China: A Systematic Approach to Rural School Improvement: Teachers, Technologies and Leadership

The People’s Republic of China, with a population of over 1.3 billion covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, is the world’s most populous country. Since the implementation of economic reform in the late 1970s, China has become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies with the gross domestic production (GDP) growth rate averaging between 7 and 8% a year in recent decades and has become the world’s second largest economy by nominal total GDP (World Bank, The World Bank Annual Report 2015, The World Bank, 2015).