD, most wants to see in 2022 is the cancellation of the educational policy that, based on exam scores, blocks a significant number of junior high students from going to senior high. “This is a highly critical element for achieving common prosperity,” says Prof. Yao in an interview, which is part of a 11-episode program jointly produced by the NSD and Tecent News.

 

Featuring exclusive interviews with 11 NSD professors, the program explores national, corporate and individual development based on long-termism in the context of new patterns. Prof. Yao is PKU Bo Ya Distinguished Professor and Executive Dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at PKU.

In the interview, Prof. Yao particularly focuses on the means to achieve common prosperity, a highly commended goal of the Chinese Communist Party since its founding. He believes that common prosperity aims to expand the scale of the middle-income group, for which the criteria should be defined by local governments in line with regional development levels. In terms of taxation, a lever in secondary income distribution, Prof. Yao advocates levying capital gains while expanding the taxation base for individual incomes and rolling out property tax at an appropriate time.

 

However, tax reforms are dwarfed by the urgency to ensure educational fairness in primary and secondary schools, says Prof. Yao. Unlike economic development which can bear results in a short period of time, common prosperity is a long-term goal that might take up to 30 years to achieve; of the long-term solutions that are accordingly needed, investment in education and promotion of educational fairness is of the highest importance.

 

He laments the increasing lack of social mobility and lambasts those who support the policy to send 40% of junior high graduates to technical schools and deprive them of the opportunity to attend university. When children at such young age are labeled ‘future low-income earner’, he says, it just shows that there’s a certain institutional glitch that must be fixed. “We must believe that all children possess creativity and potential and should be allowed to try around,” says Prof. Yao. Instead, children should be given the opportunity to make a choice when they are 18 years old and have some rough ideas about their future. Prof. Yao has been calling for making senior high a part of compulsory education.

 

Prof. Yao also shares his take on economic development, technological advancement, and the role of capital, among others.

 

 

 

Educational Equity Essential for Common Prosperity

Feb 16-2022   



What Prof. Yao Yang, Dean of the NSD, most wants to see in 2022 is the cancellation of the educational policy that, based on exam scores, blocks a significant number of junior high students from going to senior high. “This is a highly critical element for achieving common prosperity,” says Prof. Yao in an interview, which is part of a 11-episode program jointly produced by the NSD and Tecent News.

 

Featuring exclusive interviews with 11 NSD professors, the program explores national, corporate and individual development based on long-termism in the context of new patterns. Prof. Yao is PKU Bo Ya Distinguished Professor and Executive Dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development at PKU.

In the interview, Prof. Yao particularly focuses on the means to achieve common prosperity, a highly commended goal of the Chinese Communist Party since its founding. He believes that common prosperity aims to expand the scale of the middle-income group, for which the criteria should be defined by local governments in line with regional development levels. In terms of taxation, a lever in secondary income distribution, Prof. Yao advocates levying capital gains while expanding the taxation base for individual incomes and rolling out property tax at an appropriate time.

 

However, tax reforms are dwarfed by the urgency to ensure educational fairness in primary and secondary schools, says Prof. Yao. Unlike economic development which can bear results in a short period of time, common prosperity is a long-term goal that might take up to 30 years to achieve; of the long-term solutions that are accordingly needed, investment in education and promotion of educational fairness is of the highest importance.

 

He laments the increasing lack of social mobility and lambasts those who support the policy to send 40% of junior high graduates to technical schools and deprive them of the opportunity to attend university. When children at such young age are labeled ‘future low-income earner’, he says, it just shows that there’s a certain institutional glitch that must be fixed. “We must believe that all children possess creativity and potential and should be allowed to try around,” says Prof. Yao. Instead, children should be given the opportunity to make a choice when they are 18 years old and have some rough ideas about their future. Prof. Yao has been calling for making senior high a part of compulsory education.

 

Prof. Yao also shares his take on economic development, technological advancement, and the role of capital, among others.