On September 26th, the State Council Information Office held a series of themed press conferences on promoting high-quality development. At the meeting, Vice Minister of Education Wang Guangyan introduced that according to predictions, the population of higher education students will continue to increase before 2032, and the demand for higher education degrees will continue to expand in the coming period. We should expand the resources of higher education through the expansion of existing universities and the establishment of new universities. At the same time, we should support the "double first-class" construction of universities to expand the space for running schools, moderately build a number of high-level research universities, encourage foreign high-level science and engineering universities to cooperate in running schools in China, and constantly increase the supply of high-quality resources.

Wang Guangyan introduced that in promoting the construction of a strong education country, the Ministry of Education conscientiously implements the decisions and deployments of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, deeply studies and judges the trend of changes in China's school-age population in the future period, adheres to overall planning and comprehensive measures, and continuously improves the mechanism of education resource planning and allocation that is adapted to population changes. Specifically, there are several aspects:

In terms of preschool education, the school-age population is continuously decreasing. The main problem facing resource allocation is structural contradictions, with insufficient universal resources, especially public resources, in urban areas and weak conditions for running parks in rural areas. Efforts should be made to optimize the layout and structure of inclusive resources, steadily increase the supply of public resources, optimize the allocation of teacher teams, and promote the popularization and inclusive development of preschool education.

In terms of compulsory education, the scale of primary school enrollment has reached its peak in 2023, and the population of junior high school age is still increasing. The main problem facing resource allocation is "urban crowding and rural weakness", where the tight supply of academic degrees in some urban areas coexists with the relatively abundant resources in rural areas. Next, we need to further optimize the layout of urban and rural schools, expand the supply of school places in areas with net inflow of school-age population, improve the conditions and management level of boarding schools, establish necessary small-scale rural schools, strengthen the standardization construction of compulsory education schools, promote the coordinated allocation, exchange and rotation of excellent principals and backbone teachers in the region, and promote the widespread sharing of high-quality educational resources through educational digitization. We need to thoroughly implement the digital education strategy, promote high-quality and balanced development, and promote urban-rural integration.

In terms of high school education, according to the trend of changes in the school-age population, in terms of resource allocation, we should adhere to both new construction and tapping potential, and comprehensively consider the relatively high pressure before and after the peak of the school-age population in high school education. We should appropriately increase the investment in fiscal education funds, guide and support local governments to optimize the layout of ordinary high schools and secondary vocational schools, build, renovate and expand a number of high schools in counties with weak educational foundations and areas with concentrated population inflows, run comprehensive high schools well, and promote the diversified development of high schools. At the same time, we encourage all regions to increase their efforts in resource coordination, adapt to local conditions, and integrate the use of educational resources at different stages. This is an important direction for future allocation of educational resources.

In terms of higher education, it is predicted that the school-age population will continue to increase before 2032. At present, the level of higher education popularization in China is steadily improving, and the gross enrollment rate of higher education has reached over 60%, entering the stage of popularization. In the future, the demand for degrees will continue to expand. We need to expand higher education resources through various means such as renovating and expanding existing universities, and establishing new universities to effectively ensure that the people have access to education opportunities. At the same time, we should also support the "double first-class" construction of colleges and universities to expand the space for running schools, moderately build a number of high-level research universities, encourage foreign high-level science and engineering universities to cooperate in running schools in China, and constantly increase the supply of high-quality resources. Continuously implementing the national support for enrollment cooperation in the central and western regions, as well as the special plan for key universities to recruit students from rural and poverty-stricken areas, to better promote fair enrollment opportunities.