CHINA: Leading a global arms race in innovation

China has upped the ante on the education revolution. Between 1998 and 2005, the number of students enrolled in tertiary education in China rose by an extraordinary 4.4 times to 15.6 million, not far short of the total tertiary enrolment in each of the US and the European Union.

The rate of school-leaver participation in China has risen from 3% to 20% since 1990. China will soon have the largest annual output of tertiary graduates in the world and the majority of PhDs in science and technology.

At the same time, China has lifted the quality of its institutions and created a layer of top research universities. The annual number of research papers published in international journals rose by 4.5 times between 1995 and 2005, and the level of investment in basic research in its universities is already third largest in the world after the US and Japan and rising.

In a paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US, The higher educational transformation of China and its global implications (2008), Yao Li and colleagues suggest that China's accelerated investment might generate a global 'arms race' in investment in innovation: Previous efforts in other countries to use educational transformation as a mechanism either to maintain high growth or to initiate episodes of high growth have generally been regarded as unsuccessful, but the focus has been primary and secondary education, not tertiary.

In China's case, these latest efforts seem to be motivated by a desire to maintain high growth by using educational transformation as the primary mechanism for skill upgrading and raising total factory productivity. If China succeeds, other countries may follow with higher educational competition between countries as a possible outcome.

In other words, if China maintains a rate of economic growth that remains considerably above the world average while making the transition to a tertiary-educated society, then the high investment model will become globally hegemonic, whether or not the growth is primarily due to education and research.

The US is almost certain to respond in competitive terms, by upping its own investment in education and research, even though it is already the world leader. In the wake of this, no government will resist the 'education revolution'.

At the same time, economic and cultural trends will also drive it, inside and outside the policy sphere. It is becoming apparent that a nation left outside the dynamic of continuous improvement in education and knowledge will face difficulties. Not only does it become increasingly dependent on knowledge sourced from elsewhere but also it is unable to solve its own problems.

* Simon Marginson is a professor of higher education in the centre for the study of higher education at the University of Melbourne. This is part of an introduction by Professor Marginson to a book of essays titled Ideas for an Education Revolution. An extract from one of the essays is published in this week's Research and Commentary section.