Chinese families are spending high take of their income on children education. The education in China is seen as a reputation status. For the families with lower incomes, education is seen as a way for their children to climb up the ladder and ensure the bright future for their children and for the wealthy part of the society, it is seen as a status confirmation.
A recent corruption scandal about Chinese family paying 6.5 million dollars for their child admission to Stanford University has shed the light on investment of Chinese parents into their children education.
So, in order for the middle-class family’s children to be competitive in the market, they are starting to invest in their children education since their early age. Majority of wealthy families send their children studying abroad in high-profile schools. For the ones who can’t afford it, attending one of the 150 tier-one Universities in China mainland is considered to be an insurance for future carrier. Children have to compete with millions of others to pass Gaokao (the national college entrance examination).
In order to prepare for this, children are having regular extra curriculum lesson since their kindergarten – English lessons as the most important one, since the ability of speaking English has become one of the main assets for becoming competitive in the job market, as well as for future business opportunities. Apart from English, they are attending piano lesson, math lessons, literature lessons and much more. Parents are spending their weekends by taking their children from one lesson to other. All these activities cost a lot, so it’s considered that average Chinese family spends one third of their income for education.
The middle-class families who don’t have money for fulltime overseas schools tend to send their children abroad every summer. The most popular destinations are USA, UK, Canada, Australia, as English-speaking countries but Japan and Germany are also popular destination. The overseas summer camps are not cheap, so families have to allocate a significant amount of money for this. In 2017, an article written by a high-paid mother who is struggling with having to pay for her daughter’s summer activities by having to spend around 50000 RMB for all of it went viral, and you could hear a lot of different attitudes about the current situation.
However, things don’t seem to be changing. The biggest investment of the Chinese families are exactly their children. Educating them has become a luxury status. This situation does open up a lot of opportunities for foreign companies. If you want to know more about doing business in China, don’t hesitate to contact us. We know the Chinese market.
