23 Which skills are worth learning

Article 11 of the Compulsory Education Law: "Parents or other legal guardians of every child who has reached the age of six shall send the child to school to receive and complete compulsory education." Article 14: "Employers are prohibited from hiring school-age children and adolescents who should be receiving compulsory education." Article 58: where, without proper reason, school-age children or adolescents are not sent to school as this law requires, the local township people's government or the education administrative department of the county-level people's government "gives criticism and education and orders correction within a time limit." Article 2 of the Provisions on the Prohibition of Child Labour: state organs, social organizations, enterprises, institutions, private non-enterprise units, and individual industrial and commercial households "shall not hire minors under 16." Article 6: "impose a fine of 5000 yuan per month for each child worker used"; if not corrected by the deadline, fine 10,000 yuan per person per month. Article 7: anyone who introduces a child into employment is fined "5000 yuan for each person introduced." Article 10: if a child worker falls ill or is injured, the employer "shall be responsible for sending them to a medical institution for treatment and shall bear all medical and living expenses during treatment"; for disability or death there is also a one-time compensation. Article 13 leaves only one exception: arts and sports units may, with the consent of a parent or other guardian, hire professional arts workers or athletes under 16 (nationwide)

Prior studies were gathered and pooled (systematic review and meta-analysis). The search ran from January 1980 to May 2023; 603 studies were included in the end, from 70 sites in 59 countries, with 10355 observations. Education and adult mortality (deaths from all causes combined) follow a dose-response relation (more schooling, larger drop). Each extra year of education cuts death risk by 1.9% on average (95% uncertainty interval 1.8–2.0; the true value falls roughly in that band). For people aged 18 to 49 the drop is 2.9% per extra year (2.8–3.0). For people aged 70 or older the drop is 0.8% (0.6–1.0). No difference by sex was seen. Split by national development level (sociodemographic index), no difference was seen either

The reference date of the seventh national census was 1 November 2020. Among the national population, 218,360,767 people had a college education (junior college or above). High school (including secondary specialized school) 213005258. Junior high 487163489. Primary school 349658828. Compared with the sixth census in 2010, people with a college education per 100000 rose from 8930 to 15467. High school from 14032 to 15088. Junior high fell from 38788 to 34507. Primary school fell from 26779 to 24767. Average years of schooling for people aged 15 and above rose from 9.08 to 9.91. The illiteracy rate fell from 4.08% to 2.67%. The reference date of the 2025 national 1% population sample survey was 1 November 2025, with a sample of 20,520,000 people. From the sample the national population is estimated at 1405450000. Of these, college (junior college or above) 272330000, high school (including secondary specialized) 242720000, junior high 452830000, primary school 331220000. The bulletin does not give figures per 100000. Calculated ourselves from the headcounts and total population, college is about 19.4% and junior high about 32.2%, still the largest band

The tuition-waiver policy for public secondary vocational schools has been in place since fall 2012; it covers all full-time first-, second-, and third-year students who are rural (including those in county towns), enrolled in agriculture-related programs, or from financially disadvantaged families (except for students in performing-arts majors). In 2024 the student-aid framework was updated: the national grant for undergraduate and junior-college students rose from 3300 to 3700 yuan per year, and the National Inspirational Scholarship increased from 5000 to 6000 yuan, both effective fall 2024 (the Inspirational Scholarship from 2024). For secondary vocational and regular high-school students, the grant also rose from 2000 to 2300 yuan per year, effective spring 2025. Student loans were adjusted as well: from fall 2024 undergraduate and junior-college students may borrow up to 20,000 yuan per year (previously 16000) and graduate students up to 25,000 yuan (previously 20000). The interest rate equals the applicable LPR minus 70 basis points (another 0.7 percentage points lower) (nationwide).

Article 3 of the Vocational Education Law (effective 1 May 2022) stipulates: “Vocational education is an educational type that holds equal importance to general education.” Article 37 states that secondary vocational schools “may, in accordance with relevant national regulations, implement linked admission and training programs with higher vocational education for designated majors.” Higher vocational institutions “may, in accordance with relevant national regulations, admit students via assessment methods that combine academic ability and vocational skills.” Provincial-level and above education authorities are required to build unified vocational education admissions platforms to publish information on schools, majors and enrollment quotas, and provide application query services. Article 53 further specifies: “Students from vocational schools enjoy equal opportunities as students from regular schools at the same level in terms of further education, employment and career development.” Higher vocational institutions and regular universities offering vocational education “must reserve a corresponding proportion of their enrollment quotas or hold separate exams to admit vocational school graduates specifically.” It is also forbidden for employers to set application, hiring or employment criteria that prevent vocational school graduates from competing on an equal footing. For positions requiring specific vocational skill certifications in public institution recruitment, “educational requirements can be appropriately lowered” nationwide.

