Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 8 (Reporter) – At the 2026 National Education Work Conference held on January 8, it was learned that in 2026, the Ministry of Education will take the classified advancement of higher education reform as a major strategic task, launch a new round of "Double First-Class" construction, comprehensively promote the high-quality development of local ordinary universities, and encourage application-oriented universities to proactively align with major regional strategies.
To rationally adjust the distribution and number of universities, the Ministry of Education will promote the allocation of new higher education resources to populous provinces and the central and western regions, improve the pairing support mechanism between universities in the eastern, central and western regions, and accelerate the revitalization of higher education in the central and western regions.
Furthermore, reporters learned that the quality and level of public education services in my country have been continuously improving for some time. Over the past year, more than 300 new counties have been recognized for high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education, covering all provinces; the policy of waiving preschool education fees for the first year has benefited more than 12 million children; the county-level secondary school revitalization action plan has been launched, adding 1.49 million high school places; and universities participating in the "Double First-Class" initiative have steadily expanded their enrollment, giving students more opportunities to enter high-level universities.
It is reported that in 2026, the Ministry of Education will continue to optimize the allocation of basic education resources, better respond to changes in the school-age population, improve the national degree monitoring and early warning model, fully carry out pilot reforms of the basic education resource allocation mechanism, and focus on supporting the construction, renovation and expansion of a number of high-quality ordinary junior and senior high schools in urban areas with net inflows of school-age population and areas with weak infrastructure, thereby expanding the supply of resources.
(Reporters Wang Peng and Wei Guanyu)
