Like many things in China, the full picture of the education system hints at the scale of the country’s challenges.
A critical roadblock is the relationship between rural and urban students. China is struggling to improve the generally substandard education levels in rural villages.
Entrance to colleges remains based entirely on entrance-exam performance. The number of students from rural areas attending Peking University — said to be the Harvard of China — fell to 10% in by 2014, down from 30% in the 1990s, the New York Times reported in 2014.