This is an estimate for urban China from 1988 to 2001. How much more income one more year of school brings is called the return to education. The original text says it "rose sharply from 4.0% per year of schooling in 1988 to 10.2% in 2001." The rise was mainly after 1992. What it reflects is the widening of the extra pay of people who reached university over people who did not (the higher-education wage premium). This is a China-specific scale you can use when you turn "one more year of school" into a gap in yearly income. The global average is in item 7 of this section (the global average return to one more year of education)

A review covering 1950 to 2014, 139 countries, and 1120 estimates found: "the global average private return to one more year of education is 9% a year." Private return is the part that lands on the person's own income: one more year of school raises income by about 9% on average. The private return to higher education is rising. The social return to education (the part that lands on society as a whole rather than on the person) remains high. Women's average return to education stays higher than men's

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has run a nationwide campaign for this. The document names the problems as "some institutions and units arbitrarily holding training, evaluation, and certificate-issuing activities under the names of new-occupation vocational qualifications, vocational skill grades, and the like, charging fees at will and issuing certificates indiscriminately; some institutions and units making false or exaggerated claims, even organizing training, evaluation, and certificate issuance falsely in the name of an authoritative body." Measures include joint investigation with cyberspace, public security, and market-regulation departments, "severely cracking down on evaluation and certificate-issuing that impersonates appraisal bodies or evaluation agencies filed with human-resources authorities." Non-compliant promotion on websites and new media is shut down under the law. The document also requires "guiding the public to learn the channels and methods for checking certificates, and to judge whether a certificate is lawful and what it is worth"

The national target is clear: over 30 million person-times of subsidized training for high-tech industries, critical sectors, and priority employment groups from 2025 through the end of 2027. Funding is pooled from various programs — employment assistance funds, unemployment insurance, sector development grants, East-West cooperation funds, and corporate education budgets. Subsidy amounts depend on how urgently a profession is needed and its training cost; they vary by occupation. Companies must also set aside and use employee education funds in full as required, with at least 60% going to frontline staff education and training.

This study assessed 702 U.S. occupations to estimate the likelihood of each being automated. The result: about 47% of jobs (employment) fell into the high-risk range. The three aforementioned challenges form what the authors call “engineering bottlenecks” that limit automation potential. These include sensory perception and physical manipulation (finger and hand dexterity, working in cramped or awkward spaces), creative intelligence (the ability to devise novel solutions), and social intelligence (interpersonal interaction). Consequently, occupations requiring hands-on work in unstructured settings and on-the-fly judgment are consistently less prone to automation, rather than this being a random trait of specific jobs. Roles with standardized workflows and information-centric tasks face the greatest automation risk.

The government is actively rolling out this New Eight-Level Worker skill grading system. Official documents explicitly require linking skill grades to employee compensation, stating that “a skill-oriented pay distribution system must be strengthened... companies should adopt a compensation model that ties both job value and skill levels to pay.” Regions are also being urged to “expand the evaluation and hiring of senior-level workers and increase the frequency of such evaluations.” Eligible companies can conduct their own skill assessments for employees, and top performers can have their skill grades recognized without needing to meet any requirements related to years of service, prior grades, or seniority.

The subsidy amount itself is the official pricing of "which trades are short of people." Policy requires "a differentiated subsidy mechanism set by how urgently an occupation (trade) is needed, training cost, and similar factors," and localities set their own range of subsidized vocational skill training programs from that. So how much the subsidy for the same trade differs across cities directly reflects how short that trade is locally

Government messaging aligns with this approach: it supports “private training institutions running market-oriented, high-quality vocational training programs and short-term, quick-to-employ vocational training initiatives.” It also encourages vocational schools to “focus on skills and knowledge urgently needed by the job market... and offer micro-specializations and vocational training courses.”

A meta-analysis of 222 independent studies and 48478 students: classroom quizzes raised academic scores, with a moderate effect size (g = 0.499). Effect size depends on several conditions: what study method the control group used, whether quiz format matched the final exam, whether materials matched, and whether corrective feedback was given. Also how many times the quiz was repeated, where and when it was given, how long the intervention lasted, and what experimental design was used. Another review that rated ten common learning methods one by one put "practice testing" and "spaced practice" in the highest band (high utility). The reason is that they work across ages and abilities, and have been checked across many assessment formats and real education settings.

