The peak age for people entering higher education institutions usually falls between 18 and 22. Therefore, we took 22 as a dividing line to investigate the change in the proportion of people at peak higher education age among RTVU open education students. This provides a platform from which to judge competition over student enrollment between RTVU open education and regular higher education institutions. 

Table 11: Student Distribution and Proportion of the Two Age Groups

As shown in Table 11, the ratio of students aged 22 or below to students aged above 22 is increasing year on year, especially on junior college programmes. The ratio between the two age groups is almost 1:1. It is thus clear that students aged 18-22 years have become an important constituent part of the RTVU open education student body, in a similar way to regular higher education. As a result, this may produce competition between RTVUs and ordinary higher education institutions. In contrast to the results of the Fifth National Population Census in 2000, the results of the Sixth National Population Census revealed a 6.29% decrease in the population between the ages of 0-14. Within the next five years, the proportion of the population within the boundaries of the average age for higher education will also decrease accordingly. On the other hand, The Outline predicted that the gross enrollment rate for higher education will increase every year for the next 10 years. In summary, the scale of higher education enrollment is likely to increase, even as the proportion of people at the average age for higher education decreases. As the study conducted by Kuai Pengzhou and Jiang Quan (2010) indicates, a gap between supply and demand will continue to exist within China’s higher education system for the next 10 years. They suggest that higher education enrollment will maintain a moderate growth rate between 2010-2020, fulfilling the development goal of achieving a 40% gross enrollment rate for higher education in 2020^[8]. Hence, division as well as cooperation dominates the relationship between regular higher education institutions, and web-based and adult higher education represented by RTVU open education. Rather than competing, both sides must come together to realize the goals of higher education. The staff in charge of RTVU enrollment must be aware of this trend in order to avoid enrolling too many young students and maintain the distinction between RTVU students and regular higher education students.

The undergraduate level of open education is made up of diploma-to-degree programmes and recruits must have received schooling to at least a junior college level. The minimum age of students at this level is 20, which is why only a small proportion of students are under 22.

4. Changes to the composition of the student body according to marital status

The marital status attribute is divided into five sub-categories: married, unmarried, divorced, widowed and other. There are 5,421 divorced or widowed students. The value “other” indicates unknown marital status, comprising 200,479 students. In view of the small number or unclear situation of the divorced, widowed and other values, we have not included them in the marital status distribution statistics.

The statistics on the marital status of students in RTVU open education over the past 12 years are shown in Table 12. 

Table 12: Marital Status Distribution of Students (1999-2010) 

Table 12 shows that the ratio of married students to single students is declining year on year i.e. married students are decreasing in contrast to unmarried students. This trend goes hand in hand with the declining age of the student body.

5. Changes to the composition of the student body according to educational background

Table 13 shows the breakdown of statistics according to educational background of students in RTVU open education over the past 12 years. In addition to the three types of educational background used in Table 13, the attributes “primary school”, “junior high school” and other unknown kinds of educational background also exist. As the total number of students in these attributes is less than 2,500, they have not been included in the statistics.

Table 13: Educational Background

As shown in Table 13, students with a university education dominate undergraduate open education programmes, while students with a technical secondary education or high school education dominate junior college open education programmes. Few students with a junior college education or above choose to learn another major at the same level. Table 14 below shows that the proportion of students with a university education enrolled on junior college programmes is decreasing. Overall, students who enroll in open education are aiming to upgrade their educational level; few enroll purely to increase their knowledge or enhance their skills. When the proportion of people in China with a university education maintains a stable growth rate (compared with the results of the Fifth National Population Census in 2000, the results of the Sixth National Population Census show that out of 100,000 people, those with university education increased from 3,611 to 8,930^[9]) and when a suitable number of people have a university education, it will become necessary to “recharge” this group. At that time, the function of RTVU open education and even the whole RTVU higher education system will be dedicated to providing lifelong learning for all people in non-degree education.