China's low birthrate in the past years is beginning to take its toll on its higher education.

Statistics from the annual investigation report on higher education enrollment show that the number of applicants for the annual national college entrance examination decreased by 2 million from 2008 to 2010. The report says that it will continue to decline until 2020. The figure reached a peak of 10.5 million in 2008.

It contrasts strikingly with the rapid expansion of the country's higher learning in the past couple of decades. The total number of institutions of higher learning has grown to more than 1,700 from less than 100 in 1978 when the national college entrance examinations were restored after the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976).

The prospect is that an increasing number of universities will not be able to enroll enough students to obtain the necessary tuition fees to repay the loans they borrowed from banks and to pay for their faculty.

The great progress in the development of higher education without giving enough thought to the possible effects of a declining population growth rate will very likely cause the waste of resources in too many mediocre universities.

With dwindling enrollment in the immediate future, it is necessary for institutions of higher learning to have a sense of urgency and shift their priority from expanding their campus and size of faculty to improving the quality of their teaching. That will be the best way to survive the increasingly fierce competition for students.

The government needs to make changes in its education policies to promote fair competition among both government and non-government institutions of higher learning.

The number of universities that receive government financial and policy support may need to be reduced and policy may need to be introduced to support high-quality non-government institutions.

If anything, the increasingly fierce competition should promote education quality rather than squeezing the non-governmental institutions out of the market and keeping the ones supported by government, no matter what their standard, simply because of their affiliations to the government.

Only fair competition will be able to create an environment in which world-class institutions of higher learning can be created, top-level scholars and researchers be cultivated, and residents hopefully enjoy higher quality education.

Last but not the least, polytechnic institutes will have difficulty in enrolling students and some are already under heavy pressure. But demand for technicians is on the increase. Policy needs to support such schools and increase their attractiveness.

On this matter, visionary government policies are needed.

(China Daily 05/05/2011 page8)