Chinese Research Perspectives on Educational Development, Volume 2 [1 ed.] 9789004270787, 9789004270770

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Chinese Research Perspectives on Educational Development, Volume 2

Chinese Research Perspectives: Educational Development International Advisory Board Chen Yangbin, La Trobe University Gregory P. Fairbrother, The Hong Kong Institute of Education Gerard Postiglione, University of Hong Kong Heidi Ross, Indiana University

BEIJING 2013 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/cred

Chinese Research Perspectives on Educational Development, Volume 2 Edited by

Yang Dongping

LEIDEN | BOSTON

This book is the result of a co-publication agreement between Social Sciences Academic Press and Koninklijke Brill NV. These articles were selected and translated into English from the original 《中国教育发展报告   (2013)》(Zhongguo jiaoyu fazhan baogao 2013) with financial support from the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2212-7488 isbn 978 90 04 27077 0 (hardback) isbn 978 90 04 27078 7 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents List of Figures and Tables  vii General Report Reform of Education in China Stepping Forward with a Solid Pace and Going a Long Way  1 Cheng Fangping and Yang Dongping Regional Features and New Issues on the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education  27 Wu Zunmin Competition on the Transition of Primary School Graduates to Junior High Schools in Large Cities and Governance of Mathematical Olympiad Training  37 Li Xinling An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping in Rural Areas  52 Wang Shuai Research on the Learning and Life of Primary and Secondary Students in Rural Schools  67 Zhou Jinyan and Qi Xiang Local Practices and Civilian Efforts on Revitalization of Small-Scale Schools in Rural Areas  86 Lü Chao New Progress on Higher Education Reform  98 Yang Min Enabling Migrant Workers’ Children to Take the College Entrance Exam in the City Where Their Parents Work and Live Moving Forward  108 Xiong Bingqi Beyond Rural and Urban Differences: Impact of Educational Resources and Family Resources on Children from Urban and Rural Areas  120 Han Jialing, Gao Yauiong, Zhang Yan, Han Chengming From Shandong to Shanxi Province: A Reflection on the Reform of School Teaching in Primary and Middle Schools  138 Chai Chunqing Non-Government Funded Education: Development Transition and Policy Innovation  152 Fang Jianfeng

vi

contents

Exploration on Building of Parents Committee in Primary and Middle Schools in Shandong Province  170 Lu Yongjian A Survey on Specially-set-post Teachers in Rural Schools: Present Situation and Issues  179 Wang Guoming, Wang Xuenan, A Xia Re Ha Mo Survey of the Sense of Educational Equality Expressed by the Public in Some Major Cities of China for the Year 2012  197 Yang Min An Analysis of Public Expenditures on Education in 2011  215 Zhou Ling

Appendices  227 Top Ten News Reports on Education in 2012  229 A Collection of Topics of Chinese Composition Used in the College Entrance Examinations Administered in 2012  231 Speech Delivered in Tsinghua University (Full Text)  238 Wen Jiabao The List of Winners of the Third Session of “Local Educational Institution Creativity Awards”  245 International Forum on New Education: Ningbo Declaration  249 Why I Criticize the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China  251 Yang Dongping What do We Lack, How Shall We Face—Preface of “Textbook on Humanistic Literacy” Edited by Ma Xiaoping  254 Qian Liqun My Ideal University  259 Liu Daoyu Equal Opportunity for All Students  262 Tsinghua University Research Group A Letter Written by Poet Hu Lanlan to Ministry of Education: Save those Children Kidnapped by Homework and Test Scores  274 Being Myself: Speech Made by a Middle School Student under the National Flag in Qidong Middle School, Jiangsu Province  281 Index  283

List of Figures and Tables Figure caption 1.1 1.2 4.1 4.2 4.3

4.4 4.5 4.6 5.1 5.2 9.1 13.1 14.1 14.2

14.3

14.4 14.5

The ratio of government education spending to GDP from 2002 to 2011  3 Percentage of vocational education students in high school and higher education institute (2002–2010)  8 Changes in the number of ordinary junior high schools and the number of students from 1990 to 2011 in China  53 Changes in the number of ordinary primary schools and the number of students from 1990 to 2011 in China  54 The decline of the number of ordinary primary schools year by year vs. the decline of the number of students enrolled in ordinary primary schools (2000–2011)  54 The coefficient of the removal and merge of primary schools across the country  55 The average coefficient of removal and merge of primary schools in 27 provinces from 2000 to 2010  56 Ranking of the rate of decrease of the teaching centers in 2010 of 26 provinces as compared with that in 2000  56 Rural primary school students’ evaluation on village primary schools and center primary schools  72 The most urgent difficulties of rural junior high, middle school students  78 Types of schools attended by four groups of children  122 Living conditions of specially-set-post teachers  187 The public evaluation of the education equality and the future expectation in major cities in the year of 2012  201 The evaluation of the education equality tendency and the expectation on the balanced development of the compulsory education by public in major cities in different age groups in 2012  202 The comparison between the evaluation on the equal access to school and the experience of fairness in the education process in the year 2012  205 The evaluation of the equal opportunity to school by public in major cities in the year 2012  205 The public experience of fairness in the education process in the year of 2012  209

viii 15.1 15.2 24.1 24.2

list of figures and tables

The total national fiscal education expenditure 2006–2011  216 The appropriations for education of public finance budget 2006–2011  216 The changes in opportunities of being recommended for admission to universities  267 To enter 985 Project and 211 Project universities by independent recruitment  267

table caption 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9 9.10 9.11 9.12

Policy paper on the adjustment of school mapping by the central government  58 Policies and goals of the adjustment of school distribution of some provinces  61 General conditions of primary school students in rural areas  69 General conditions of primary school students in rural areas  70 General conditions of primary school students in rural areas  71 Explanatory model of rural primary school students’ academic achievement scores  73 General conditions of junior high school students in rural areas  75 General conditions of junior high school students in rural areas  76 General conditions of junior high school students in rural areas  77 General conditions of junior high school students in rural areas  78 General conditions of primary school students in rural areas  80 Factor analysis models for junior high school students’ academic achievement scores  83 Description of the children sample  121 Distribution of key school students among four types of children  123 Student-teacher interaction in class among four children groups  124 Participation in extracurricular activities among four children groups  125 Learning time allocation among four children groups  125 Ownership of extracurricular books by four children groups  126 Access to internet among four children groups  127 Parental education status of four children groups  128 Locations for accessing internet by four children groups  129 Family support in taking care of children among four children groups  131 Parental attention to children’s academic performance  131 Family emotional outlet of four children groups  132

list of figures and tables

9.13 9.14 9.15 9.16 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 13.9 13.10 13.11 13.12 13.13 13.14 13.15 13.16 13.17 13.18 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5

14.6

ix

Four group of children’s self-expectation of education  134 Dropout rates of four groups of children at 14–17  135 Situation of four groups of children participating in the family decisions  135 Four groups of children’s awareness of everyday knowledge  136 The specially-set-post teachers’ basic statistics  181 Hebei Province L specially-set-post teachers’ gender ratio  182 Specially-set-post teachers’ parental education level  183 Specially-set-post teachers’ family support  183 Specially-set-post teachers’ academic information  184 The reasons why they become specially-set-post teachers  185 Hebei province two year specially-set-post teacher urban rural distribution comparison  186 Hebei province 2010 specially-set-post teacher urban rural distribution list  186 Specially-set-post teacher’s work and life satisfaction/happiness level  187 Specially-set-post teachers’ sources of stress  188 Specially-set-post teachers’ subjects  189 Specially-set-post teachers’ weekly teaching hours  190 Specially-set-post teachers’ teaching results  190 The support “Specially-set-post teachers” need for their work  191 Specially-set-post teachers’ reasons for leaving  192 How much specially-set-post teachers’ pay attention to other job recruitment opportunities  192 Teacher’s salary composition (Xinfa Center School, October 2012)  194 H Elementary School (teaching site) teachers’ salary situation  195 The evaluation of the education equality and the future expectation by citizens in 2012  200 City ranking by the general evaluation of the education equality in the year 2012  203 City ranking by the sub-indicators of the public evaluation of the equal access to school in the year 2012  206 City ranking by the public evaluation of the equal access to school in 30 major cities in the year 2012  208 The distribution of the evaluation of the education quality gaps among public elementary and middle schools in 30 major cities in the year of 2012  209 City ranking by the sub-indicators of the experience of fairness in the education process in 30 major cities in the year of 2012  211

x 14.7 14.8 16.1 16.2 24.1 24.2

list of figures and tables

City ranking by the public evaluation of the equality in education in the year of 2012  212 City ranking by the public expectation on education to change destiny in the year of 2012  213 Top ten hot news on education in 2012  229 Top ten news reports on education in 2012  230 Comparison between the percentages of three kinds of rural students and their ratios compared to whole country’s population  264 The reasons that three kinds of rural students get extra-credit  270

chapter 1

General Report

Reform of Education in China Stepping Forward with a Solid Pace and Going a Long Way Cheng Fangping and Yang Dongping Abstract

With the optimized environment of education reform and development, governments at all levels give priority to the development of education, for a new step forward in the promotion of education equity, rural education and balanced development of compulsory education. In 2012, new progress can be seen in the following fields: public expenditure on education accounting for 4% firstly, educational system reforms, local education institution creativity stepping into active period, and higher education reform focused on quality improvement. At the same time, notion barriers and institutional barriers of education reform restricting the development of education reform need to be cracked in the vision of ameliorating people’s livelihood and social construction.

Keywords Education Reform – Education System – National Guidelines for Medium- and Long-term Educational Reform and Development

The year of 2012 was a year in which China’s economics and society were developing stably, and the reform of education was deepening gradually. The implement of “Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)” (referred to as “National Education Outline”) entered the second year. Some of the hot and difficult

* Cheng Fangping 程方平: Professor from Renmin University of China, Vice president of Shichahai Academy College; Yang Dongping, 杨东平: Professor of the Education Research Institute in Beijing Institute of Technology, Director of 21st Century Education Research Institute

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004270787_�02

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issues of public concern have been significantly improved. The bottom-up reform of education in local governments and schools has become increasingly active. At the end of the year, the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (18th Party Congress, 中国共产党第十八次全国 代表大会，党的十八大) further defined the direction of the development of education, declared the ideal of running “education to the satisfaction of the people (人民满意的教育)”, improving people’s educational livelihood, deepening the reform, and realizing “China Dream”. The education reform that has entered the “deep water” needs to be further deepened, and there are difficulties remaining to be overcome. I

Give High Priority to Developing Education, Continuously Promote Education Reform

Government Spending on Education Reached 4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Investment in education is a basic, strategic investment to sustain long-term development of the nation. It is the government’s basic duties to give high priority to education, and to continuously improve education support capabilities. According to information on all aspects, in 2012 the Government spending on education came to about 2 trillion Yuan. The goal that Government education spending reaches 4% of GDP has been achieved. At the beginning of year, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao put forward, in 2012 the central government has made a budget for the national education spending to account for 4% of GDP, local governments should make arrangement accordingly to ensure the realization of this goal. In June, 2011, the State Council issued “Opinions on Further Increasing Fiscal Investment in Education” (关于进一步加大财政教育投入的意见), calling for the local governments to ensure the statutory growth of education spending in public expenditure budget, and the priority of education in utilizing the revenue that exceeds the budget in implementation. According to the “Statistical Communiqué on the Operation of National Educational Expenditures in 2011” (2011 全国教育经费执行情况统计公告) issued by Ministry of Education and other departments, China’s GDP in 2011 was 47.2882 trillion Yuan, the total investment of national education spending was 2.386929 trillion Yuan, which was an increase of 22.02% over last year. In particular, government education spending was 1.85867 trillion Yuan, an increase of 26.70% over last year. It accounted for 3.93% of GDP, an increase of A

3

General Report 4.00 3.90 3.80 3.70 3.60 3.50 3.40 % 3.30 3.20 3.10 3.00 2.90 2.80 2.70 2.60 2.50

3.93 3.66 3.59 3.33 3.12 2.9

2002

2.84

2003

2.93 2.79

2.79

2004

2005

2006 2007 Year

2008

2009

2010

2011

Figure 1.1 The ratio of government education spending to GDP from 2002 to 2011 Data source: “China Statistical Yearbook” (2011), Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2011. Ministry of Education, the National Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Finance: “Statistical Communiqué on the Operation of National Educational Expenditures in 2010”; “Statistical Communiqué on the Operation of National Educational Expenditures in 2011”

0.28% over last year.1 Accordingly, it was not difficult to estimate that this ratio would reach 4% for the first time in 2012. From 2002 to 2010, total investment of national education spending increased from 548.003 billion Yuan 1.956185 trillion Yuan, an increase of 2.57 times. In particular, government education spending increased to 1.467007 trillion Yuan from 349.14 billion Yuan, the proportion of it in total investment of education spending has gradually increased from 63.71% as of 2002 to 74.99%; the ratio of government education spending to GDP has been increasing steadily year by year since 2005, from 2.90% as in 2002, to 3.66% as in 2011, 3.93% as in 2011, and more than 4% as in 2012 (See Figure 1.1).

1 “San bumen fabu 2011nian quanguo jiaoyu jingfei zhixing qiIngkuang tongji gonggao 《三部门发布2011年全国教育经费执行情况统计公告》[Statistical   Communiqué on the Operation of National Educational Expenditures in 2011 Issued by Three Departments],” the Chinese Central Government’s Office, December 30, 2011. Website: http://www.moe.gov .cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s5147/201301/146407.html.

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With the strengthening of government’s responsibility to indemnify public education, the institutional mechanisms have been further improved. In particular, the government is fully responsible for compulsory education; non-compulsory education primarily depends on government investment, while educational fund is raised through multiple channels. Among the total investment in elementary, junior high and high school education, secondary vocational education and vocational high school education, the proportion of government spending has increased considerably. Particularly, for compulsory education, the proportion has reached more than 90%. The proportion of public investment in higher education has declined. Giving priority of public investment to compulsory education and secondary vocational education is conductive to achieving greater social equity. In December 2012, the Minister of Education Yuan Guiren announced that the tuition-fee-exemption policy in secondary vocational education was expanded to all rural students, and the urban students who are studying agriculture-related majors or from poor families. Following the effectuation of free compulsory education in urban and rural areas, the implementation of free secondary vocational education in rural areas is another major initiative, and a milestone in history of education equity and the development of vocational education. It indicates that China has preliminarily established a complete policy system for providing financial aid to students from poor families, with each stage from pre-school through graduate education included. Focusing on the improvement of quality, China continues to strengthen the support to key construction projects in higher education. In particular, China sets up the “Plan 2011”, which focuses on collaborative innovation by universities, research institutions and enterprises. Meanwhile, China supports local governments to increase the per-student appropriation level in regular undergraduate institutions, and to clear the debt of local colleges and universities, provides special funding support to local colleges and universities to improve schooling conditions, and to enhance schooling quality. In addition, national and local investment in lifelong education, social education, and the globalization of education are also increased and normalized. In the “Outline for Education Reform and Development in China” (中国 教育改革和发展纲要) promulgated in 1993, the goal of reaching 4% GDP was proposed to be achieved in 2000, and it was finally achieved in 2012. According to World Bank data, public investment in education accounted for 4.45% of GDP on average worldwide in 2008, and the ratio is 4.59% for upper-middle income countries. China has become one of the upper-middleincome countries, but the funding for public education did not reach the level

General Report

5

of upper-middle income countries.2 Therefore, further effort should be put to enhance the level of investment and security in education. In addition, there are many basic infrastructures remaining to be improved, including establishing budget standards, improving the efficiency of education spending, determining the norms and proportions in regard to the investigation of government spending in each level and category of education, effectively supervising education finance, and so on. Emphasize Education in Rural Areas, Improve People’s Educational Livelihood The central government implemented a series of projects, emphasizing and strengthening the development of education in rural areas, and giving priority of education investment to the education in rural area, as well as in the central and western regions. B

1 Basic Education Stage For the compulsory education stage, from 2006 onwards, China gradually integrated the compulsory education in rural area fully into the coverage of public financial security, and established a rural education funding security mechanism, in which the central and local governments share responsibilities in a project-based, proportional manner. By 2012, about 120 million students nationwide all enjoy the tuition-free and free-textbooks policy. The “Xinhua Dictionary” has also been included in the list of free items. In addition, the average public spending on rural elementary and secondary school students has reached the following standards: in the central and western regions, 500 Yuan for elementary school, 700 Yuan for junior high school; in eastern regions, 550 Yuan for elementary school, 750 Yuan for junior high school. Also, for rural elementary schools with less than 100 people, public funds of financial aids are allocated according to the amount for 100 people. Approximately 13.33 million boarding students from poor families in the central and western regions may receive financial aids, which on average is 1000 Yuan per person per year for elementary school students, 1250 Yuan for junior high students. A sound long-term mechanism for the maintenance and renovation of school buildings 2 “San bumen fabu 2011nian quanguo jiaoyu jingfei zhixing qiIngkuang tongji gonggao《三部 门发布2011年全国教育经费执行情况统计公告》 [Statistical Communiqué on the Operation of National Educational Expenditures in 2011 Issued by Three Departments],” the Chinese Central Government’s Office, December 30, 2011. Website: http://www.moe.gov.cn/ publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s5147/201301/146407.html.