A meta-analysis that pooled 184 papers, 317 experiments, and 839 evaluations of spaced practice. It compared two things: studying straight through versus studying in several sessions (the spacing effect), and short gaps versus long gaps (the lag effect). The conclusion is that review gap and "how long you need to remember" jointly set retention on the final test: the longer you need to hold the material, the longer the review gap that gives the best retention. Another review that rated ten common learning methods one by one put spaced practice in the highest band (high utility).

A review that rated ten common learning methods by "whether the effect generalizes across learning conditions, student traits, materials, and assessment formats." Rated highest: practice testing and spaced practice. Rated moderate: elaborative interrogation, self-explanation, interleaved practice. Rated lowest, five methods: writing summaries, highlighting (or underlining), the keyword method, imagining pictures for a text, and rereading. The review states that most students say they use rereading and highlighting, but neither steadily raises scores. The review says they should be replaced with other methods, for example practice testing instead of rereading.

A multilevel meta-analysis of 59 studies, 238 effect sizes, and 158 samples. Overall, interleaved practice versus blocked practice has a moderate effect (Hedges' g = 0.42). By material, painting-style tasks are best (g = 0.67); other visual materials are also better. Math tasks have a smaller effect (g = 0.34). Expository text and taste materials show no significant overall effect. For vocabulary, blocked practice is better (g = −0.39). Regression shows: the more similar the categories, the less similar items within a category, and the more complex the material, the larger the gain from interleaving.

A review commissioned to assess evidence on learning styles states: to show that "teaching by learning style" works, students must first be grouped by style, then each group randomly assigned to different teaching methods. The same test must be used at the end. The criterion of success is a specific interaction: the method that works best for one style is not the best for another. The review's conclusion is that almost no such interaction was found. There is a large literature on learning styles, but very few studies use an adequate experimental design, and several of those go directly against the "matching hypothesis." The authors therefore hold that current evidence is not enough to put learning-style assessment into education practice.

A meta-analysis pooling more than 40 years of research, with 67 published and unpublished papers, 122 experiments, 192 transfer effect sizes, and 10,382 people in total. Compared with a control that looked again but was not tested, practice testing transferred learning to other situations, effect size d=0.40 (95% CI 0.31 to 0.50). Transfer was strongest when the test used a different question type, application and reasoning problems, medical-diagnosis-style questions, or near-meaning cue words. Transfer was weakest when stimulus and response were swapped, when material had been seen in first learning but never tested, and on example-style problems. Three moderators strongly affect whether positive transfer appears: whether response format matched between practice and test, whether retrieval practice with detailed feedback was done, and whether the first test was answered correctly. The authors also corrected for publication bias two ways. Moderator effect sizes changed little, but the intercept estimate was clearly pushed down: when none of the conditions above hold, positive transfer often does not appear

A total of 27 professional series exist across China, covering fields such as economics, engineering, healthcare, and publishing. These are categorized into senior, intermediate, and junior levels. Order No. 40 issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security applies to enterprises, public institutions, social organizations, individual economic entities, and self-employed professionals alike. Applicants must generally advance step by step through these levels. Employers must review all submitted materials and publicly display them for at least five working days. Private firms and self-employed individuals may have personnel agencies and the like handle the review, public posting, and recommendation. Local authorities are required to establish professional qualification service centers in science parks and high-tech zones; applications may also be accepted through talent agencies, industry associations, and professional societies. Eligible self-employed individuals may participate in evaluations organized by local human resources departments. Any documentation that can be verified online must not require additional certification. If any materials are missing, evaluators must clearly specify what is lacking in one single notice. Employees of private firms typically apply in the region where their employment contract is based. Those posted elsewhere who have worked there for a full year without a break may apply at the posting location. Retired personnel are ineligible to apply. Staff of public institutions (事业单位) who have received a sanction of a demerit (记过) or above cannot apply during the sanction period (nationwide).

