EDUCATION IN CHINA

Chapter 6 – Guangdong
Spurring education development in Shenzhen
SHENZHEN SPECIAL DISTRICT
Shenzhen gives observers a window into the reform and
opening up of China. Shenzhen has experienced a rapid
transformation from a fishing-town to an international
city in recent decades. Situated immediately north of
Hong Kong, Shenzhen became the first and the most
successful special economic zone in China. It currently
also holds sub-provincial administrative status, and has
slightly less power than a province. As stated earlier,
Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are the four
major cities in China.
CATCHING UP WITH HONG KONG IN
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND EDUCATION
Shenzhen is a major financial centre in southern China.
The city is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well
as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies.
It was dubbed China’s Silicon Valley due to this high
concentration of technology companies. It is the picture
of a modern city, with a gleaming, tower-filled skyline.
Thus it is hard to imagine that before 1979, Shenzhen
was a fish market town. The fast development of the city
is the result of a vibrant economy made possible by rapid
foreign investment that began with reform and opening
policies and the establishment of the special economic
zone.
TABLE 6.1 BASIC STATISTICS FOR SHENZHEN AND HONG KONG
City name
Area
(km 2 )
Population
(2014 in million)
GDP
(2014 in billion
US dollars)
GDP per capita
(2014 in US dollars)
GDP increasing
rate (2014)
Shenzhen 1 997 10.8 257.8 24 336 8.8%
Hong Kong 1 104 7.3 289.2 39 900 5.5% (or 2.5%)
Source: Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, China 2015; Shenzhen Bureau of Statistics, 2015.
Currently, Shenzhen continues to develop at a brisk
rate, despite the fact that development in the rest of the
country slowed down of late. Hot Spots, an Economist
Intelligence Unit (EIU) research programme commissioned
by Citigroup, ranked Shenzhen as second in economic
strength among the 120 the world’s major cities (EIU,
2012). As shown in Table 6.1, Shenzhen is catching
up with the city of Hong Kong, in terms of economies
experiencing rapid growth. Because living expenses are
lower in Shenzhen, the two cities are competitive. In 2015,
for the first time in a decade, the city of Hong Kong has
been unseated as the most competitive city in China in
the China Blue Book on Urban Competitiveness, according
to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2015), which
placed Shenzhen in the top spot.
first city to get the Certificate of Equitable Development
in Compulsory Education. Many famous universities
have graduate schools or research centres in Shenzhen.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, was
founded on 11 October 2012 and approved by the Ministry
of Education of China on 16 April 2014 (Education News,
2014). The Chinese University of Hong Kong chose
Shenzhen for the location of its first campus outside
Hong Kong for two reasons: 1) Shenzhen needed to
improve its competitiveness in post-secondary education;
and 2) Shenzhen is the neighbour of Hong Kong, which
makes it easier for the new campus to share resources
with the main campus in Sha Tin, Hong Kong.
Shenzhen has also developed its education system,
especially its higher education system. Shenzhen is the
54 – EDUCATION IN CHINA: A SNAPSHOT © OECD 2016