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should be established and improved, and the per-unit-area standard for subsidies should be gradually increased. In the city, from the fall semester in 2008, compulsory education students are exempted from tuition and fees. Children of rural migrants working in cities (进城务工人员子女) are arranged to study in public schools according to the nearby-enrollment principle (就近入学原则), with tuition and fees exempted. The schools do not charge temporary student fee, whereas the central government offers subsidies as rewards. The central and local government will share the responsibility, and spare no effort to resolve the weak schools nationwide. It is planned to achieve this goal by 2016. The local governments are actively supported and guided to accelerate the development of pre-school education, with emphasis on expanding preschool education resources in the central and western rural areas, for example, using idle school premises and transforming them into nurseries; encouraging social forces to run preschools, setting up “subsidy and reward funds for supporting the development of private preschools”, supporting inclusive, lowcost private preschools, easing the shortage of preschool for children of rural migrants working in cities, providing financial aids to enroll orphans, children from poor families, and children with disabilities in preschool for free, etc.; bringing preschool teachers in rural areas in the central and western regions to “National Primary and Secondary School Teacher Training Program.” From 2006 onwards, the “Special Post Plan for Rural Compulsory Education School Teachers” 农村义务教育学校教师特设岗位计划 (referred to as “SpecialPost Teacher Plan 特岗教师计划”), which is supported with a special fund set up by the central government, has been implemented. Qualified college graduates are recruited to teach in elementary and secondary schools in the rural western region. In 2012, the central government allocated subsidy funds of 4.5 billion Yuan to the stipend of “special-post teachers”. The coverage of subsidies was expanded to contiguous areas with acute difficulties (集中连片 特困地区). The standard of annual average subsidy per capita was increased to 27,000 Yuan in the western region, 24,000 Yuan in the central region. From 2006 to 2012, the central government arranged the allocation of a total of 15.3 billion Yuan as stipend subsidies to 523,000 special-post teachers. It played an important role in the supplementing and quality improving of rural teachers, as well as in expanding the channels of employment for college graduates. In October 2011, the State Council initiated the implementation of the plan for improving nutrition for rural students receiving compulsory education (农村义务教育学生营养改善计划). The central government allocated

General Report

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16 billion Yuan annually to 680 pilot counties in contiguous areas with acute difficulties, providing students a nutritional and dietary aid of a three-Yuan standard, which benefits 26 million rural students. Excessive removal and merge of compulsory schools in rural areas has led to prominent problems in recent years, for example, schools are too far away, too expensive to afford, school drop-out and security risks are increased, and so on. March 2012, the State Council approved the “School Bus Safety Regulations.” September 2012, the State Council issued “Opinions on Adjusting the Layout of Rural Compulsory Education Schools” (关于规范农村义务教育学校布 局调整的意见), calling for “resolutely repressing blind removal and merge of rural compulsory education schools, suspending the removal and merge of rural compulsory education schools”, and for taking various measures to run village schools and teaching sites, solving outstanding problems caused by the removal and merge of schools. For the last 20% of the population, who remain in rural and remote areas with poor education, the meaning of restoring and revitalizing small rural schools is particularly significant. 2 Post-secondary Education State From 2012 onwards, China implemented directional enrollment special programs targeting poor areas. In particular, within regular college enrollment plan, a specific recruitment plan of appropriate figure is arranged to directionally enroll students from contiguous areas with acute difficulties, guiding and encouraging students to return to the poor areas after graduation to pursue employment and entrepreneurship, and provide service. More than 10,000 students were enrolled in 2012, mainly in first-tier institutions. With respect to vocational education, it is statistically documented that, from 2004 to 2012, the central government supported the construction of 3800 field training base program, supported 200 vocational colleges to construct national-level model schools, supported 1000 secondary vocational schools to construct national-level model schools of reform and development, supported nearly 200,000 teachers to participate in vocational training, supported higher vocational schools to enhance their professional services capabilities. In 2008, students in vocational schools began to receive tuition and living expenses subsidy. Since then, vocational education in some areas has been developing well, the corresponding college-enterprise collaboration, technological innovation, education and teaching, as well as the reform of major courses have shown effects in many aspects. At present, China’s secondary and higher vocational education accounted for half of the total size of high school and higher education, respectively, see Figure 1.2.

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Cheng and yang 60

% 54.25

50 40

41.65 40.57

43.24 38.71

30

38.62

45.65

41.68

39.69

45.66 43.89

45.61 45.36

47.3

47.86

44.99

43.29

The percentage of secondary vocational education students in the total number of high school stage students

20

The percentage of vocational college students (junior college) in the total number of higher education students

10 0

44.67

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Figure 1.2 Percentage of vocational education students in high school and higher education institute (2002–2010) Source: Ministry of Education, Development Planning Division: “Education Statistical Yearbook of China” (corresponding years).

C The Progress of Education System Reform 1 Strengthen the Construction of Basic Education System In 2012, the Ministry of Education adjusted institutional settings, which is a concrete measure of strengthening the efforts of education reform. The newly established Comprehensive Reform Department is committed to the daily work in National Education System Reform Leading Group Office, coordinating the implementation of “National Education Plan” and other related work. Establish and improve the basic education system. August 2012 the State Council approved “Regulations on Educational Supervision”. September 2012, it issued a “Opinions of the State Council on Further Promoting the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education” (国务院关于深入推进义务教 育均衡发展的意见), “Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Improvement of Teachers” (国务院关于加强教师队伍建设的意见) and “Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Adjusting the Layout of Rural Compulsory Education Schools” (国务院办公厅关于规范农村义 务教育学校布局调整的意见), which are of great significance to the reform and development of basic education. Educational Supervision is one of the basic education systems in China. It is an integral component in the three-part system of educational policymaking, educational implementation, and educational supervision. China’s

General Report

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“Compulsory Education Law”, “Vocational Education Law” (职业教育法), “Non-State Education Promotion Law” (民办教育促进法), and a series of laws and regulations provided the functional role of educational supervision. However, there had not been any dedicated, complete law and regulation on educational supervision. “Regulations on Educational Supervision”, which was officially issued and has come into force since October 1, 2012, has great significance in promoting the government to administrate by law and to earnestly perform their duties in education, in ensuring the priority of education development, in promoting balanced development of compulsory education, in urging schools to run by law, and in comprehensively improving the quality of education. At the same time, it is conductive to the standardization of educational administration, as well as to avoiding the system defects of “emphasizing policy making, neglecting implementation; emphasizing execution, neglecting supervision”. At present, China has formed an educational supervision network of four levels: central, provincial, municipal and county levels; has built an educational supervision corps composed of nearly 50 thousand full-time and part-time staff; has constructed a threesystem framework of administrative supervision, educational inspection, and monitoring. Centering around the State Council’s opinions on strengthening the improvement of teachers, Ministry of Education in conjunction with the Central Organization Department, the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS), and other relevant ministries, developed six companion documents, including “Opinions on Vigorously Promoting the Improvement of Teachers in Rural Compulsory Education”, “Opinions on Strengthening the Improvement of Young Teachers in Higher Education Institutes”, “Opinions on Strengthening the Improvement of Preschool Teachers”, “Opinions on Strengthening the Improvement of Special Education Teachers”, “Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Teacher Education”, “Management Approaches on Vocational School Part-Time Teachers”, etc. Directly confronting the outstanding problems in the construction of teaching staff, a series of positive measures was launched. For example, the improvement of teachers in rural village elementary schools and small teaching sites is regarded as the focus of the improvement of teachers, the concept of “tackling difficulties from the bottom” was developed, and supporting measures were formulated. In order to improve the situation that school education despise sports, such that the physical health of youths are declining, the General Office of State Council reissued the Ministry of Education and other ministries’ “A Number of Opinions on Further Strengthening School Sports Work” (关于进一步加

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强学校体育工作的若干意见), putting the improvement of students’ health on an important agenda. Ministry of Education in conjunction with the related departments revised and fully implemented the “National Student Physical Health Standard” (国家学生体质健康标准), implementing a three-year action plan for school sports. With the level of students’ physical health level and basic motor skills as the main content, the appraisal of school sports will be carried out. The evaluation of sports work in elementary and secondary schools will be carried out from 2013 onwards. 2

Make a Breakthrough in the Reform of College Entrance Examination System from “Offsite College Entrance Examination” (异地高考) What struck the most in 2012 was the reform of College Entrance Examination system. Due to the complexity, policy-orientation and sensitiveness of this reform, the overall framework and scheme have not yet been formed or announced. As the pressure for children of floating population to take College Entrance Examination in the immigrant city has been constantly increasing, it is the development of this so-called “Offsite College Entrance Examination” policy that launched the reform of College Entrance Examination. In August 2012, the general office of State Council reissued a notification of Ministry of Education, National Development and Reform Commission, and other departments, requiring each province to formulate a plan by the end of year for children of migrant works to take the College Entrance Exams. To the end of 2012, 25 provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, announced the plan of “Offsite College Entrance Examinations”. In most regions where the conflict between supply and demand is not severe, it is ruled that the children of migrant workers from other provinces may take the College Entrance Examination locally as long as their parents have legitimate jobs and stable residence, and the children have three consecutive years of student status in the local high school. Jiangxi Province requires only one year of local high school learning experience, whereas Hebei Province requires two years of local high school enrollment. Shanghai employs the residence permit system, and uses a “point-based system” to manage the residence permit. For the personnel who hold the A-type of “residence permit”, their children may participate in the High-School Entrance and College Entrance Examinations in Shanghai. Beijing proposed a transitional policy, which only gives permission to the qualified non-local students to take higher vocational education entrance exams. Guangdong Province employs a three-step plan. Non-local children of migrant workers who have acquired residency based on accumulated points may take the College Entrance Exams locally. Other qualified

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candidates may apply for higher vocational education from 2014 onwards, and may take the College Entrance Exams from 2016 onwards. Due to the de facto presence of inter-regional uneven development of education and uneven college admission quota, as well as the obstacles of the household registration system, the maladjustment and imperfection of floating population management system, the promotion of “Offsite College Entrance Examinations” encountered great practical resistance in megacities, such as in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, which are under huge pressure of floating population; it also induced the conflict of interest between locals and outsiders, as well as the contradiction of “ethnic separatism”. The real significance of the reform is to break the ice, so that future reforms have an important starting point. 3 Pilot Comprehensive Reform of Private Education An important direction of education system reform is to explore the diverse school system, to improve the environment for the development of private education, to enhance the level of Chinese-foreign cooperative education. June 2012, the Ministry of Education issued “Implementing Opinions on the Encouraging and Guiding the Entry of Private Capital into the Education Sector to Promote the Healthy Development of Private Education” (关于鼓 励和引导民间资金进入教育领域促进民办教育健康发展的实施意见). It was to broaden the channels for private capital to participate in the development of education, to improve the policy, management and service system for the development of private education, and to guide the healthy development of private education. In 2011, the Ministry of Education approved 17 private schools to upgrade to undergraduate college. There have been 24 independent institutes upgraded to independently-run private undergraduate schools. Five private higher education institutes are approved to carry out pilot master programs. As a national pilot area of private education comprehensive reform, Wenzhou City emancipates the minds, actively explores the classification management of private education, and carries out pilot classification management of for-profit and non-profit private schools. September 2011, Wenzhou promulgated “Several of Opinions on Accelerating the Reform and Development of Education”, and the supporting policy rules with respect to nine aspects including “categorized registration management”, “property right of the legal person”, “financial management”, etc. (referred to as “1 +9” File), in order to pursue breakthrough concentrating on the current main challenges and institutional barriers confronted by private education. It is particularly important to break the existing provisions, to innovate new classification method for private

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schools, to identify non-profit full-time private schools as “privately-run institutional organization legal person” (民办事业单位法人), to prescribe that “non-profit full-time private schools are registered and managed as “privatelyrun institutional organization legal person”, whereas for-profit private full-time schools are registered and managed as enterprise legal person”, to clarify that “privately-run institutional organization legal person is registered and managed by the civil affairs departments, whereas enterprise legal person is registered and managed by the business sector”, thereby seizing the key to the reform of private education system. On this basis, promote the reform of social security and other benefits for private school teachers; encourage the policies that support private school. This reform effectively solved the social security problem for teachers, improved teachers’ wages, allowing private schools to achieve equal treatment as public schools. 4 Increase the Pace of Education Opening-Up In accelerating the pace of education opening-up, the enthusiasm of domestic top-ranking colleges and universities to participate in Chinese-foreign cooperatively run education programs has been constantly rising, a large number of high-level, exemplary Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools have emerged. For example, Sino–French Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Technology in Sun Yat–sen University, Sino-French Institute in Renmin University of China, Southeast University-Monash University Joint Graduate School in Suzhou, China-EU Clean and Renewable Energy College in Huazhong University of Science and Technology, etc. Among the most recently approved 86 Chinese-foreign cooperatively run education programs, there are 22 hosted by “985” or “211” universities.3 There are several more “foreign universities” approved for construction. October 2012, the first Chinese-US cooperatively run international university— New York University of Shanghai proclaimed its establishment in Pudong Lujiazui. It is committed to building a world-class, multi-culture, liberal arts and science research university. As Shanghai’s landmark project for the internationalization of school running in higher education, it is also the production of the first cooperation between a “985” university in China and a first-class university in United States. Since then, another international university of 3 Gao Liang 高靓, Zhou Fei 周飞, Li Ling 李凌, Li Yaoming 李曜明: Jiaoyu guihua gangyao luoshi liangzhounian: Zhongguo jiaoyu de shijie yanguang《教育规划纲要落实两周 年: 中国教育的世界眼光》, The Second Anniversary of the Implementation of “National Education Outline”: the Global View of China Education”, China Education News, Page 1, August 20, 2012.

