In March 2026, 26 Chinese senior high schools joined together in the national project "Collaboration on Teaching and Research in Technology-Oriented Senior High Schools" under the leadership of the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences.
The project covers six key areas: artificial intelligence, life health, ecology, aviation and cosmonautics, deep-sea and underground exploration, new energy sources and materials. The initiative relies on the "Plan for Building an Education Power (2024—2035)," which explicitly states the need to create schools with a science profile.
The mechanism works like this: schools receive unified methodological guidelines, develop interdisciplinary modules and hold regular joint seminars. A teacher first masters a basic course in the chosen area together with experts from universities, then brings it into the classroom through project assignments — for example, modeling orbital stations or analyzing environmental monitoring data. The analogy is simple: as in a sports school, the coach first teaches technique, and then puts the team into real competitions.
For now, the data is limited to official announcements: Shandong has already recognized 91 school, Zhejiang — 29 pilot ones, Jiangsu — 113. This is a ★☆☆☆☆ level — press releases and provincial plans, without independent research or long-term measurements of results. It is unknown how quickly it will be possible to train a sufficient number of teachers and whether the project will turn into a formal distribution of resources.
The main tension is the gap between the centralized assignment from above and the real readiness of schools on the ground. Regions with strong universities will gain an advantage, while the rest risk being left with equipment but no content. The education system is once again testing whether it is capable of scaling highly specialized programs without exacerbating inequality.
Schools that begin with diagnosing their own staffing and building ties with universities will most likely be able to turn the requirement into a real tool for selecting and motivating students.
