China's miraculous achievements in numbers (6)

Undergraduates from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology celebrate at their commencement on June 21. [Photo by Ren Yong/for China Daily]

5 China has realized the transformation from a country of population to a country of human resources

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, 80 percent of Chinese people were illiterate, and the average amount of schooling was only 1.6 years. Moreover, the country only had 205 institutions of higher learning with less than 120,000 students in 1949, and the gross enrollment rate was only 0.26 percent. By 2020, the average amount of schooling rose to 10.8 years.

The net enrollment rate of primary schools nationwide increased from 20 percent in 1949 to 99.96 percent in 2020, and the gross enrollment rate of China's higher education rose from 0.26 percent in 1949 to 54.4 percent in 2020.

By the end of 2020, the number of general institutes of higher education reached 2,738 with 32.85 million students on campus, taking the first spot in the world.