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Chinese-US cooperation—Duke University of Kunshan, which was founded by Kunshan, Wuhan University and Duke University jointly, was officially inaugurated. Duke University of Kunshan possesses legal person capacity, and an independent campus. Students upon graduation will be granted directly with a Duke University graduate diploma. Kean University of Wenzhou, which was founded by Kean University in the United States and Wenzhou University, has also been approved for construction. Higher education in Pearl River Delta (PRD) further opens up. University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen campus, which takes 100 hectares of land and 2.7 billion Yuan of investment, started construction, and will be completed in 2013. University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen campus, as an extension of the Hong Kong campus, does not enroll students as a branch campus. However, given the increase in space, the scale of undergraduates, especially the number of non-local students, may increase accordingly. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Shenzhen program is also under construction, and will begin to enroll student from 2013 onwards. The students will primarily be admitted from Mainland China, including thirty percent from Shenzhen. CUHK (Shenzhen) adopts a system of president responsibility under the leadership of the Council, thereby managing the school in a democratic manner, and creating an open academic environment with full respect to academic freedom. The Council, which is the highest authority, comprises eight members appointed by CUHK and eight appointed by Shenzhen University. The chairman of the council is the president of CUHK, who has the final decision-making authority. On the other hand, the heat of Chinese students studying abroad does not decrease. According to the 2012 U.S. “Open Doors” published by the U.S. Institute of International Education (IIE), the population of Chinese students, which is about 194 thousand, tops the list of international students in the United States again, and it has topped the list for three consecutive years. The report shows that from 2011 to 2012 academic year, the total number of international students in American colleges and universities increased by 6%, and reached 764,495 people, which was the highest in the history of international student population in the United States.4

4 Luo Zhaomeng 罗朝猛, Meiguo Guoji Xueshengshu Zhongguo Zai Ju Bangshou《美国国 际学生数中国再居榜首》 “The number of Chinese students tops again the list of internationals students in United States” December 14, 2012, “China Education News”, Page 7.

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Establishing a New Mechanism with the Combination of Top Down and Bottom Up Centering around the development and implementation of “National Education Plan”, a major transformation in the guiding ideology of education reform is to change the defect of departmental decision-making that is purely administrative, to emphasize social participation, to build a new mechanism with the combination of top down and bottom up. Based on the 425 pilot projects of national educational reform, the renovation of local education system has entered an active phase. Despite that the education environment has not been fundamentally changed, some local governments and education authorities are keen on reform, they explore new paths in order to solve a variety of “chronically difficult” problem in education, showing the significant function of local government in educational innovation. For example, Shanxi Province comprehensively promoted in the entire province a reform of student-centered classroom, innovated in classroom teaching mechanism, promoting a gradual transition from examination-oriented education to well-rounded education. The City of Tianjin actively supported state-run vocational schools to absorb private capital and foreign capital, encouraging vocational schools to carry out pilot reform of running school with a shareholding system. It also innovated a mechanism that the government, industry, and all sectors of the society share the capacity building of vocational education, and constructed a work-study training model that combines working and learning. Fangzi District in Weifang, Shandong, deepened the reform of the education management system, simplified administration and transferred power to a lower level. According to the mentality of “the government invests, the experts run the school, the industry supervises, whereas the media evaluate”, it promoted the independence of management, school-operation, and evaluation, thereby establishing a management mechanism and a modern school system, which have well defined power and responsibility, and are able to coordinate effectively. The depth and breadth of public participation in educational transformation have been increasing constantly. Bottom-up civilian educational innovation is becoming an important force in promoting education reform. The public is increasingly selective in education. Given that the open-up of education leads to the diversification of education systems and education models, there have been public education, private education, overseas study, going to “foreign university” domestically, and other approaches, the citizens’ choices have been expanded. In the meantime, students and parents take action directly and provide the education they need outside the system. Parents’ self-directed education, “home schooling”, has appeared in large numbers in Beijing, Shanghai,

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Zhejiang, Wuhan, Chengdu, Shenzhen, Dali and other places, forming a new education space that is different from unified school education. In addition to academic education, various folk educational activities, such as home schooling with a private tutor, academy of classic learning, learning studio, etc., are also very active. Web-based educational programs and open courses have also become important resources and learning environment for the development of young people. Balanced Development of Compulsory Education Has Been Effectively Improved Education equity and balanced development in the compulsory education stage have been an important issue of major social concern. In recent years, various regions have been persistently addressing this issue so as to solve the outstanding problems according to local conditions, and have made new achievements in 2012. An important sign is, the capital cities which originally had fierce competition in school selection, such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, have become new classics of achieving balanced development of compulsory education. In accordance with the requirement of “Compulsory Education Law” and “National Education Plan”, both cities run schools strictly according to law, and regulate the normal order of compulsory education. Chengdu further promoted the comprehensive reform of urban and rural education, implemented in the entire city the monitoring and evaluation of balanced development of compulsory education, including rural-urban disparities, regional disparities, interschool disparities. Focusing on narrowing the gap between schools, it called off the enrollment privilege of key schools, and largely eliminated the “craze for choosing top schools” (择校热). Public elementary and junior high schools in Hangzhou have realized “zero school choosing”, and this is not an isolated phenomenon. Among the 90 counties (cities, districts) in Zhejiang Province, 62 have already achieved “zero school choosing”, 20 have the percentage of school-choosing students controlled within 5%.5 Shanghai Education Commission has developed a ‘green evaluation index of well-rounded education’, which is in concern of the healthy growth of students. It includes multiple indexes, such as students’ academic level, motivation, academic burden, moral behavior, physical and mental health, progress D

5 Jiang Yun 江耘, Zhang Limin 张黎敏: Zhejiangsheng liushi ge xian shixian yiwu jiaoyu jieduan “ling zexiao”《浙江省 60 个县实现义务教育阶段 “零择校”》“60 counties in Zhejiang Province has realized “zero school choosing” in the compulsory education stage,” September 4, 2012, ChinaNews.com. http://www.chinanews.com/edu/2012/09-04/4158409.shtml.

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index through multiple years, teacher-student relationship, teaching pedagogy, principal’s curriculum leadership. A transition has been made from the excessive emphasis on academic achievement to the evaluation of overall development of students, thereby creating a guiding mechanism of well-rounded education. By legalized the “care center” for migrant children, full coverage of preschool education for children of migrant workers has been realized. Wuxi, Jiangsu strengthened the government’s responsibility, persisting to “enhance the good ones and to assist the weak ones”. With the goal of balancing the quality of education, it pursues balanced development of compulsory education at high level. Hubei Province strengthened the provincial level coordination. With respect to recruiting new teachers in rural compulsory education schools, it employed a new mechanism. In particular, the recruitment and allocation of teachers are unified in the entire province, the province is responsible for funding, the counties are responsible for management, whereas rural schools employ the teachers. The benefit for teachers in rural areas is greatly improved, so as to reach the goal of “recruiting the best to teach” through “offering teachers the best”. Jinzhong in Shanxi Province actively resolved the “craze for choosing top schools”, and promoted the balanced development of urban and rural education. With reputable high schools assigning an enrollment quota to all junior high schools, it has become a new model of balanced development of compulsory education. Huangmei County in Hubei Province, Tongyu County in Jilin Province, focused on strengthening the foundation and enhancing the educational level of rural schools, and gave priority to rural schools in resource allocation, thereby promoting the balanced development of urban and rural education. There have been rural students returning to the village from the county town. Improving the Quality of Higher Education, Implementing the “Plan 2011” In 2012, the Ministry of Education issued “Several Opinions on Comprehensively Improving the Quality of Higher Education” (referred to as “Thirty Articles on Higher Education”), which focuses on system and mechanism reform, and makes arrangement on comprehensively improving the quality of higher education. Thirty opinions were brought forward, including: to insist on connotative development, to improve the quality standard system of personnel training, to innovate the mode of cultivating talents, to promote collaborative innovation, etc. October 2012, the Ministry of Education issued a “Regulations on the Management of Professional Major Settings in Universities and Colleges E

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Undergraduate Programs” Disciplines in the new directory increases from the original 11 to 12, an Arts category is added; the number of professional majors are decreased from the original 635 to 506, including 352 general professional majors, and 154 special ones. Universities can set their own undergraduate programs independently according to the new version of “Directory”. As a highlight of the reform of higher education development, in March 2012, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance decided to initiate the implementation of “Plan on Enhancing the Innovation Capability of Higher Educations Institutes” (referred to as the “Plan 2011”). Following the 985 Project, 211 Project is considered to be a major plan launched in the field of higher education in China, which is a significant event as it connects a great longitude and latitude. Its mission is to actively stimulate the coordination, collaboration and cooperative tackling on major projects among universities, research institutions, and enterprises, through collaborative innovation, promoting the dynamic integration of higher education with science and technology, economy and culture, enhancing the innovation capacity of higher education institutes. China selects a group of “2011 Collaborative Innovation Center” each year, to provide focused support in funding, policies, and other aspects. These centers will establish task-oriented staff recruitment management system, novel training model and evaluation mechanism, will form collaborative innovation mechanisms such as interdisciplinary integrationoriented resource allocation mechanisms, and will gradually build into academic highlands, industry research and development base. For example, the chemical engineering program in Tianjin University and the Chemistry program in Nankai University both rank first in domestic universities. In May 2012, they announced the formation of “Tianjin collaborative innovation center of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering”. The center’s major issues are decided by the Council, which comprises primarily personnel from the two schools, and also absorbs representatives from the government and business to participate. The center will be built into a major academic town of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, which will rank among top five internationally, and enter the national Plan 2011. In contrast to the privatization and corporatization exploration of state-run universities in Europe, the US, South Korea and Japan, the reform of higher education institutes in China has always been doing an “aircraft carrier” type of construction. The contemporary and future development of research universities, needs more lead and promotion from the government, but ultimately, it is through the establishment of a modern university system, the propagate of the spirit of the University, that the University’s inner vitality is brought out.

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In the meantime, more in-depth basic work must be done in optimizing the teaching, management and evaluation, as well as in promoting the construction of internal system and culture. II

Some of the Outstanding Issues Remain to Substantive Transformation

China’s education reform and development have obtained active development and positive results, the public and public opinion’s enthusiasm to participate continues to climb, but some long lasting hot and difficult educational issues are still tangled. As education is an integral part of socio-economic and political structure, the causes of many education problems are not entirely in education itself, holistic design and supporting reform of the external social system are necessary; at the same time, for many educational activities, it is necessary to update and convert the conventional ideas and values, and to improve value, culture and other educational “software” while the institutional transformation is ongoing. Education Equity and Balanced Development of Compulsory Education Remains Perturbing Rural education, balanced development of compulsory education attract much attention, but some campus tragedies and unimaginable “thundering” events that frequently happen, are still stinging social nerve. For example, in September 2012, when a new academic year began in primary and secondary schools, the media exposed that there were still students who had to bring in their own desks and chairs for school in Macheng County, Hubei. In Bijie City, Guizhou Province, several school dropout and street children were killed by warming themselves in the trash. In Jiangxi and many other places, rural nursery school bus accidents frequently occurred and caused death of children. The causes of these problems are not the same. It indicates that basic education in poor rural areas still has some salient letdowns and serious problems. The historical “debt” has not been fully compensated. The cost of the lives of street children in Bijie alerts the government and the society that these children from remote and poor areas are in lack of the very basic security of nutrition, and safety. The overall environment and student safety mechanism of rural kindergartens have not really been solved. After compulsory education has been achieved in urban and rural areas in China, the consolidation and improvement of rural compulsory education are long-term and difficult tasks that cannot be slackened. The current status and existing issues of education in poor rural areas must not be taken lightly. A

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Behind the frequent school bus accidents is the large-scale merging of rural schools in recent years. As a result, the way to school gets farther and farther away for rural students, increasing security risks. The 21st Century Education Research Institute released “Ten-Year Report on the Evaluation of rural education layout adjustment”, which shows that in the decade from 2000 to 2010, the number of rural elementary schools is reduced by 229,400, reducing 52.1%; the number of teaching sites is reduced by 111,000, reducing 60%; the number of rural junior high schools is reduced by 10, 600, a decrease of more than 1/4. The average distance from home to elementary schools in rural areas is 5.4 kilometers; it is 17.5 kilometers for rural middle schools. Large-scale “moving schools to city” and students’ “entering the city for school” led to a crisis of “crowded city, weak town, empty village” in rural education, and greatly increased the economic burden of peasant families. Upon noticing the problem, the government requests solving the outstanding problems caused by the removal and merger of schools in rural area, retaining and well-constructing the requisite village elementary school and teaching sites, protecting the educational opportunities for vulnerable groups in rural areas. In large- and medium-sized cities, the damage to educational equity is from the fierce competition in school selection. August 2012, the government made a splash, and put strong effort to call off “mathematics Olympic competition training”, calling a halt to the deformed “Olympic Math” training. But after this “storm”, the math Olympic competitions went on, the math Olympic training changed its appearance, the “slot-occupying classes” in reputable schools rose from the ashes, “exceptional admission” became more secretive, students and parents complained incessantly, calling for admissions policy that is truly fair and open. Some famous key schools explicitly or implicitly charge exorbitant “school choosing fees”, while “co-construction students” system allows some people to obtain learning opportunities through power, such phenomena did not really change, the promotion of educational equity is still facing serious challenges. B Respect Students’ Rights, Protect Children’s Rights and Interests Up to 2012, China has joint the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child for 20 years. Against this backdrop, the continuous occurrence of child abuse in kindergartens and schools, are particularly shocking. Public opinion cries out for law to protect the rights of the child, and to create a good environment for children to grow up healthy and happy. In private kindergarten in Wenling, Zhejiang, a young female teacher amused herself by abusing children. For example, she took pictures of herself pulling boys ears, and uploaded the pictures to Internet, causing national outrage. In a kindergarten in Taiyuan, a child with difficulty figuring out the answer to a

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question, was slapped by the teacher repeatedly. In Shandong, a kindergarten teacher was detained for sticking children with a needle. In Foshan Ruiying elementary school, several students were beaten by their teacher because they were afraid to show their poor test score to their parents to get signatures. In Town of Tangxia, Dongguan City, a third grade student accidentally kicked the toes of a female teacher during recess, the teacher angrily slapped the students. In Shenzhen Longhua District, Shangfen Elementary School, a teacher gave three third grade students “Blue Marks” on their faces as a “poor student” logo, which hurt the children’s self-esteem. These events are due to both the quality and moral level of individual teachers, and institutional issues such as teachers qualifying and training system. In a broader vision, the failure in protecting and respecting student’s rights to survive and to develop was mainly due to the inroad of the examinationoriented education, the heavy academic burden and pressure of examinations. Although this is an old issue, the reality of the situation is still alarming. It frequently occurs in various regions that children committed suicide because of unbearable academic pressure. In Guangdong, a 12-year-old boy leaped to his death because he couldn’t finish his homework, triggering a poet named Lanlan to post “An Open Letter to the Ministry of Education” on her Microblog. As a mother and the parent, she called for changes to the current education system, “Save the children! Save the children who are forced to suicide by homework and scores!” She believes that students got huge pressure from homework and test scores, whereas the root is in the “examination-oriented education”, which itself is anti-education. She made 10 recommendations on changing “examoriented education”. These phenomena not only show that a small number of teachers are defective in the morality and qualification, but also indicate the problems behind. Namely, in China’s education cultural and social culture, schools, teachers and parents are the supreme authority, whereas the child centered or child priority value has not really established. It is highlighted that the modernization of education is not only the popularization of education and the improvement of development level, but also the establishment of people-oriented, student centered education values. Effectively Promote Well-Rounded Education and Overall Development of Students School, exams, competing for key schools are like battles, students and parents are willing to pledge with life and family possessions without hesitation. The harsh status of exam-oriented education is not transitional, but repeated and difficult to cure. The consequences are not only the physical and mental C

