among new entrants to the workforce is enhanced and when the economy provides
high-quality employment opportunities.
As seen in Figure 11.6, both the PRC and India have been providing increased
years of schooling for their people, but the rate of increase is far greater in the PRC
than in India. Because of this, while the average number of years of schooling
had been similar in both countries in 1960, there was a big gap between the two
countries in 2010, with 8.2 years for the PRC and 5.1 years for India.
However, the average number of years of total schooling in the Republic of
Korea, which is drawn here as a benchmark, has expanded more rapidly than
these two countries. Indeed, such an outstanding emphasis on education has been
regarded as one of the key ingredients of the remarkable growth performance of
the Republic of Korea (Harvie and Lee 2003).