An overview of the pivotal and trending education topics discussed during the 2025 Two Sessions!

01 Education Focus in the Government Work Report

In his government work report, Premier Li Qiang outlined the government's tasks for the year, emphasizing the thorough implementation of the strategy to revitalize the country through science and education, enhancing the overall effectiveness of the national innovation system. Adhering to innovation-driven development, the report integrates education, scientific and technological innovation, and talent cultivation to lay a solid foundation for China's modernization.

1. Accelerating the Construction of a High-Quality Education System

• Formulate and execute a three-year action plan to build an education powerhouse.
• Comprehensively implement the project of fostering virtue through education in the new era, fostering integrated reform and innovation in ideological and political courses across universities, high schools, and primary schools.
• Thoroughly execute the project to expand and improve basic education, enhancing the mechanism for resource allocation in line with population changes.
• Strengthen the standardization of compulsory education schools, promoting high-quality and balanced development, expanding high school education, and gradually implementing free preschool education.
• Operate special education, continuing education, and specialized education effectively, guiding and regulating private education.
• Promote the integration of vocational and general education, as well as industry and education, to enhance vocational education's adaptability.
• Classify and promote university reforms, solidifying the expansion of high-quality undergraduate education, accelerating the construction of "double first-class" universities, and improving mechanisms for adjusting discipline settings and talent training models.
• Popularize mental health education.
• Build a high-quality, professional teaching team, reinforcing teachers' ethics and ensuring their well-being.

The report underscores the importance of education reform and development, closely aligning with national needs and public concerns, accelerating the transition from a large education country to an education powerhouse.

2. Promoting High-Level Technological Self-Reliance and Independence

• Leverage the advantages of the new national system, strengthening research on key core technologies and cutting-edge, disruptive technologies, accelerating the implementation of advanced science and technology projects.
• Optimize the layout of national strategic scientific and technological forces, promoting research institute reforms, exploring new national laboratory models, and enhancing the influence of international and regional scientific and technological innovation centers.
• Increase science and technology expenditures towards basic research, improving input mechanisms that blend competitive and stable support, and enhancing the organization of basic research.
• Play to the lead role of technology enterprises, deepening industry-university-research integration, and institutionally ensuring enterprises' participation in national scientific and technological innovation decisions and major projects.
• Improve the allocation, management, and use of central government science and technology funds.
• Enhance support policies and market services for scientific and technological achievement transformation, promoting reforms in job-related scientific and technological achievement empowerment and separate asset management, and improving the efficiency of scientific and technological achievement transformation.
• Strengthen intellectual property protection and utilization, accelerating the construction of concept validation, pilot testing, and industry-wide technology platforms.
• Improve the differentiated supervision system for venture capital funds, strengthening policy-based financial support, accelerating venture capital development, and fostering patient capital.
• Expand scientific and technological openness and cooperation.
• Strengthen science popularization, improving citizens' scientific literacy, promoting the scientist spirit, and fostering an innovative environment that encourages exploration and tolerates failure.

3. Comprehensively Improving the Quality of the Talent Team

• Harness the radiating influence of talent highlands and platforms, accelerating the construction of national strategic talent forces, and strengthening the cultivation of top-tier innovative talents, key area talents, and high-skilled talents.
• Strongly support and boldly use young scientific and technological talents, fostering a first-class team of industrial technical workers.
• Improve support and guarantee mechanisms for overseas talent introduction, optimizing services for foreign talents.
• Deepen talent management and use system reforms, granting employers greater autonomy, and promoting industry-university-research talent training and exchanges.
• Promote a reasonable regional talent distribution, enhancing collaboration between the eastern, central, and western regions. Deepen talent classification evaluation reforms and governance of the scientific and educational community's "cap," establishing an innovation-ability, quality, effectiveness, and contribution-oriented talent evaluation system, encouraging all types of talents to focus on research and accumulate strengths.

The government work report also proposes:

• Strengthening the guarantee of compulsory education for migrant workers' children.
• Optimizing employment and entrepreneurship services, expanding channels for graduates and other youth.
• Strengthening and improving minors' ideological and moral construction.
• Promoting scientific fitness and health intervention among adolescents, fostering a strong will and fitness through sports.
• Strengthening safety supervision of campus meals and platform takeout.