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health effects on students, but also the alienation of the essence of education and the education function of schools. We have always stressed that moral education goes first. In recent years elementary and secondary schools added drug control, AIDS prevention, environmental protection and many other new contents in moral education courses. However, because exams, test scores, and the enrollment rate are considered as the “absolute principle”, the effect of moral education is less than satisfactory and many schools are still doing superficial work. Its serious consequences, are students’ lack of beliefs and ideals, difficulty in establishing integrity and social responsibility, failure in forming the spirit of independence and critical thinking, as well as the production of a school atmosphere that words and deeds are discrepant, knowledge and behavior are detached, which affect the change of social atmosphere. Reporters from “Beijing News” conducted a sampling questionnaire survey with students and parents from ten elementary schools in Beijing. According to this survey, for 33.4% of three to six graders, it took over one hour to do homework everyday; 65.7% of students and parents think homework are excessive; more than sixty percent of parents had done homework for their children.6 According to the Beijing Academy of Education’s investigation and research report under the title “Lighten the heavy academic burden on students, promote healthy growth of students”, more than seventy percent of elementary school students in Beijing participated in off-campus classes (校外班) this term, more than one in six students spent 6 hours and above per week on offcampus classes; more than eighty percent of teachers think that off-campus classes increased students’ academic burden.7 While large stadiums are constantly built, the campus stadium was becoming increasingly shrunk, and students keep fainting in military training and between-class exercises. Some colleges and universities cancelled the 3000 meter and 5000 meter distance running out of concern. School sports are “besieged”, physical condition of young students is considered “very grim.” Elementary and secondary students’ explosive power, flexibility, strength, 6 Xu Luyang 许路阳, Du Ding 杜丁, Wang Hui 王荟: “Beijing 3 cheng xiaoxuesheng zuoye chao yi xiaoshi, 60% jiazhang ti haizi xieguo《北京 3 成小学生作业超一小时, 60% 家长 替孩子写过》 [Thirty percent of elementary school students in Beijing do homework for more than one hour per day, 60% of parents had done homework for their children],” Beijing News, Pages 28, 29, December 22, 2012. 7 Su Jinzhu 苏金柱: “Beijing qicheng yishang xiaoxuesheng canjia xiaowai xuexiban《北 京七成以上小学生参加校外学习班》 [Seventy percent of elementary school students in Beijing participate in off-campus classes],” People.com.cn, http://edu.people.com.cn/ BIG5/n/2012/1231/c353389-20063366.html, December 31, 2012.

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endurance and other physical indicators declined for 20 consecutive years. Studies have shown that this trend has been curbed, but the physical quality of university students has continued to decline, although the trend has slowed down. In particular, in comparison to 1985, the performance of college girls’ 800 meters, college boys’ 1000 meters, were down by 10.3% and 10.9%, respectively; standing long jump scores decreased by 2.72 cm and 1.29 cm, respectively. Students are either over- or under-weighted. The rate of nearsightedness was nearly 90%.8 Ministry of Education has decided to implement a three-year action plan for school sports, requesting the comprehensively strengthening of school sports with elementary and secondary schools as the focus, the regularization of school behavior, and the reduction of academic burden on students, thereby effectively ensuring one hour of campus sports activities per day for elementary and secondary school students. For districts and schools in which the physical health of the students continued to decline for three years, “onevote veto” should be implemented in education evaluation and appraisal. But because the overall environment of “examination-oriented education” has not changed, whether these provisions can be effective in changing school behavior remains to be seen. III

Carry Out Comprehensive Reform of Education in a Deep-Going Way

A Care for People, Run “education to the satisfaction of the people” The Party’s report at the 18th Congress Meeting (十八大) took education as an important “livelihood issue”, stressed the need to “work hard to run “education to the satisfaction of the people”, indicating that the perspective on the function and values of education is undergoing profound changes. Over the years, our main emphasis was on the significance of education in achieving social modernization and national rejuvenation, which was from a monodirectional nationalistic perspective. With the development of people-oriented Scientific Outlook on Development (科学发展观), the new educational objectives reflect a value change from nation-oriented to people-oriented. Education is not only to achieve the objectives of the state and government, but must first improve people’s livelihood. At present, as universal nine-year 8 Heavy course load depresses time for children to participate in sport activities, whereas the concern about security issue tied the hands of schools to carry physical exercise forward.

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compulsory education has basically been achieved, China is staging into the popularization of higher education, and will construct lifelong education system and a learning society. As school-age population is declining constantly, governments at all levels continue to increase investment in education, the relationship between supply and demand, and the external environment have undergone profound changes. Education in China is reaching a new turning point: from meeting basic needs, to the possibility in pursuing good education, ideal education. Report at 18th Congress Meeting stated that “we should bring as much benefit as possible to the people, resolve as many difficulties as possible for them, and solve the most pressing and real problems of the greatest concern to them. We should keep making progress in ensuring that all the people enjoy their rights to education, employment, medical and old-age care, and housing so that they will lead a better life”. This requires a series of changes. In particular, the school education system that was to cultivate a minority of people, the elitist educational value, and the exam-oriented education model that was singlemindedly after scores and enrollment rate, all of which were formed during the Planned Economy Period and the stages of education shortage, now have to change. The original meaning of education, which is to educate and cultivate people, must be restored; values centering around students and children must be established, modern education that lays the foundation of students’ healthy development and lifelong well-being must be organized. This requires that education to persist in the connotative development route, which emphasizes promoting justice and improving quality content development, to comprehensively promote well-rounded education, to create a harmonious educational ecology, and to strive for constructing a learning society and innovation-oriented country. Deepen the Comprehensive Reform of Education, with Structural Reform as the Core Another distinctive feature of the report at 18th Congress Meeting, is the attention and emphasis on deepening reform. It stated that “we must, with greater political courage and vision, lose no time in deepening reform in key sectors and resolutely discard all notions and systems that hinder efforts to pursue development in a scientific way. We should set up a well-developed, scientific, procedure-based and effective framework of systems and ensure that operating institutions in all sectors are fully functioning.” It was proposed the task of “providing well-rounded education for all students, deepening overall education reform”. B

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We need to recognize, whether it is pre-school education, craze for choosing top schools, examination-oriented education, or migrant children education, etc., for many long-lasting education problems that have been accumulated until today, we must start with the overall structural and institutional reform, change the superficial “stop-gap” way of treatment and the “fragmentized” treatment, and reach deep to the structural and system reform behind. Education reform needs to enter a new stage with structural reform as the core, and that is why we say that the reform that has entered the “deep water” needs to be further deepened, and there are difficulties to be overcome. The report at the 18th Congress Meeting requested for government transformation, which is to “continue to streamline administration and delegate more power to lower levels, and make the government better perform its functions of creating a favorable environment for development, providing quality public services, and maintaining social fairness and justice.” It emphasizes the transformation of government function and the enhancement of public service level in the vision of social construction. Namely, we should mobilize the whole society’s initiative to participate in education, to form a structure with government-run education as the main body, the whole community actively participating, public education and private education developing mutually. Meanwhile, we should transform the way government delivers public services, change the drawback that the government takes charge of everything regardless of government or public institution administration, and plays the role of both a “player” and a “referee”. Instead, the government should distinguish the function of administration, execution and appraisal, apply multiple means such as purchasing services, delegating administration, fostering social intermediary organizations, and developing third-party independent evaluation, so as to improve the style and quality of delivering public services, and to promote self-management of the society. Promote Well-Rounded Education in an All-Around Way, Promote Comprehensive Reform of School Education To promote educational equity and well-rounded education in the field of basic education, to promote the balanced development of compulsory education, to manage examination-oriented education and the craze for choosing top schools, it is required that the reform goes deep to the examination and evaluation system as well as school system. The reform of College Entrance Examination system has been advocated for many years, yet it was not officially launched until the promulgation of “National Education Outline” in 2010. The Offsite College Entrance Examination system, which made a breakthrough in 2012, will form an overall reform framework in 2013, and be promoted in C

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different aspects including classified exams and multiple exams. In addition to the College Entrance Examination system, the reform of high school entrance and junior high school entrance exam systems are also equally important. In order to change the exam-oriented and score-oriented competition in the rate of students entering a higher school, an evaluation system for well-rounded education also need to be established. Additionally there is the school system reform in compulsory education stage. As we all know, for the overly heavy academic burden on urban students and the fierce school choice competition, the cause behind is that the gap between schools is too large. The key to promote the balanced development of compulsory education is to change the local governments’ view of achievements. Based on “Compulsory Education Law”, we need to break the barriers between interest groups, we need to administrate and run schools by law, we need to change the urban-rural dichotomized and hierarchical school system that was formed in the planned economy era, we need to change the value that education is primarily facing the city, the key schools, and a minority of people, we need to annul all sorts of key schools, and we need to implement compulsory education that is fee-free, examination-free, and with students automatically going to the nearest schools. There is another important aspect of the reform of primary and secondary school system, namely, how to revitalize public schools, to bring out their characteristic and features, to increase richness, diversity and selectivity of education. We can learn from the “school-based management” and “charter schools” models that have been developed in elementary and secondary schools since the 80s to 90s last century in the United States, and carry out elementary and secondary school reform centering around the expansion of the school’s autonomy, and the implement of “running schools by educators”. Deepen Comprehensive Education Reform in the Vision of Urban-Rural Integrative Development Due to rapid urbanization, large-scale population movement and reduction of school-age children, today’s rural education is undergoing an unprecedentedly dramatic change. Two new marginalized groups have emerged: the migrant children in the city and the left-behind children in rural area. This new situation highlights the seriousness and complexity of education issues against the backdrop of urbanization. In the vision of urban-rural integrative development, centering around the construction of a public education service system that covers both urban and rural citizens, we need to deepen the reform of urban education, and to explore a scientific development path for rural education. D

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With respect to urban society, we must recognize the legitimacy and chronicity of population movements in the process of social modernization and urbanization, establish the daily management of the floating population. Through system and mechanism innovation, we must change the existing management system that is primarily based on household population, establish a mechanism for providing public goods and public service under a floating condition, which is a public service providing mechanism based on resident population, “to construct a basic public education services system that covers both urban and rural area, to achieve the equalization of basic public education services.” After the basic needs are met, rural students begin to pursue high-quality education. To explore and provide education that suits rural areas is an important and challenging theme in the “post-compulsory education era” and the “post-removal-and-merge-of-schools era”. We need to establish a new civilization framework of urban-rural dual symbiosis and integrative development, to refresh our view on the value of rural education, to explore the road of scientific development. The modernization of rural education does not mean to abolish rural education, or to urbanize by copying the “examination-oriented education.” It should meet the different requirement for higher school entrance, for working as migrant workers in the city, and for the construction of new countryside. It should advocate the value of civilian education and life education, thereby making education return to life, return to the community, so as to closely relate to cultural construction and community development in rural area. Through the implementation of comprehensive well-rounded education and civic education, we may promote the cultivation of students’ personality development, civic virtue and capacity, and make the way towards the “education that is to prepare for a living.” (This article was originally published in Chinese in 2013.)

chapter 2

Regional Features and New Issues on the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education Wu Zunmin The State Council, together with the Ministry of Education, and other related departments has enacted multiple policies in 2012 that aim at further encouraging all localities to promote the balanced development of compulsory education. Though those policies have achieved certain progress, there still exists unbalanced development within and across different regions, especially in regions with weak foundations and rural areas. Therefore, the balanced development of compulsory education still needs further research before making a breakthrough. I

Annual Overview on the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education

The Central Government: Continue to Put the Promotion of Balanced Development of Compulsory Education in the Key Area In 2012, the central government continued to underscore and reiterated the significance of the balanced development of compulsory education, renewed its support for local governments to materialize such a goal of balanced development, and finished signing the “Memorandum of the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education” 《义务教育均衡发展备忘录》 ( ) with all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities throughout the country. To achieve the goal of balanced development of compulsory education within each region by 2020, in line with the Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010~2020) 《国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要》(2010~2020),   the Ministry of Education has signed the “Memorandum of the Balanced Development of A

* Wu Zunmin 吴遵民, Professor with School of Education Science in East China Normal University

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Compulsory Education” with 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on 9 March 2011. In the following year, the Education Ministry furthered its efforts by officially signing this Memorandum with four other provinces and autonomous regions, including Sichuan, Tibet, Gansu and Qinghai. Till now, all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities throughout China, as well as Xinjiang Production and Construction Group (新疆生产建设兵团), all have finished the signing of this Memorandum. Within one and a half years, the Ministry of Education was able to sign the aforementioned Memorandum with all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities by putting them into three orderly groups, making a systematic plan for the reform and development of the compulsory education in the next decade. For those provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, they have drawn up a blueprint to realize the balanced development of compulsory education and made promises to achieve such development in counties year by year, under the support of the Education Ministry. At the same time, the State Council and the Ministry of Education issued multiple policies to promote a real balanced development of compulsory education. On 14 June 2012, the Ministry of Education launched The Twelfth Five-Year Plan of the National Education Development 《国家教育事业发展第十二 ( 个五年规划》), which put forward the goal of “achieving a balanced development of compulsory education in counties and cities.” Furthermore, on 5 September 2012, the State Council enacted Opinions on Pushing forward the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education 《关于深入推进义务教育 ( 均衡发展的意见》), in which it reiterated the significance, guiding ideas, goals and basic path for achieving a balanced compulsory education in China. Opinions on Helping Children Living with Their Migrant Worker Parents with Entrance Examinations for Higher Schools 《关于做好进城务工人员随迁子 ( 女接受义务教育后在当地参加升学考试工作意见》) from the Ministry of Education and other related ministries was transmitted by the General Office of the State Council on 30 August 2012, making constructive suggestions on how children from those families could sit for high school and college entrance examinations. Opinions on Regulating the Adjustment of the Layout of Rural Schools for Compulsory Education 《关于规范农村义务教育学校布 ( 局调整的意见》), again issued by the General Office of the State Council on 6 September 2012, regulated the healthy development compulsory education in rural areas. The issuance of such a series of policies provided guidance and policy support for the balanced development of compulsory education. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in October 2012, together with the report in that conference, prioritized education as an important area to improve people’s livelihood and strengthen the construc-

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tion of society. The report explicitly put forward that “the nine-year compulsory education should be developed in a balanced way, educational resources should be rationally distributed and educational equality should be greatly promoted.” To achieve such goals, the report also maintained that “policy benefits should be given to rural, remote, impoverished areas, that special education should be supported, that the subsidy for students from poor families should be enhanced, and that the equal education for children of migrant workers should be vigorously promoted so as to make every child a useful person to the society and times.” Local Government: Promote the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education by Adjusting Measures to the Local Conditions All provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities formulated local plans according to local conditions after signing the Memorandum with the central government. The goals and main points varies from regions to regions due to differences in their level of education development and conditions and levels of existing equilibrium. B

1 Developed Areas: In Pursuit of “Higher-level Equilibrium” In such places with well-developed education as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuxi, Dalian and Zhejiang, the emphasis of education development has been shifted to promote the equilibrium of a diversified and quality compulsory education through multiple approaches, such as the conglomeration of elite schools, formation of education league, the construction of education ecology and promotion of the flowing of teachers, in the purpose of realizing the goal of the connotative development and higher-level equilibrium of compulsory education. In September 2012, Four Major Education Group (四大教育集团), led by four elite schools in the Xichen District, including Beijing No.4 Middle School (北京四中), Beijing No. 8 Middle School (北京八中), Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School (实验二小) and Beijing Primary School (北京 小学), was established. This Education Group attracted ordinary schools as members and brought their overall development to a new level by leading, helping and co-constructing, so as to expand the coverage of quality basic education, narrow the gap between schools and promote the high-level equilibrium development throughout the district. Shanghai made efforts to strengthen the connotative construction of schools of compulsory education and built a new batch of “Quality Schools” apart from these existing quality schools. It was hoped that parents and the society can see the actual educational progress and enjoyed benefits from the health growth of students along the curriculum reform, the optimization of

