China’s Primary Schools Dropped by 80,000 in 10 Years. According to data recently released by China’s Ministry of Education, there were 149,100 primary schools in 2022, compared to 229,000 in 2012, a decline of 79,900 or 35 percent.
The chances of any improvement seem slim. In 2022, there were 289,200 kindergartens in China, a decrease of about 5,600 compared with the previous year.
Behind the decline in the number of kindergartens and primary schools in China is the sharp drop in the number of newborns.
According to data released by the CCP this year, there were 9.56 million newborns in China in 2022, with a birth rate of only 6.77‰ and a natural growth rate of -0.60 percent. This is the first time since 1950 that the annual birth population has fallen below 10 million. CCP data show that China had 10.62 million newborns in 2021, 12.02 million in 2020, and 14.65 million in 2019.
According to the “China Statistical Yearbook 2022,” 13 of the 31 provinces and municipalities directly under the Chinese central government had negative population growth, namely: Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, and Sichuan.
Analysts observed that China has a history of not releasing actual figures, but one can see a trend from the statistics it does release.
Source: Epoch Times, April 5, 2023
https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/23/4/5/n13965673.htm