context: The 15th 5-year plan was released after the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC on 28 October 2025. Recommendations outline directions for education over the next five years, establishing goals for education development integrated with technology and talent cultivation whilst emphasising quality improvements, resource optimisation and coordination mechanisms.
The 15th 5-year plan period will focus on substantially improving technology self-reliance and strengthening levels, including
- improving national innovation system effectiveness as education-technology-talent development patterns take shape
- strengthening basic research and original innovation capabilities alongside rapid breakthroughs in key technologies within priority fields
- the PRC increasing its leading position as technology and industrial innovation integrate more deeply
Collaborative talent cultivation around technology innovation, industrial development and national strategic needs involves optimising university layouts through classified reforms and coordinated discipline settings, deeply advancing 'Double First-Class' university and national interdisciplinary centre construction, strengthening research institutions, innovation platforms and enterprises' talent gathering functions and cultivating top-notch innovative talents.
The recommendations emphasise using innovation capabilities, quality, effectiveness and contributions as evaluation orientations, requiring
- deepening project reviews, institutional assessments, talent evaluations and income distribution reforms
- facilitating talent exchange channels between universities, research institutes and enterprises
- deepening international exchange cooperation
- establishing high-technology talent immigration systems
- attracting world-class talent
Under cultural development, the recommendations propose promoting socialist core values through deepening Party innovation theory learning, implementing Marxism theory research projects and accelerating Chinese philosophy and strengthening social science independent knowledge systems alongside ideological-political work.
Under livelihood improvements, the recommendations propose running 'people-satisfying education' through implementing the New Era Moral Education Project, promoting effective integration between ideological-political and social classrooms, strengthening physical, aesthetic and labour education and improving education evaluation systems.
Establishing education resource allocation mechanisms that adapt to population changes requires expanding education resources for towns experiencing net school-age population inflows whilst steadily expanding free education scope and exploring extended compulsory education durations.
Promoting higher education quality enhancement and capacity expansion requires expanding quality undergraduate enrollment scales alongside improving vocational school capabilities and building distinctive high-quality vocational colleges.
The recommendations call for guiding private education development, expanding high-level international education opening, promoting educator spirit, cultivating high-level teacher teams and strengthening teacher treatment guarantees.
Additional priorities include improving school-family-society collaborative education mechanisms, deeply implementing education digitalisation strategies and optimising lifelong learning public services for comprehensive education system development supporting Chinese-style modernisation advancement.