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teaching process, a harmonious teacher-student relation and the expansion of quality education resources. Meanwhile, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Education conducted “health check” for compulsory education regularly based on a “green index” system constructed with a core of the healthy growth of students, which cultivated a beneficial atmosphere for schools to develop quality-oriented education and promote the healthy development of students. Wuxi city made “high-quality and equality” its core connotation, strengthened the responsibility of government, insisted on “improving the strong and help the weak.” To achieve a high-level equilibrium of compulsory education, Wuxi made the equilibrium of the teaching force as a key to developing a highlevel equilibrium, the overall improvement of school managerial level as its important safeguard and the equilibrium of education quality as an important symbol. It has achieved the goal within the region by removing systematic obstacles, regulating school-running order and perfecting the evaluation system. The Xigang district in Dalian made small-size-class teaching as an important starting point to transform weak schools and materialize regional equilibrium, and the construction of high-efficient classes as its central content in order to improve education quality in an overall way. At the same time, it regulated school-running and created innovative management mode by implementing the management mode of “districts plus school group.” (“片区+校群”) Vertically, small districts have been established to connect primacy schools with junior high schools and bring into motion the orderly link-up of nine-year compulsory education within each small district; horizontally, school groups have been established to facilitate mutual complementarity among different schools and enable elite schools to demonstrate for other schools, and finally lead more of them onto a quality development path of “specification plus features.” (“规范+特色”) Jiashan county in Zhejiang province promoted a balanced development of education through innovating a flowing mechanism for teachers. It issued a complete design for this flowing mechanism, which encompassed not only teachers’ organizational belongings, files and benefits, but also training while flowing to other places, the promotion of successful experience, the honoring, and incentives after teachers’ flowing. This effort has put the teacher flowing into real action and enabled it to achieve a sustainable development. 2 Developing Regions: Advocate “High-level Equilibrium” Because of the relatively backward economic development in the middle part of China, the balanced development of compulsory education in this region lagged behind the eastern region. However, there were quite a few counties

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that have established preliminary mechanisms for the balanced development of compulsory education. In those county regions, the layout of schools has basically been rationalized and school-running conditions have been greatly improved. During the year of 2012, while promoting the balanced development of counties, the middle region has made even more efforts to advocate the realization of “high-level equilibrium.” Jinzhong City in Shanxi province is such an example. According to the idea of “one whole entity of the city and urban-rural integration,” the city has designed a mode of balanced development, which includes the standardization of school construction, the institutionalization of teacher exchanges, the regularization of education management, and the informatization of teaching approach. This mode also included measures to prevent impoverished students from dropping out, retain “students with poor study performances” and guarantee an equal treatment for both children of migrant workers and rural students through improving weak schools, and changing senior high school recruitment systems. Through four such major measures as the project of “1,000 schools reaching standards (千校达标),” the plan of “exchanging 10,000 people (万人交流),” the enrollment quotas of high-quality senior high schools fully implemented, aboveboard enrollment and “balanced student assignment in all class”, an educational ecology that is well-regulated, balanced and full of vitality has taken place in the city and a balanced compulsory education has basically been realized in advance. For Zhangqiu City in Shandong province, rural and urban education has been developed simultaneously in terms of education funds suppliance, improvement of school-running conditions and the implementation of quality education. Apart from that, the city adopted the approach of development project of a balanced quality education, improved overall education quality and realized the equalization and equality of quality education, and the integration of urban-rural education. Presently, it is committed to constructing a regional balanced education development mode that features school league, school-running by means of conglomeration, and district-based teaching research.1

1 Wang Youwen, Gao Yinfeng 王友文、高印峰, “Duihua Zhangqiu jiaotiju juzhang: shi ru youzhi junheng fazhan de guidao 对话章丘教体局局长：驶入优质均衡发展的轨道 [Dialogue with the Secretary of the Bureau of Education and Sports in Zhangqiu: Embark Upon the Path of a Quality and Balanced Development ],” Zhongguo Jiaoyu Xinwen Wang, accessed November 11, 2012. http://jijiao/jyb.cn/xw/201210/t20121029_515899.html.

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3 Places with Weak Foundations: Realized “a Balanced Growth” For impoverished western region, 42 extremely disadvantaged counties in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan and other provinces and autonomous regions have just finished the inspection of national standards of basically universalizing nine-year compulsory education and basically eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people. In some rural areas, the balanced development of compulsory education has just started. For those regions, the main approach to realize the “growth” of compulsory education is to continuously increase the investment in education and achieve standardized schoolrunning within the region. For instance, since 2012, the Department of Education in Qinghai province, together with Provincial Development and Reform Commission, and the Department of Finance, has invested over 4.8 billion Yuan mainly to promote the construction of school areas per student, student cafeterias, dormitories, educational technology equipment and educational informatization for primary and secondary school students below the township level, a plan that has been carried out since the change of the layout of primary and secondary schools throughout the province. This was aimed at meeting the standardized school-running requirement at the provincial level as soon as possible, improving the overall the teaching and learning in rural and pastoral areas within the province in an all-rounded way, and promoting the balanced education development between cities and rural areas, among different regions and different schools.2 Gansu province also proposed that the balanced development of education should start from “good schooling.” To be specific, it meant reaching the standards of school-running in every school, guaranteeing funds for school-running, enough education resources to satisfy the needs of teaching in classrooms, offering all the curriculum required by the central government, improving the quality of the teaching team and making a more reasonable deployment of teachers. At present, the gap between schools at the county level has obviously been narrowed. It was estimated that ten cities, counties and districts in Gansu province would achieve a balanced development of compulsory education at the county level by the end of 2013.3 2 Chen Lina 陈丽娜, “Qianghai 48 yi tui dong zhongxiaoxue biaozhunhua jianshe, zhongdian tui dong jiaoyu xinxihua deng 青海 48 亿推动中小学学标准化建设 重点推动教育信 息化等 [Qinghai Invests 4.8 Billion Yuan to Promote the Standardization of Primary and Secondary Schools with Emphases on Education Informatization and Other Areas],” China Education Daily, November 17, 2012. 3 Bai Liping, 白丽萍, “Gansu: Tui jin yiwu jiaoyu junheng fazhan cong ‘shang hao xue’ zuo qi 甘肃：推进义务教育均衡发展从 ‘上好学’ 做起 [Gansu: the Promotion of the Balanced

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For Chengdu City in Sichuan province, since it has basically achieved balanced education of compulsory education at the county level, its emphasis was put on proper school-running, good teaching and the expansion of the coverage of quality education. The following step would be to nurture and inspect “new quality schools” for compulsory education, strengthen the construction of elite school conglomeration by improving the school-running of its member schools, and promote cross-district “entrusted” school running experiment by blazing new trials in school-running systems. This would enable children of urban residents to go to school, especially quality school, so as to achieve the goal of “quality teaching for students” throughout the city. II

Major Problems in the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education

New Imbalances Emerged amid Progressive Regional Balance Implementation While balancing regional compulsory education, there were new imbalances appearing within those regions. For instance, in the efforts of achieving quality balance through building elite school conglomeration, schools out of the group were in a relatively disadvantageous position, thus new imbalances emerged. In other words, the superficial balance achieved here led to new recessive imbalances. In cities where initial balance in compulsory education was achieved, new imbalances abound. For example, migrant children were more likely to attend disadvantaged schools, which constituted “the country in the city.” Migrant children suffered from disadvantages in economic conditions, parents as well as difficulties in adapting to new textbooks, all of which became part of root causes of education imbalances. A

Imbalances in Rural and Areas with Weak Foundations Were Still Prominent There were still plenty of problems in realizing the balanced development of compulsory education in rural areas and areas with weak foundations. In rural areas, though the layout of schools has been adjusted, students have difficulties in going to schools due to the increased home-school distance; consequently, parents have to spend more money to escort children to schools. In addition, though students were able to enter cities for schooling, large classes B

Development of Compulsory Eduction Starts from ‘Good Schooling],” Zhongguo Jiaoyu Xinwen Wang, accessed October 29, 2012. http://jijioa.jyb.cn/xw/201210/t20121029_515899.

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did not help improve actual education quality. Similar phenomenon appeared in boarding schools in rural areas. There were many cases in middle and western rural areas that the needs of basic school-running were not met yet, for example, it was reported that in rural areas in middle China, situations happened that students still had to bring their own desks and chairs to schools. The overall investment ratio in educational funding remained low, and when compared with urban funding, the imbalances in funding became especially pronounced. Even when funding was invested, most of it will be utilized in the construction and improvement of a few schools, rather than balance the deployment of education resources. In many rural areas, in spite of the improvement in school equipment and school-running conditions, fundamental changes have not yet taken places in such aspects of school-running philosophy, teaching methodology, and mode of school management. Due to the still popular “school selection” trend among junior high graduates, more parents preferred to send their children to better junior schools in urban areas or other better districts. In short, there is still a long way to go to achieve a balanced development of compulsory education in rural areas and places with weak foundations. III

Policy Recommendations for the Promotion of a Balanced Development of Compulsory Education

The balanced development of compulsory education has attained a new and wider plane. It was recognized that such a balanced development was more of a development process and path than a development goal. It advocated common development rather than restricted it; it encouraged the improvement of education quality rather than lingered at a low level. To attain such a goal, efforts should be made in the following aspects. Encourage Using Multiple Approach and Modes in Achieving a Balanced Development of Compulsory Education In light of different levels of development in our compulsory education and the imbalances of educational resources, if we are to achieve a balanced development, we should, first of all, insist and restate that a balanced development of compulsory education should be achieved using measures adjusted to local conditions. Meanwhile, emphasis should be gradually shifted to high-quality equilibrium once preliminary balance is achieved so as to realize high-level equilibrium ultimately. Even in the same region, all government departments should be encouraged to draft different policies, adopt different development A

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paths, vigorously initiate new modes and pay attention to their own limits. By doing that, it is expected that coordination and complementarity of different paths and modes will be achieved, and the content and quality of regional balanced development will be materialized, and the goal of high-quality equilibrium will be met. To achieve such a goal, we should integrate unified requirements of the government with individualized development. Governments at all levels, from central government to local ones, should not only offer policy and financial support, but also enhance their guidance for the overall layout of the work. Governments at all levels should have both unified requirements and individualized development, and underscore both the unity at macro level and differences at micro level. Unified requirements mean that national school-running standards and basic quality requirements should be met. In other words, all schools should not be lower than the national school-running standards and the development of all students should not be lower than national basic quality requirements. Once such requirements are satisfied, no uniformed requirements should be imposed upon schools in each regions and schools should be allowed to unleash their full potential to develop themselves according to their own will.4 We should also integrate the characterized development of schools with the overall quality advancement. The prerequisite and the key of realizing a balanced development of the connotation of compulsory education lies in the connotative development of schools. All counties should encourage schools to fully avail themselves of the current resources, tap and try hard to form their development potential within themselves, and meanwhile stimulate the vitality of schools through education and teaching reform, in a bid to achieve the sustainable development of schools. To advocate that schools should build a rich and varied school culture starting from sharing common values, emotional attachment and behavior, held together among all members within each school, serves as an important element to change the thinking of realizing a balanced development and reach a connotative and balanced development. Weaken the Thinking of Utility, Strengthen Fairness and Cultivate a Sound Environment for the Balanced Development At current stage, “difficulties in school selection” and “craze for elite schools” is still a hard nut to crack throughout the country. One reason behind this B

4 Feng Jianjun 冯建军, “Yiwu jiaoyu junheng fazhan fangshi de zhuanbian 义务教育均衡发 展方式的转变 [Transformations in the Mode of the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education],” China Education Journal Issue 3, 2012.

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dilemma is that the high-level equilibrium of compulsory education has not yet been materialized. Another contributor is the trend of utilitarian thinking. The test-oriented education in today’s China has almost “kidnapped” students, schools and families. Woven by various social forces, our education has been entangled by many huge nets that are hard to tear, sort out or escape, which nearly suffocates today’s children. Without casting aside the utility of compulsory education and breaking the huge nets weaved by our test-oriented education, it is hard to curb the heated trend of “school selection” and realize quality education, not to mention the ultimate goal of a balanced compulsory education. Therefore, efforts should be made to underscore fairness, weaken the utility of compulsory education, thus creating a sound environment for the balanced development of compulsory education. More Attention to Students with Special Needs and Recessive Equilibrium At present, there is a far cry between the level of the balanced development and people’s needs for education fairness and justice. The lack of attention on disadvantaged groups’ so-called “recessive imbalances” has already restricted the real implementation of the equilibrium philosophy. In the process of rapid urbanization, new marginalized groups of education, such as “migrant children” as well as “left-behind children” in rural areas, have emerged. Postcompulsory-education remains still a bottleneck in terms of protecting the education right of migrant children. Therefore, if we are to deliver real humane and cultural solicitude to them, the balanced development in the future should focus more on the right of education and fairness of disadvantaged groups. C

(This article was originally published in Chinese in 2013.)

chapter 3

Competition on the Transition of Primary School Graduates to Junior High Schools in Large Cities and Governance of Mathematical Olympiad Training Li Xinling At the very beginning of the fall semester in February of 2012, Eight Measures to Regulate School Selection and Arbitrary Charges during Compulsory Education Period 《治理义务教育阶段择校乱收费的八条措施》 ( , thereinafter “Eight Education Measures”) was issued jointly by the Ministry of Education, the Development and Reform Committee and the Audit Committee in a bid to “bring obvious alleviation to arbitrary charges of compulsory education and make school selection and arbitrary charges no longer a problem responded strongly among the public within the next three to five years.” This document clearly forbid recruiting and charging students by launching training classes for entering higher schools, cross-district enrollment and charges, and donation linked to enrollment. In addition, Opinions on the Implementation of Regulating Education Charges and Arbitrary Charges in 2012 《关于 ( 2012 年治 理教育乱收费规范教育收费工作的实施意见》) was released. The reason behind all these policies was the almost frantic “transition of primary school graduates to junior high schools” in some major cities. Transition to junior high schools (“primary to junior high” for short) constituted part of the compulsory education and should be test-free, tuitionfree and based on the geographical proximity. However, in recent years, the competition of the transition to junior high schools has been more and more fierce and even spread to the transition to primary schools from kindergartens. Consequently, the Mathematical Olympiad, linked to the transition to junior high schools remains popular in spite of repeated regulation.

* Lin Xinling 李新玲, senior reporter with China Youth Daily.

