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Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, remarkable progress has been made in education reform, but many more things need to be done as this is a prolonged campaign involving many factors and facets. Last year, the central authorities issued the "Opinions on Deeper Reform of the Education System," requiring that we follow the established practices and principles of educational development and the way students grow to create a vibrant, efficient, and more open education system which is conducive to high-quality education.

Our drive to modernize education should be socialism-oriented, maintain the nature of education as a public undertaking, ensure equal access to education as the basic national policy, and promote innovation in reforming the education system.

We should make education available to every individual throughout their life and make study a habit and a lifestyle choice so that people can study whenever and wherever they want to. We should guarantee equal access to education, trying to make good education available to everyone regardless of gender, region and ethnicity, and whether they are rich or poor, or from an urban or rural area. We should make education adaptable to each individual's needs enabling students with different temperaments interests, and potential to receive an education suitable to their growth. We should build a more open and flexible education system to offer more choices to students to expand their path for growth and clear the ladder to academic excellence, career advancement, and upward mobility.

(Source: Extract from Xi Jinping's remarks at a national education conference in Beijing, September 10, 2018.)

This episode is presented by Julian Waghann.