02 Speech by the Minister of Education

On March 5, at the first "Minister's Channel" of the Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress, Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng stated:

• Optimizing existing disciplines and appropriately enhancing new ones to support annual talent optimization and cultivation. Steadily expanding undergraduate enrollment in "double first-class" universities and vigorously enhancing vocational education.
• Regarding the "15-minute break between classes," Minister Huai Jinpeng noted that many schools have introduced this plan in the new semester, with over 20 provinces and cities implementing it. He hopes this will foster students' physical and mental health, instilling sunshine in their hearts and sweat on their bodies.
• On the popularity of DeepSeek, Minister Huai Jinpeng said it reflects China's technological innovation and talent cultivation effectiveness but also poses the question of how education should respond to technological and industrial transformations. Each revolution and transformation presents significant societal demands, particularly on education, offering major opportunities for reform and development.
• This year, China will launch the "County Middle School Revitalization Action Plan," focusing on county middle schools for "high-quality and balanced" education development. This involves strengthening layout and optimizing teaching staff structure to better serve students.
• Minister Huai Jinpeng also revealed that China will release the "White Paper on AI Education" to enhance students' digital and intelligent era literacy and abilities, further integrating educational technology and humanities education.

03 Main Topics and Proposals of Delegates and Committee Members

• NPC Deputy Fang Yan proposed severe punishment for teachers sexually assaulting minors.
• CPPCC National Committee Member Li Shufu proposed implementing educational diversion at the junior high school level, promoting individualized scientific education.
• CPPCC National Committee Member Chen Songxi proposed renaming the "Population and Family Planning Law" to the "Population and Fertility Law" to fully liberalize childbirth.

04 Hot Topics in the Field of Education

According to the China Youth Daily Social Survey Center, eight hot topics emerged in education during this year's Two Sessions:

• AI General Education Courses and Technical Ethics Education: 3.4% concern. With AI's rapid development, integrating it into the education system is inevitable. This year, 53.4% of respondents support adding AI general education courses from elementary to university levels, strengthening technical ethics education.
• Constructing Open Universities and Promoting Educational Resource Sharing: 45.9% of calls. Building open universities for national educational resource sharing and public service platforms that keep pace with the times and benefit the people garnered 45.9% of respondents' attention. Zhejiang's Hangzhou provides "one-stop" learning services, constructing an urban "15-minute learning circle," while the National Open University, an "Internet +" university, integrates and launches online courses to share high-quality educational resources.
• Popularizing DeepSeek Application Guidance Courses: 41.3% of expectations. As an advanced technology, DeepSeek has significant educational potential. 41.3% of respondents look forward to popularizing DeepSeek application guidance courses, reflecting interest in emerging technology's educational applications.
• "Double Reduction" and After-School Services: 40.9% of concerns. Solidifying "double reduction" and improving after-school services' participation and quality remain crucial education topics, attracting 40.9% of respondents' concern. Since implementation, the policy has reduced students' homework and extracurricular training burdens but requires improvement in after-school services.
• Narrowing the Urban-Rural Gap in Educational Resources: 36.5% of concern. Educational equity is crucial for social equity, and narrowing the urban-rural gap has always been essential. This year's Two Sessions attracted 36.5% of respondents' attention. While China has made progress in balancing educational resources, such as connecting all primary and secondary schools to the internet and expanding the National Smart Education Platform, significant disparities remain in educational hardware, teaching staff, and course resources between urban and rural areas.
• Industry-Education Integration in Vocational Education: 36.4% of focus. With industrial upgrading and economic structural adjustment, the demand for skilled talents increases, making a high-quality vocational education industry-education integration system a hot topic, attracting 36.4% of respondents' attention. Many vocational colleges use virtual simulation, augmented reality, and holographic imaging to build virtual simulation training bases, effectively addressing high-risk, long-cycle, and difficult-to-observe training challenges.
• Deepening the Reform of Talent Evaluation in Colleges and Universities: 34.5% of importance. Deepening this reform and breaking talent "cap" constraints garnered 34.5% of respondents' attention. Currently, colleges and universities overly rely on "caps" in talent evaluation, with standards focusing on quantitative indicators like paper and research project counts, ignoring talents' actual innovation abilities and contributions. This method hinders talent development and stifles innovation vitality. To deepen this reform, it's crucial to establish a diversified evaluation system focusing on talents' innovation, practical abilities, and social contributions.
• Cybersecurity Education for Adolescents: 32.2% of concern.

In the digital age, cybersecurity education for adolescents has become paramount, garnering the attention of 32.2% of respondents. As the Internet becomes increasingly ubiquitous, adolescents are accessing it at younger ages. While the Internet provides them with a wealth of information and convenient learning platforms, it also poses numerous security threats, including online fraud, data breaches, and the dissemination of harmful content. To fortify cybersecurity education among adolescents, schools must take a leading role by integrating cybersecurity into the curriculum, and promoting awareness and self-protection skills through specialized lectures, thematic class meetings, and other innovative methods. Parents, too, should intensify their oversight of their children's online activities and guide them in using the Internet responsibly. Furthermore, all sectors of society must collaborate to foster a healthy and secure online environment, including strengthening content moderation and combating cybercrimes.

The aforementioned content encapsulates the key points from the government work report, the Minister of Education's speech, and the proposals put forth by delegates and committee members during the 2025 Two Sessions, highlighting the current educational priorities and developmental trajectories in the field.