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The Still Chaotic Entrance to Junior High Schools in Major Cities

A “Transition to Junior High” Became a “Major Test in Life” The “transition to junior high schools” was gradually viewed as “crucial examinations in life”, not second to the college entrance exam. As this competition occurred earlier and earlier and tests tended to be harder and harder, parents and students were undergoing huge pressure. Primary school students, who were supposed to be studying happily, entered this competition way too early. In this deformed competition, the “Mathematical Olympiad” became the most important “weapon.” In Shanghai, the measures to curb this trend only worked for a short time and in certain areas. Private schools, run under the elite school conglomeration that relies on demonstrative high schools, became the synonym of good schools. Several of those schools were popular among parents and were certainly the stars on the stage of the “transition to junior high.” The Shanghai municipal Department of Education issued a “ban on certificates” and promised that student enrollment would only ask for “The Handbook of Students Growth Record for Primary and Secondary School Students in Shanghai,” not students’ resumes, certificates or tests of any kind. The department also promised to strengthen surveillance and punish with a vengeance any school or person in charge that violates the regulation. However, the effects of this commitment were limited. During the school selection process of private schools, other forms of competition occurred, such as entrusting agencies to hold examinations in the name of activities, early-recruitment through entering “the fifth-grade class (小五班),” pre-enrollment and faceto-face talks (interviews).The “fifth-grade class” has become such a new focal point for parents that some training agencies’ classes were fully registered. Naturally, the Mathematical Olympiad became the “currency” for school selection. In Chengdu, the test for the entrance of junior high schools, held by over ten private schools and set for the three days during the May 1st holiday, was dubbed as “small college entrance examination (‘小高考’).” Tens of thousands of parents and students sat for exams in different schools across the city, in which the Mathematical Olympiad was an important indicator. In spite of the repeated “ban on Mathematical Olympiad (‘禁奥令’),” there was no sign that its popularity was fading away. Though the time for the entrance of junior high schools was till six months away, primary school students already threw themselves into this heated competition. On November 18, 2012,

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3,000 students sat in the warm-up examination of “Huasai Cup (华赛杯),” contending for the 150 seats of the second-round competition.1 In Guangdong, the craze for Mathematical Olympiad was mainly demonstrated through private schools that have the right to recruit, design their own tests autonomously and choose examinations independently. In the “entrance into junior high school” examinations jointly held by around 30 private schools, it was difficult even to sign up for the examinations. In the joint examinations in 2012, 40,000 students competed for around 3,000 seats and the test mainly involved the exercises of the mathematical Olympiad. While private schools were taking away top students, public junior high schools fought back covertly to snatch top students by texting top students and holding non-public and small-scale tests holding tests in the name of assigning scholarships, conducting assessment of the “entrance into junior high”, and carrying out survey and discussion on teaching in primary school. The main content of these tests was nothing but the Mathematical Olympiad.2 There were 40,000 students attending the test for the “entrance into junior high schools” jointly held by 16 quality private schools in Guangzhou and only one out of thirteen students who signed up would be admitted.3 As a city next to the capital, Tianjin has two different tests for the “entrance of junior high schools,” namely the “the big test（大卷）and small test (小卷).” The “big test” means the graduation test for primary school students in Tianjin city, which was conducted by each district. Based on this test result, students were enrolled into different schools at different tiers. For example, in some districts, students belonging to the first and second tiers can enter demonstrative middle schools, which were called district key schools in the past. Students in the third tier enter high schools corresponding to their primary schools (对口入学). The “small test,” different from the district-wide “big test,” was sat for only by a small number of students for early admission, 1 Zhang Feifei, Xiao Di, and Li Xin 张菲菲、肖笛、李鑫, “Chengdu 3000 ming xiaoxuesheng gankao Huasaibei yongji daolu daduche 成都 3000 名小学生赶考华赛杯 拥挤道路大堵 车 [3,000 Primary School Students for Huasai Cup Competition Resulted in Traffic Jam],” West China City Daily, November 19, 2012. 2 Zhang Qin, Ding Jing, Zheng Tianhong 张琴、丁静、郑天虹, “Fengkuang aoshu ‘bianxing’ ji 疯狂奥数‘变形’记 [The ‘Metamorphosis’ of crazy Mathematical Olympiad],” Xinhua News Agency, October 31, 2012. 3 Zhou Peng 周鹏, “Ping haizi geng pindie 拼孩子更拼爹 [Competition among Kids, More of That among Parents],” Southern Metropolis Weekly, June 5, 2012.

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which include “small test for small foreign language school (小外小卷)” held by the school affiliated to Tianjin Foreign Studies University, “Yaohua small test (耀华小卷)” by the gifted-children class in Yaohua Middle School and the “Nankai small test (南开小卷)” by the experimental class for early cultivation of innovative talents in Nankai Middle School. Due to the high quality of these “small tests,” they were taken into consideration when other middle schools were enrolling students. For test-takers of those “small tests,” even if they cannot enter the experimental classes in those schools, they will be selected based on their marks and admitted into the junior high sections of public schools, or the junior high schools relying on elite high schools. Therefore, many parents would ask their children to take the “small test” and to prepare for that, many primary school students took all sorts of training classes focusing on the Mathematical Olympiad and attended various contests and English level tests. Training classes also thrived in Tianjin. B Beijing: The Hard-hit Area of the “Transition to Junior High Schools” In the chaos of “entrance to junior high schools” in cities across the country, Beijing has always been a hard-hit area. Different form the competition for entering private junior high schools in Shanghai, Chengdu, Nanjing or Guangzhou, the competition mainly concentrated on elite public schools. The competition for the “entrance to junior high schools” has lasted for a long time with various approaches and increasingly earlier starting time. According to the statistics from the 21st Century Education Research Institute, there were around 15 ways of transitioning to junior high schools in all districts in Beijing, which could be categorized into “dads’ competition (拼爹)” and “children’s competition(拼孩子),” apart from the approaches of geographical proximity and random computer selection (电脑派位). The approach of “dads’ competition” included students with parents from cooperative organizations (共建生), privileged students (条子生), and school selection through school-district houses and school-choosing fees (以学区房和择校费择校). “Children’s competition” was through “seat-reservation class (占坑班),” meritbased enrollment (点招), top student recommendation and special skills. Complicated and chaotic policies for the “transition to junior middle schools” contributed to the thriving after-school training and competition for Mathematical Olympiad of all kinds. The most common channel of entering popular schools was through attending training classes and “seat-reservation class.” In this process, Mathematical Olympiad has become a stepping-stone for success. It was not uncommon that primary schools students learned Mathematical Olympiad in training class starting from the first grade and

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took part in all sorts of contests. When it comes to the fifth and sixth grade, they have to sit for examinations held by various elite schools in expectation of being admitted in advance. Those tests mainly involved English and the Mathematical Olympiad. Though some of them were held publically, most of them were conducted in such a relatively covert way as training during vacation and summer camp. This disorder in policies echoed with various forms of training classes and fueled each other. Due to the link with the “entrance to junior high schools,” the Mathematical Olympiad turned out harder and harder, the knowledge tested deeper and deeper, and the pace of study was accelerated to the extent that high school knowledge was covered. This crazy and vicious circle has not only increased the pressure of students, but also brought huge financial burden for parents. After-school training agencies and “seat-reservation classes” reaped high profits in the process, which fueled the business of Mathematical Olympiad classes. Some of after-school training agencies became listed companies or gained venture capitals both from home and abroad. They served as the base where middle schools could not only “pinch the tip,” but also “shops” to create incomes for those middle schools. According to an incomplete statistics from related agencies, the Mathematical Olympiad has already become a huge industry with an annual worth of two billion Yuan.4 This phenomenon has severely interrupted the normal teaching order of primary schools. When Beijing municipal government announced the policies of “entrance to junior high schools” in May every year, most of the “seat-reservation classes” have already finished the enrollment process. It was an indisputable fact that enrollment came earlier and earlier. Most of the “golden seats” (“seat reservation classes” of the elite schools) were filled in October of the previous year and parents were informed through “secret messages.” In addition, because Jingshan School (景山学校), the high school affiliated to Remin University of China (人大附中) and Beijing No. 8 Middle School (北京第八 中学) have launched “fifth-grade class” in succession, the competition for top students has been moved up. The middle school affiliated to Peking University (北京大学附属中学) has started the first “entrance into junior high school”

4 Ma Hu, Luo Jianping 马晖、罗剑平, “Beijing Leiting ‘jin ao’ 20 yi fukuang qiantuweipu 北 京雷霆 ‘禁奥’ 20 亿富矿前途未卜[Beijing’s Sudden Crack-down on the Mathematical Olympiad Whither This 2 Billion Yuan Business],” 21st Century Business Herald, November 1, 2012.

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enrollment for 2013 in February, 2012.5 Later, several other schools in Haidian district followed suit. The principles of compulsory education, including test-free and a balanced development, were overturned by the disorders in the “entrance to junior high schools” characterized as multiple forms of school selection and test-oriented admission, which undermined students’ physical and mental health. What’s more, it also contributed to the unhealthy approach of choosing schools with money and power. II

Local Efforts to Curb the Mathematical Olympiad

The Central Government: Another Crack-down on “Mathematical Olympiad” Faced with the disorder in “entrance into junior high schools” and “craze for Mathematical Olympiad,” the main administrative departments in education issued “ban on the Mathematical Olympiad” and forbid linking “entrance into junior high schools” with the Mathematical Olympiad, rather than allowing it to go unchecked. In August 2012, a new round of attack on the school selection and the training of mathematical Olympiad for “entrance into junior high schools,” started by the CCTV, has been set off. A series of news was broadcast on CCTV News Channel from August 18, 2012 on, lashing out at Beijing’s Mathematical Olympiad. After that, People’s Daily made a high-profile criticism on Mathematical Olympiad on three days in a row starting from August 21. The reason behind all these moves was the close attention from leaders of the central government. At the end of August, an official in charge of the Fundamental Education session in the Ministry of Education said that the ministry of Education would put forward four measures to regulate “craze for Mathematical Olympiad.” To start with, an offence-reporting email ([email protected]) will be set up to receive public tip-offs with regard to unregulated tests and additional exercises of the Mathematical Olympiad. Once verified, cases will be handled strictly. Secondly, approaches will be explored to formulate requirements for private education training agencies to have the agreement from the administrative offices of education before commerce registration, and to strengthen A

5 21st Century Education Research Institute, “Women xuyao shenmeyang de ‘xiaoshengchu’ zhengce (huikan) 我们需要什么样的 ‘小升初’ 政策(会刊) [What Kind of Policy of Entrance into Junior High School Do We Need](Bulletin),” Special Report of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, 21 世界教育研究院专题报告: September 25, 2012.

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daily surveillance. Thirdly, education departments and offices throughout the country and schools should conduct teaching and test evaluation based on curriculum standards and strictly control the capacity and difficulty of the curriculum. Fourthly, the Opinions on the Promotion of a Balanced Development of Compulsory Education (关于推进义务教育均衡发展的意见), to be issued in the name of the State Council, will be implemented to dispose education resources rationally, narrow down the gaps among different schools and ease the school-selection problem during compulsory education period. All these policies have played a certain role in curbing the disorders in the “entrance into junior high schools” and demonstrated the determination of the governments at all levels to sort out this chaos. Beijing’s Efforts to Re-regulate the “Mathematical Olympiad” Met with Quick Rebound Against the backdrop of the severe criticism of “craze for Mathematical Olympiad” by the central government, Beijing took urgent actions to stop it. Hong Feng, the deputy mayor of Beijing, made a statement that Beijing would take four measures to regulate the ties between graduation to higher schools and the Mathematical Olympiad marks and that all the training related to the “Mathematical Olympiad” in the city will be suspended from that day to October 31. On August 28, Beijing’s Department of Education convened an urgent arrangement meeting in which it clarified its position that all of the Mathematical Olympiad training agencies should stop their operation. Together with the Department of Industry and Commerce, it conducted joint check, mainly on the curriculum requirements of training agencies, advertisements, teaching team and school-running. This rectification concerned all training agencies of public and private schools and other social institutions. Once traces of links with entrance into higher schools were discovered, training agencies will be called into account and handled strictly without indulgence. Thirty demonstrative middle schools made a solemn promise on August 30 to the society that the admission policy of “entrance into junior high schools,” enacted by the Beijing Department of Education, will be strictly carried out and no examinations will be used to select students, be it direct or covert; no competition results, rewards and certificates, such as the Mathematical Olympiad will be used as proof to admit students; no training classes for the competition of Mathematical Olympiad of any forms will be held. Instead, they will conduct teaching and exam evaluations strictly based on the national curriculum standards and control the capacity and difficulty of the curriculum. In addition, efforts will be made to strengthen the training for teachers’ basic skills, B

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improve the capacity of teachers to implement new curriculum and guarantee that teaching will be finished within the designated class hours in school. On September 3, Renhua School, the Mathematical Olympiad training agency of the greatest reputation, was deregistered. As the experimental base for the education of gifted children and quality education of the High School Affiliated to the Renmin University, it grew out of the “Hua Luogeng Mathematics School (华罗庚数学学校)” originally established on the basis of the Mathematical Experimental Class in 1989. Renhua School filed for changes of its legal person on September 10th and passed. Following that, the Education Commission in Haidian district allowed it to change its name into Rencai Training Center, and it passed the commerce registration. However, similar to what happens to the suspension of Mathematical Olympiad class, there were only short-lived “raindrops” of effects after this resounding “thunder” in Beijing. When the ban came out, some “seat-reservation classes” and training agencies issued notices that classes will be suspended. But by October, most of the previously suspended agencies have already resumed offering classes and only superficial changes were made, such as altering names from “Mathematical Olympiad” into “Happy Mathematics,” “Training for Better Thinking,” and “Thinking Extension.” In the exact same month, some parents whose children were in sixth grade have already received phone calls from some elite schools and were informed about the entrance examinations. The source of such information came precisely from those afterschool training agencies. Therefore, the severity and the continuity of the government’ regulating polices was once again doubted by the public and became a focal point. Cut the Ties between the Mathematical Olympiad and the “entrance into junior high schools” In cities where private junior high schools dominated, the dilemma of governance is how to handle the conflicts between the balanced development of compulsory education and the right of private schools to recruit students independently endowed by the Act on the Promotion of Private Education 《民办教 ( 育促进法》). To solve the problem of “craze for Mathematical Olympiad” and the “schoolselection,” Xi’an, for the first time, made reform in the way that private schools enrolled primary school graduates and adopted a new form of “integrating the results of the comprehensive quality evaluation of the target schools with the main reference, the Report of the Primary School Students’ Comprehensive Quality, and recruited students based on the combination of these two results.” For schools that had more students signing up for the examinations than the C

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enrollment plan, unified comprehensive quality assessment will be conducted. However, for schools that have fewer-than-planned students, new students could be directly enrolled. In April, the Bureau of Education sighed with presidents from 18 private schools the Enrollment Accountability Agreement for “Entrance into junior high schools” (“小升初招生目标责任书”) in which it was promised that on the basis of openness, justice and fairness, the examination and evaluation will mainly be focused on the Report of Primary Schools Students’ Comprehensive Quality, not the Mathematical Olympiad. It has been decided that comprehensive quality examination will be listed as one of the subjects in the senior-high-school entrance examination, with a full score of 100 and 100-minute examination time. 50% of the marks gained in this subject will be included in the results of senior-high-school entrance examination and listed as senior-high enrollment.6 However, parents have reported that though training classes of Mathematical Olympiad were heavily locked, class time still will be sent through text messages. Chengdu has also published a series of regulations that required private schools to recruit students only after public schools have enough students. Online application will be opened, large-scale examination will not be advocated and on-the-spot recruitment of various forms will be conducted. Selection tests should be organized in a flexible way in light of their own conditions and Mathematical Olympiad should not be included as a selection standard. On July 11, five districts in Chengdu city started the region-based or region-based lottery enrollment (划片或划片微机排位). 20,055 primary school graduates got their seats through region-based computer lottery. Another 13,424 students, as usual, were arranged directly into the corresponding junior high schools by dividing them into different districts. Taking into account the 7,557 students recruited during the previous three batches, a total number of 40,000 students in the five districts and Gaoxin districts in Chengdu city have all ensured their seats in junior high schools.7 However, from the perspective of timing, the selection for elite primary school students carried out by private schools in Chengdu was still prior to public schools and it was probable that school selection phenomenon still existed. 6 “Xi’an xiaoxuesheng youwang gaobie aoshu mingnina zhongkao zhuzhong zonghe suzhi 西安小学生有望告别奥数 明年中考注重综合素质 [Xi’an: Primary School Students Expected to Say Goodbye to Mathematical Olympiad Next-Year Senior-high Entrance Examination Focuses More on Comprehensive Quality],” Cnwest.com, October 29, 2012. 7 Wang Di 王迪, “Chengdu ‘xiao sheng chu’ yaohao jieshu 33,479 wawa queding xuewei 成都’小升初’摇号结束 33479 个娃娃确定学位 [33,479 Kids Got Seats after the Lottery of ‘Entrance into Junior High’ Finished],” West China Metropolis Daily, July 18, 2012.

