The education of ethnic minority groups in China

Only 10 countries in the world have total populations that surpass that of the ethnic minority population of China. Most ethnic minorities live within China’s designated ethnic minority autonomous regions, which cover half the country and provide minority residents with preferential educational policies. Like other multiethnic states, China faces a number of educational challenges: first, ensuring educational access and equity for its 56 officially designated ethnic groups; second, ensuring education that promotes the economic development of its 155 ethnic minority autonomous areas; third, ensuring that schools, colleges, and universities in ethnic minority regions function in accordance with the principle of cultural autonomy as set out in the Chinese constitution; and, fourth, ensuring that education builds interethnic unity. By the start of the 21st century, basic education was popularized in nearly 90% of China’s populated regions, including its ethnic minority regions (Ministry of Education, 2006; Xia, Ha, & Abadu, 1999). However, those in remote areas still received only a few years of schooling. At the other end of the system, China’s rapidly expanding system of higher education, the largest system in the world, has increased ethnic minority opportunity, yet minority access to the top universities remains a major challenge.