China's Kindergarten, Primary and Junior High School-Age Populations Have All Peaked, NDRC Says

At a press conference in Beijing on November 10 held as part of the National Development and Reform Commission's (NDRC) "Forging Ahead with the 15th Five-Year Plan" series, Huang Weiru, deputy director of the NDRC's Social Development Department, said China's kindergarten, primary and junior high school-age populations have all passed their peaks, while the school-age populations for senior high schools and higher education are still growing — a shift she said imposes new requirements on how education resources are allocated.

The scale of the decline is substantial. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the number of students enrolled in China's kindergartens, primary schools and junior high schools fell by nearly 17 million, according to the commission. Many families have found admission to kindergartens and primary schools noticeably easier in recent years. For surplus preschool and compulsory education resources, the NDRC said it will guide local governments to reallocate them across urban and rural areas and between schools, open up shared use of campuses across different grade levels within counties, and steadily roll out smaller class sizes. Vacated school buildings can be converted into spaces for labor education, arts education and other uses.

At the other end of the pipeline, the commission flagged a tightening balance between supply and demand for senior high school and university places during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. It pledged continued investment in senior high school classrooms, dormitories, canteens and sports facilities, saying the anxiety of missing out on academic senior high school because of insufficient places would be further eased.

In higher education, China will steadily expand enrollment at quality undergraduate programs and link central investment support to that expansion, guiding "Double First-Class" universities to direct new resources toward undergraduate admissions. In 2026, Double First-Class universities expanded undergraduate enrollment by 24,000 seats, with most of the new places going to majors in urgent national demand. The NDRC also said it will support the creation of several new research universities and a group of high-level vocational undergraduate institutions.

Demographics are also redistributing geographically. Between 2021 and 2025, the ratio of urban to rural students in basic education rose from roughly 8:2 to about 9:1, the commission said, as more children moved to cities for school. It pledged to expand education supply in cities with net inflows of school-age children, make basic education services portable and raise the share of migrant children attending public schools, while continuing to support necessary small rural schools and boarding schools in mountainous, border and other remote regions.

The shift mirrors demographic transitions already reshaping school systems in Japan, South Korea and parts of Europe, where falling enrollments have driven campus consolidation, smaller classes and the repurposing of school buildings. For China's education industry, it tilts the addressable market away from early-childhood and compulsory-stage services toward senior secondary, undergraduate and vocational segments.