A 2016 reform opinion provides that where junior and intermediate titles use a national unified exam, the matching review or recognition is no longer done. In fields where titles and vocational qualifications are closely linked, holding the vocational qualification can be recognized as holding the matching title and can also serve as a condition for applying one level higher. Take accounting. Assistant accountant and accountant use a national unified exam. Senior accountant combines exam and review; principal senior is generally review only. Registration conditions are as follows. Assistant accountant: high-school graduation or above, including secondary specialized, vocational high school, and technical school. Accountant: a doctorate; or a master's plus 1 year of accounting work; or a second bachelor's, graduate-class graduation, plus 2 years; or a bachelor's plus 4 years; or a junior-college diploma plus 5 years. Holders of a professional master's or doctorate in accounting may be exempt from Financial Management when sitting the accountant exam (nationwide)

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Order No. 40 provides that anyone who obtains a title by providing false materials, plagiarizing others' work or academic results, or other improper means has the title revoked. It is also entered in the title-review integrity archive and included in the national credit-information sharing platform, with a record period of 3 years. The 2024 supervision measures name several applicant violations: false commitments and forged information, ghostwritten or fake papers, fake performance records, and seeking favors. Applicants must sign a personal commitment letter; if the commitment is false, they may not apply for 3 years. Human-resources authorities, together with public security, cyberspace, and market regulation, investigate agents' fake websites, false advertising, contract traps, impersonated reviews, and fake certificates. Where the case is serious and may be a crime, it is transferred to the relevant authorities (nationwide)

Article 2 of Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Order No. 40 states that professional title evaluations are a key basis for hiring, assessing, and promoting technical professionals. A 2016 reform guideline specifies that public institutions that fully implement post management generally conduct evaluations within the post-structure ratios. For organizations without such a system, as well as for widely applicable professional categories and emerging occupations, title evaluation and post assignment can be separated. When technical professionals transfer between regions or employers, their titles are re-evaluated or confirmed per relevant administrative authority, unless otherwise stipulated by national regulations (nationwide).

First the cost. A 2013 national opinion sets tuition for a full-time academic master's, in principle, at not more than 8000 yuan a year. A full-time professional master's follows the old fee policy and is not under that ceiling; it is often much more expensive. Full-time postgraduates inside the enrollment plan can all receive the state postgraduate grant. For a master's it is not less than 6000 yuan a year; the exact standard is set locally. Next the return. A study published by the UK Department for Education in 2020 used national student records and tax records to follow people who finished a bachelor's from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. The study took out differences in family background and in bachelor's results, and looked at income at 35. The original wording is "we estimate returns of 2% (women) and -2% (men) for masters": women who had done a master's earned about 2% more than women with only a bachelor's, and men about 2% less. The subject gap is large. Women who did a master's in law, economics, or management earned about 20% more; those who did arts, English, or philosophy earned more than 10% less. For men, the master's return was clearly negative in most subjects, but law, economics, management, and engineering were still clearly positive. People already at work can sit a part-time master's and study while working. A 2016 Ministry of Education notice provides that part-time and full-time sit the same entrance exam and are trained to the same standard. The two kinds of academic and degree certificates "have equal legal status and the same force"; the graduation certificate notes the mode of study. The state grant goes only to full-time postgraduates inside the enrollment plan; part-time students do not receive it. In 2019, five ministries including the Ministry of Education issued a notice. Civil-service recruitment and open hiring by public institutions and state firms must give equal job opportunity to postgraduates of different modes of study. Those hirings must not set application conditions unrelated to the post. The Ministry of Education 2021 graduate employment notice states that recruitment notices of Party and government organs, public institutions, and state firms must not use mode of study as a restrictive condition. The 2022 notice again states that all kinds of campus recruitment must not restrict that way

The 2020 UK Department for Education study cited in item 24 of this section (doing a master's) also calculated the doctorate. The original wording is "8% (women) and -9% (men) for PhDs": after taking out differences in family background and in bachelor's results, at 35 a doctorate earned women about 8% more than a bachelor's alone, and men about 9% less. The study also found that a doctorate lowered the chance of unemployment and the chance of annual income below 30000 pounds, and also lowered the chance of annual income above 40000 pounds. Subjects differ a lot. The return to a doctorate in mathematics was especially low. A doctorate in psychology was among the highest. The mental load during the doctorate is in a 2021 pooled analysis. Across 16 studies and 23469 doctoral students, those with clear depressive symptoms came to about 24% in total (95% CI 18%–31%, the credible range). Across 9 studies and 15626 doctoral students, those with clear anxiety symptoms were about 17% (12%–23%). The studies differed a great deal from each other (I² about 98%). The cost in China follows the 2013 opinion: tuition for a full-time academic doctorate is in principle not more than 10,000 yuan a year, and the state postgraduate grant is not less than 10,000 yuan a year