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In places like Yinchuan, the Bureau of Education has make clear its ban as early as 2010 that Mathematical Olympiad should not be included in the “entrance into junior high schools” selection examination held by the private schools. However, this phenomenon has not be contained properly.8 In June, 2012, the Bureau of Education of Lanzhou city declared the corresponding assignment plan, still insisting on the principles of “test-free enrollment, relative geographical proximity, corresponding assignment based on primary schools and consideration given to hukou” and “largely unchanged amidst little adjustment.” It means that, building on the prior assignment plan, student assignment will be conducted based on students’ graduation school, according to the student recruitment plan of normal middle schools and the number of primary schools students. III

Parents: Suspicious of the Attitudes of the Government

Complicated Feelings of Parents towards Mathematical Olympiad: Love It, Hate It In the face of the ties between the “entrance into junior high” and the increasingly difficult Mathematical Olympiad, most of parents have no alternative but to let their children to join in the competition. As for the move of government to ban it, parents held complicated feelings towards it. Two parents from Huhan made the following comments, which was quite typical among parents, “All these years, not a single school had clarified their standards of the policy of independent enrollment. The standards without any clear specification are the most difficult standards.” “We parents did not have assurances, so what we could do is to force our children to become an all-around talents. The purpose of learning Mathematical Olympiad and cultivating kids’ specialties boils down to building ‘stepping-stones to success’ for entering higher schools. However, neither parents nor students have any idea of how many and how thick these “stepping stones” should be so that they would be useful. All these questions have undoubtedly worsened the pressure upon parents and students.”9 A

8 Zhang Yi 张宜, “Yinchuan aoshure ‘zheng’ zai ‘xiaoshengchu’ 银川奥数热 ‘症’在’ 小升初’ [The Problems of the ‘Craze for Mathematical Olympiad Lie in’ ‘Entrance into Junior High’],” Yinchuan Evening News, November 2, 2012. 9 Zhou Rui 周锐, “Wuhan ‘xiaoshengchu’ zhaosheng yoahao bili 6 bi 4 jiao qunian yousuo xiajiang 武汉 ‘小升初’ 招生摇号比例 6 比 4 较去年有所下降 [Wuhan: Lottery Ratio for the ‘Entrance into Junior High’ Dropped to 6 to 4 Compared with Last Year],” Wuhan Evening News, July 9, 2012.

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The complicated feelings toward the mathematical Olympiad were shared more strongly by parents in Beijing, the hard-hit area of “entrance into junior high schools,” where the opinions were divided. Some of the children were able to score high marks and win awards in various mathematical contests, so their parents made clear their objections against the cancellation of the Mathematical Olympiad. More parents opposed the cancellation of this Olympiad, for this was a “competition among kids” rather than a “competition among dads,” which served as the only channel for children from average families to enter an elite school. The “ban on Mathematical Olympiad” has been the repeated slogans in Beijing. At the end of 1990s, a document was issued by the Education Commission in Beijing, stipulating that teachers in school should not offer students paid tutoring. At the end of 2003, it enacted a notice, saying that compulsory education should still implement the rule of “banning contests of subjects in principle,” originally set by the Ministry of Education. In 2005, it sternly stopped the running of “Yinchun Cup” (“迎春杯”) Mathematical Competition, a famous brand of its kind, which later was renamed as “Demonstration of Mathematical Problems Solving Capacity” and continued to run. However, in 2012, most of the agencies for application still adopted the old name of “Yinchun Cup.” In both 2009 and 2011, documents issued by Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and the Office of Educational Supervision and Guidance in the Beijing Municipal Government strictly forbid making the grades of the Mathematical Olympiad as a prerequisite of “entrance into junior high schools.” A crack-down on the Mathematical Olympiad was followed by an even stronger rebound—this was what some parents drew from the two-decade long Mathematical Olympiad in Beijing. In their eyes, the ups and downs of Olympiad were more like a ball, which rebounds higher once hit down. Doubt of parents grew again when parents noticed that many schools still listed the marks of Olympiad as an important indicator for the selection of primary school graduates and that some students were able to enter the experimental class and competition class of those prestigious schools with their outstanding marks in Mathematical Olympiad. It was firmly believed by parents that driven by the core value of selecting students, the pattern of “entrance into junior high schools” will remain the same and the importance of the Mathematical Olympiad will not be changed. Popular Opinion: Reform the Policy of “Entrance into Junior High Schools” In 2011, the research report, entitled “Whither the Regulation of the School Selection of ‘Entrance into Junior High Schools’,” was released by the B

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21st Century Education Research Institute, proposing six measures as a package to deal with problems related with it. Those measures include regulation of school-running, adjustment of the policy of “entrance into junior high schools,” narrow the gap among different schools, reform school-running mechanism so as to promote the diversification and characteristic development of schools, social supervision, and the establishment of education accountability. After Beijing Municipal Commission of Education showed its position of regulating “entrance into junior high schools” in August, the 21st Education Research Institute again proposed the following eight pieces of suggestions: firstly, the new policy should be drafted based on open discussion and hearing; secondly, Mathematical Olympiad should continue to be banned and on other subject competitions should be tied with the “entrance into junior high schools”; thirdly, proportion of the entrance into public schools based on districts and geographical proximity should be expanded; fourthly, public schools should not receive “school selection” fees of any forms; fifthly, “students with parents from cooperative organizations” should be gradually reduced till it is totally canceled; sixthly, reform should be carried out on the policy of top student recommendation and students with specialties; seventhly, policies of “delegating quotas to schools at lower levels” in demonstrative schools should be implemented; eighthly, with information disclosed, social supervision and accountability should be carried out. 21st Century Education Research Institute, together with Sina Education, Tencent Education and Beijing “Xiaoshengchu” Net (北京 “小升初”网), conducted an online survey of parents on the question of “what advice do you have on the policy of ‘entrance into junior high schools’ in Beijing?” As to cutting the ties between Mathematical Olympiad and the “entrance into junior high schools,” 74% of the surveyors supported this move while 26% of them thought the other way. With regard to “students with parents from cooperative organizations,” 55.9% of the surveyors proposed to cancel its quota, the highest proportion among other choices. In addition, 27.1% hoped that “public schools declare the number and proportion such students” and 17% agreed with the suggestion that “its proportion should be reduced year by year till it is controlled within 5%.” In terms of students with specialties, 33% chose to “cancel the extra points for these students,” while 40.7% percent surveyors opted for “unify enrollment mechanism for students with specialties if it is to be kept.” Concerning the merit-based recommendation, 53.6% of the surveyors expected that “a fair and unified merit-based recommendation and evaluation mode should be set up” and 37.4% agreed to “cancel the policy of

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merit-based recommendation.” The remaining 9% supported that “the proportion of merit-based recommendation should be limited to 5%.” At the beginning 2011, the Ministry of Education and Beijing municipal government signed the “Memorandum of the Balanced Development of Compulsory Education 《义务教育均衡发展备忘录》 ( ),” promising to reach the goal of a balanced development of compulsory education in all districts and counties by 2015. As for this goal, 55% of the online surveyors believed that it was “not likely to arrive at” and 12% of held that it was “possible to reach the goal.” Only 7% believed that “it is for sure that we can reach that goal.” IV

“Lazy Government”: The Reason behind the Non-stoppable Mathematical Olympiad

The main reason behind various forms of competition of “entrance into junior high schools” was that little was achieved in the balanced development of compulsory development of education. This disorder had multifold causes: the tendency of the government to make quality schools into its business card, the ominous way of providing education, too few choices for the public, the violation of educational rules during childhood, over-emphasis on the selection of top innovative students and enrollment based on different tiers of students, so on and so forth. During this process, Olympiad fueled the flame of this disorder. The image of the government was undermined and its credibility was doubted by the public because the chaos continued to thrive in spite of repeated government policies. A Undisclosed Government Information 1 Government Information Undisclosed, Parents Turned to Internet In Beijing, guidance policies would be enacted by the Commission of Education and specific policies will be drafted by each district. However, the enrollment policies of each school were quite opaque: information concerning the enrollment method, quota of seats and the examination time will not be publically disclosed. Therefore, parents inquired around like detectives and Internet became a distributing center for such information. Many parents not only posted information online, but also volunteered to collect, analyze and publicize it. In some of the online groups formed by parents, they set up rules, used real names to register, and formed an alliance based on certain rules in order to share various information collected through different channels without reservation. One of such “popular” education forums already has over two million

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members and over 20 million posts. The number of its members surged by 120,000 with an increase of 30,000 posts.10 However, this mode of self-reliance went against the nature of education as a public service industry. 2

Divorced Policy Issuance and Enrollment Time, and Undisclosed Enrollment Results In cities like Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shanghai, the war of winning students mainly lies in the conflicts between private and public schools. While public schools strictly observed the scheduled recruitment time, private schools recruited students ahead of time, snatching top students. For example, the “entrance into junior high schools” won’t start to distribute seats by computer lottery until July 17, 2012; however, for private schools, student selection had been carried out in as early as April and some public schools also held secret entrance examinations in July. Public schools in many different places proposed that the enrollment of private schools should be done after or simultaneously with public school. In Beijing, specific policies of “entrance into junior high schools” were drafted by each districts and counties and the city-wide guidance policies will not be issued until April or even March. Now is the time of second semester of the sixth grade and many schools have already finished student selection ahead of time through “seat-reservation class” or examinations, while the specific measures have not be formulated in each district or county. Since education policy concerns the benefits of every family, related government departments should draft policies in advance, issue them in time and curb vicious competitions through strictly controlling recruitment time. B The Absence of Supervision and Accountability Mechanism Departments in charge of education had a deep understanding of the disorder of “entrance into junior high schools” and Mathematical Olympiad. The Eight Education Measures enacted by the Ministry of Education reads, “In light of the recent results of supervision and inspection, some places have such problems as unclear regulation goal, not-yet-in-place policy implementation and little effects and the public grudged strongly against arbitrary charges of school selection.” Why did the pubic still have such “strong response” despite longterm regulation and repeated target notices to handle the issue? The lack of supervision and accountability mechanism was to blame.

10

Fan Weichen 樊未晨, “Jiazhangmen de xianshang ‘qunjun shenghuo’ 家长们的线上 ‘群 居生活’ [The Online ‘Gregarious Life’ of Parents],” China Youth Daily, October 8, 2012.

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It was already proposed in Eight Education Measures that supervision and inspection of the regulation of the arbitrary charges of school selection should be enhanced and once violation is discovered, investigation and punishment should be firmly carried out, with accountability traced back to presidents and related people in charge. As a matter of fact, some places already had such relatively effective measures as removing presidents in violation of the laws and rules from office and taking away the honor of demonstrative school. If such measures could be further promoted, our supervision will be fruitful. Government should Face the Problem Squarely and Handle It Starting from Its Root Causes Government of all levels, especially major cities like Beijing where the problem of “entrance into junior high schools” was very pronounced, should face up to and acknowledge reality, rather than parry the public with excuses of lack of education resources. Quality resources were not the main conflicts any more, as the social economy have developed. Instead, parents focused more on the widening gap among schools. This continuous negative effects originated from the intra-school imbalances created by the distorted mechanism of key schools. Some governments viewed the marks of students’ entrance examinations as the grades of their political careers. Therefore, schools were even built to represent the façade of local governments. This mentality will eventually result in the over-investment in only a few schools and an increasing gap in the equipment of schools. Apart from that, it also gave rise to the gap in terms of teaching teams and usable social resources, the “software” of schools. This was another important reason behind the imbalance between schools of compulsory education. In addition, to handle problems in education, the government should take an overall and macro approach, establish goals for each stage to implement, and conduct assessment in each stage. We could prevent the governments from being “lazy” and shelving the problems, avoid groups and people with educational resources in hand such as related government departments and educational departments from stopping education reform, and forestall related people from ducking problem to social issues. In some places, some measures such as enrolling students based on geographical proximity, delegating quotas of key schools to schools at lower levels and open lottery, have been effective and should be applied broadly. C

(This article was originally published in Chinese in 2013.)

chapter 4

An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping in Rural Areas Wang Shuai In September 2012, the General Office of the State Council has issued The Opinion on the Regulation of the Mapping of Rural Schools 《关于规范农村 ( 义务教育布局调整的意见》), officially suspending the one-decade-long nationwide policy of regulating the mapping of primary and secondary schools in rural areas (called “removal and merge of schools”). Schools are required to report to provincial government level by level for examination and approval if they have any removal and merge plans. It is also required that the removal and merge of rural schools of compulsory education should be suspended before the specified plan of the mapping of rural schools are put on record. Instead, rural primary schools and teaching centers should be run properly and pronounced problems emanating from the removal and merge of rural primary schools should be handled. The Decision on the Reform and Development of Basic Education 《关于基础 ( 教育改革与发展的决定》) was issued by the State Council in 2001 and the policy of removal and merge of schools started. The document requires that “the mapping of rural schools of compulsory education should be adjusted according to local conditions and school mapping should be planned rationally based on the following principles: geographical proximity for primary school and relatively concentration and optimized allocation of resources for junior high schools.” Underlying this policy was the background that a reduced number of school-age children in rural areas and the flow of population resulted in the lack of students in many rural primary schools. Added to that, the pressure from tight educational budget forced the departments in charge to advocate a concentrated approach of school-running so as to improve education quality and efficiency. The death of 18 children due to the school bus accident, happened in Qingyang city of Gansu province in November 2011, demonstrated one of the consequences of massive removal and merge of rural schools. After that, more and more researches were focusing on and trying to disclose the more profound * Wang Shuai 王帅, PhD candidate in the Education Research Institute in Beijing Institute of Technology.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004270787_�05

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An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping

and complicated impact of this policy. In 2012, the 21st Century Education Research Institute conducted a deep research into this problem through surveying in 10 provinces and autonomous regions, in an effort to explore and improve the direction of the development of rural education. I

The Massive Removal and Merge of Rural Schools of Compulsory Education

8.0

the number of ordinary junior high schools (the left axis)

the number of students enrolled (the right axis)

7.5 7.0 6.5 6.0

6500 5500

10,000 people

10,000 schools

One important backdrop against the adjustment of school mapping was the huge decline of school-age population of both primary and secondary education in the recent 10 years. The changes of primary and junior high schools and students in those schools were demonstrated in Figure 4.1 and Figure 4.2. The number of students in junior high schools nationwide decreased to 50.668 million in 2011 from 66.1842 million in 2003, the highest point in history, a decline of 23.44%. Meanwhile, the number of junior high schools slipped to 54 thousand from 63.7 thousand, a decrease of 15.23%. For ordinary primary schools, the number of students decreased to 99.2637 million in 2011 from 139.9537 million in 1997, the highest point, a 29.07% decline. During the same time period, the number of primary schools sunk from 628.8 thousand to 254 thousand, a reduction of 59.6%. During the 11 years of official adjustment of school mapping, the number of students in junior high schools was reduced by 19% and that of junior high schools was down by 15.34%, a decrease a little bit lower than students.

