Key Trends in Globalisation

The concentration in this blog so far, during my current visit to China, has been to give a feel of the huge drive in Chinese education. But in this field one is, however, talking of a trend. The total number of those in China who emerge with advanced educational qualifications each year already vastly outstrips Britain, and this gap will rapidly grow into a chasm, but this is due to the fact China has twenty times the UK’s population. While China is setting far higher educational standards than Britain it will take some time for the average level of qualifications in urban China to overtake the UK. To bring the population that is currently in rural China, most of whom will move to the cities, up to higher educational standards than Britain will be the work of many decades.
But infrastructure can be put in place far more rapidly. The infrastructure of Asian cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong is already far ahead of Europe, the UK, and the US. It is clear that the most advanced Chinese cities are also approaching ’switchover point’ – that is to their infrastructure being superior to the US and Europe.