4500

5.5 19 90 19 91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11

5.0

3500 year

Figure 4.1 Changes in the number of ordinary junior high schools and the number of students from 1990 to 2011 in China Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China

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80 70 60 50 40 30 20

the number of students enrolled (the right axis)

14000 13000 12000 11000

10,000 people

the number of ordinary primary schools (the left axis)

10000 9000

19 90 19 91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 0 20 1 02 20 0 20 3 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11

10,000 schools

wang

Figure 4.2 Changes in the number of ordinary primary schools and the number of students from 1990 to 2011 in China Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China

% 12

the decrease of the number of primary schools

the decrease of students enrolled

11.26

10 8 7.00

6 4

3.08 2001

6.76

2002

3.84

6.22 3.40

2004

2005

2006

7.69

5.96

5.68 1.38

1.40 2003

6.44

5.99

3.79

3.61

2 0

7.11 4.96

2007

2.52 2.20 2008

2009

1.30 2010

0.14 2011 year

Figure 4.3 The decline of the number of ordinary primary schools year by year vs. the decline of the number of students enrolled in ordinary primary schools (2000–2011) Note: The number of primary schools includes those nine-year schools Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China and Bulletin from the Ministry of Education (2011)

However, the situation of primary schools was worse. The number of students in primary schools was down by 23.72%, while the number of primary schools slipped by 56.43%, a 2.4 times reduction of the number of students. By calculating the reduction number of primary school and students, it is easy to see from Figure 4.3 that the scale of removal and merge of schools far outran the decrease of students, leading to such various problems as long school distance for rural students. To better understand this change, we use the concept “coefficient of removal and merge of schools” to evaluate: R (coefficient of removal and merge of schools) = (A–B)/B

55

An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping 5

4.92

41.57

4 3.44

3 2

1.58

1.27

1 0

3.34

2.12

0.29 2001

2002

2003

0.88

2004

1.56 0.99 2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

year

Figure 4.4 The coefficient of the removal and merge of primary schools across the country Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China and Bulletin from the Ministry of Education (2011)

In practical terms, this coefficient refers to times that the reduction of primary schools exceeds the decrease of students. The coefficient of removal and merge of schools from 2001 to 2011 is shown in Figure 4.4. According to the data from 2001 to 2011, the coefficient of primary schools was 5.63, which means that the reduction of primary schools was 5.63 times of that of students. During the past 10 years, there were three high points of school removal and merge. The first one happened around 2000, when the east region and the border areas initiated this movement; the second and the third high points occurred in 2006 and 2007 respectively, when the effects of this top-down policy were widely shown throughout the country and the coefficient went as high as 3.44 and 3.34, which indicated that the reduction of primary schools outran that of students by over 3 times. It is worth our special attention that as urbanization accelerated, local governments drove urbanization with removal and merge of schools, making the coefficient rise to 41.57 in 2011 from 4.92 in 2010, an unprecedented high point. In 2011, the number of primary school students was down by 143.4 thousand, a reduction of 41.57%, while the number of primary schools dipped by 16.2 thousand, a 5.96% decrease. This demonstrated that the removal and merge of schools was still promoted with great efforts and inertia, even though the downward tendency of primary school students stopped, running against actual needs and the original intention of the policy. From 2000 to 2010, the coefficients of removal and merge of primary schools of 27 provinces were demonstrated in Figure 4.5. As indicated in this Figure, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and other boarder provinces in west China have the largest coefficients. Most of rural teaching centers were situated in remote rural areas, which was of great significance to ensure that rural students could attend schools

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wang

‒1

‒0.13 0.46 0.47 0.80 0.91 1.10 1.11 1.36 1.72 1.81 1.93 2.02 2.27 2.28 2.72 2.86 3.41 3.42 3.48 4.24 5.10 5.15 5.28

4

Guangxi Anhui Jilin Liaoning Xinjiang Shanxi Guangdong Heilongjiang Henaz Jiangxi Henan Hebei Jiangsu Hainan Guizhou Hubei Shanxi Inner Mongolia Fujian Ningxia Chongqing Shandong Sichuan Zhejiang Yunnan Qinghai Gansu

9

8.60 8.61 8.99

14

Figure 4.5 The average coefficient of removal and merge of primary schools in 27 provinces from 2000 to 2010 Note: The number does not encompass Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai or Tibet. The number of primary schools includes nine-year schools Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China (10 volumes from 2000 to 2010)

%

100 80 60 40

0

Henan Henaz Chongqing Jiangxi Zhejiang Hainan Hebei Anhui Jiangsu Guizhou Shanxi Gansu Ningxia Fujian Guangxi Hubei Yunnan Liaoning Guangdong Xinjiang Shanxi Shandong Qinghai Heilongjiang Inner Mongolia Jilin

20

Figure 4.6 Ranking of the rate of decrease of the teaching centers in 2010 of 26 provinces as compared with that in 2000 Source: Educational Statistics Yearbook of China (10 volumes from 2000 to 2010)

near their homes. In impoverished areas with complicated geographical conditions, due to huge decrease of teaching centers, students had difficulties in attending schools near their homes, which was an important reason behind the new dropout phenomenon. According to statistics, the total number of national teaching centers dipped to 66,941 in 2010 from 178,060 in 2000, a decrease of 62.41% and an annual reduction of 11,000 teaching centers. The declining situation of the teaching centers in 27 provinces is shown in Figure 4.6.

An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping

57

There were mainly two aspects of the removal and merge of schools: firstly, rural primary schools and teaching centers were removed and merged into central schools; secondly, rural schools were centralized to towns and counties, also called “schools entering cities.” Corresponding to that policy, rural schools withered and disappeared while schools in towns and counties expanded. According to statistics, the averaged school expansion was quite salient. Primary schools in towns and counties in 14 provinces, including Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Chongqing and Hubei expanded one or several times, leading to the phenomena that primary and secondary schools in many places had large classes and were filled with several thousand students. II

The Birth of the Policy of Removal and Merge of Schools

The intention of the policy of adjusting rural school mapping was that the sharp decline of school-age population in rural areas and the consequent lack of students in rural schools and difficulty to maintain those schools. The urbanization transferred part of the rural labor to cities and plenty of farmers went to work in cities, bringing with them part of students, which accounted for the reduction of student sources. The third intention was that part of the rich and relatively rich farmers were not satisfied with the education quality in rural areas and take the initiative to “choose schools” by going to schools in cities. Against this backdrop, the government made it a national policy to run schools in a concentrated way and enhance school-running efficiency, which included the financial support to implement projects of boarding schools and the removal and merge of schools in western areas, as well as the strong administrative propulsion from government at all levels. A The Propulsion from the Central Government In 1995, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance launched the “National Project of Compulsory Education in Impoverished Areas” (国家贫 困地区义务教育工程) in a bid to actualize “the nine-year compulsory education” nationwide, in which the adjustment of school mapping was one part of the content and goals. This project reduced the number of primary schools in the counties of “two areas” (“两片”) to 118,524 from 125,872, a reduction of 7,348, according to the reports released by the Ministry of Education in 1998. The Opinions on Consolidating and Improving Work after Careful Check and Inspection of “Two Fundamentals” 《关于认真做好 ( “两基” 验收后巩固提高 工作的若干意见》), published by the Ministry of Education in 1998, made it clear that we should “adjust the mapping of primary and secondary schools

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in a rational way,” which signaled the first attempt for the State Council to officially promote the removal and merge of schools. The Decision on Education Reform and Development in Basic Education 《关于基础教育改革与发展的决定》 ( , thereinafter “The Decision”), enacted by the State Council in 2001, started the nationwide adjustment of school mapping. From 2001 to 2004, the central government issued a series of policies guiding this adjustment which concerned multiple aspects, including the arrangement of education work in rural areas, specialized funding support and the construction of boarding schools. B The Process of Implementation of Local Governments Local governments all took the initiative to issue plans to restructure the mapping of schools within their administrative areas after the enactment of “The Decision” in 2001. However, under the pressure of higher-level administrative arrangement, local governments tended to translate this policy into a pursuit of political gains, resulting in such simple and extensive actions as “high indicators,” “a single solution for all problems” and “movement-style.” As the value of efficiency-first dominated, the idea of entrance based on geographical proximity for students in rural areas was made unfeasible, a distortion and mistake contrary to the original intention of the policy. Table 4.1

Policy paper on the adjustment of school mapping by the central government

Institution

Time

The State Council

2001/03 Notice of the State Council on the Further Work on the Experimental Reforms of Taxes and Administrative Charges 《国务院关于进一步做好   农村税费改革试点工作 的通知》 2001/05 Decision on the Reform and Development of Fundamental Education 《关于基础教育改革与   发展的决定》

The State Council

Name of the Document

Main Content Adjust the distribution of primary and secondary schools in rural areas in a rational way, remove and merge small schools and teaching centers properly, and improve school-running efficiency in rural areas Plan and Adjust the distribution of schools rationally based on the principles of geographical proximity for primary schools, relative concentration for junior highs and optimized allocation of education resources

(Continued)

An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping

59

Table 4.1 (Continued ) Institution

Time

Name of the Document

The Ministry 2003/06 Method of Managing Special of Finance Fund for the Adjustment of the Mapping of Primary and Secondary Schools 《中小学布局调整专项   资金管理办法》 The State 2003/09 Decision on Further Council Strengthening Rural Education 《关于进一步加强农村教   育工作的决定》

Main Content Promote, support and encourage the adjustment of the distribution of primary and secondary schools, accelerate their regulated and standardized construction

Continue to promote the distribution adjustment of primary and secondary education, endeavor to improve school-running conditions with an emphasis on the construction of the rural junior high schools and boarding schools in remote mountainous areas and ethnic minority areas The Ministry 2004/02 Opinion on Further Steadily press ahead with distribution of Education Consolidating and Improving adjustment of rural schools and and the the “Two Fundamentals” enhance school-running scale and Ministry of In Rural Areas efficiency. Funds will be appropriated Finance 《关于进一步加强农村   by the central government as 地区“两基”巩固提高 encouragement and support based on 工作的意见》 situations of adjustment in different places. The State 2004/02 Priority Plan for Achieving The central government will mainly Council the “Two Fundamentals” in subsidize the construction of counties Western China (2004–2007) with priority plan for the “two 《国家西部地区“两基”攻   fundamentals” and rural boarding 坚计划（2004–2007）》 schools, and help build and renew a batch of primary and junior high boarding schools.

In planning the work of removal and merge of schools in their administrative areas, some of provinces made a crystal clear “one solution for all problems” goal, revealing the pursuit of efficiency-first policy.

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Behind the passion of removing and merging schools in local governments was the tendency of gaining “benefit for themselves,” which encompassed a cut in education expenditure, the convenience in educational management, a pursuit of political performance in education, the promotion of urbanization, and several other aspects. The reform of tax in the countryside in 2011 brought farmers reduction in their burdens, along with which, however, came the shortage of education funds in rural areas. Since the implementation of revenue-sharing mechanism, the financial right of the governments at the grassroots level was shifted to higher-levels and the right to handle issues was delegated to governments at lower level, a dilemma that left some governments at the grassroots level no choice but to remove and merge schools. For them, the specialized funds for the adjustment of school mapping and the project of boarding schools mobilized them. In addition, boarding schools brought them charge items such as boarding and dining fees. Reaching the so-called urban-rural education equilibrium through the standardization of the school construction and reduction of rural schools can help governments at the grass root levels produce political achievement, which was the strong momentum behind the removal and merge of rural schools. The scale of the removal and merge of schools was striking. For example, Inner Mongolia was among the earliest provinces to promote the adjustment of school mapping. The number of its primary schools decreased to 2,996 in 2010 from 13,645 in 1995, a reduction of 78%. The teaching centers in this area were reduced to 466 in 2010 from 8,809 in 1995, a decline of 95%. According to the surveys conducted in Dongwu Qi (equivalent to county) of Xi Meng (equivalent to city) and Ke Qi of Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia, there was only on primary school that used Mongolian as teaching language. In Sumu(equivalent to township) For Gacha(equivalent to village), the vast pastoral area, there was no primary school at all. In Ke Qi of Chifeng, there was only ethnic primary schools, namely Bayanmende Primary School, which was also the only ethnic school situated in Gacha(village). In many Qi counties, no Suimu (township) and Gacha (village) had any schools. Therefore, children of herdsmen were all forced to go to school in qi counties. From 2000 to 2010, the number of primary schools in Shanxi province was down by 23, 236, a decline of 69.7%. The number of schools in Zichang County in Yan’an City was decreased to 61 in 2009 from 221 in 2008, a reduction of 72.4%. In Wuqi County, 158 rural primary schools were removed and merged all at once and 17 boarding center schools were established in towns.

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An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping Table 4.2 Policies and goals of the adjustment of school distribution of some provinces Place

Year Name of the Document

Relevant Content/Main goal

Shanxi

2002 Opinion on the Distribution Adjustment of Primary and Secondary Schools across the Province 《关于全省中小学校布局结构调整的   意见》 2003 Decision on Further Strengthening Education Work in Rural Areas 《关于进一步加强农村教育工作的决定》  

Reduce the number of rural primary and secondary schools by 15%–20% during the “tenth-five year plan”

Shanxi

Liaoning 2001 Implementation Plan for the Adjustment of Educational Structures in Rural Primary and Secondary Schools during the “Tenth-five Year Plan” Period 《“十五”期间农村中小学教育结构布   局调整工作实施方案》 Liaoning 2004 Plan for the Leap-forward Development of Rural Education in Liaoning province 《辽宁省农村教育跨越式发展计划》   Ningxia

Shanxi (陕西)

basically remove teaching centers with fewer than seven students and four-grade-in-one teaching, and abolish junior high schools with a double-track system (双轨制) by 2007 Reduce 10% of junior high schools, 22% of primary schools and over 50% of teaching centers by 2003

Remove and merge 3,326 improperly distributed schools throughout the province by 2007 2001 Opinion on Distribution Adjustment of Cut 10%–15% of primary Primary and Secondary Schools in Rural Areas schools and 15%–20% of and the Optimization of Teaching Team junior high schools in rural and Staff areas in Yinchuan (within 《关于调整农村中小学布局优化教职工   three years) and in 队伍的意见》 mountainous areas (within five years) Decrease the numbers of 2002 Opinion on Accelerating the Distribution Adjustment of Primary and Secondary Schools, rural primary schools by 7,000 and junior high the Optimization of Teaching team and Staff, and Ensuring the Rural Education Investment schools by 176 within five years 《关于加快中小学布局调整和优化教职   工队伍确保农村教育投入的意见》

(Continued)

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Table 4.2 (Continued ) Place Jiangxi

Year Name of the Document

2002 Opinion on the Streamline and the Distribution of Primary and Secondary Schools in Rural Areas and Optimizing the Teaching Team and Staff in Jiangxi Province 《江西省调整农村中小学布局精简和优   化教职工队伍的意见》 Guizhou 2002 Opinion on the Distribution Adjustment of Rural Primary and Secondary Schools and the Optimization of the Teaching Team 《关于农村中小学布局结构调整和优   化农村中小学教师队伍的意见》

Relevant Content/Main goal Take three year to cut 10% of the primary and secondary schools for compulsory education in rural areas

Basically eliminate mixedgrade class (复式班) by 2002 and teaching centers by 2003; decrease the number of rural primary schools by over 50% as compared with that of 1999

In 2007, Liaoning province proposed that the policy of “junior high schools entering cities” would be implemented in rural areas across the province. Since 2008, it has become an important motivation for local governments to improve urbanization level through the removal and merge of schools. For example, The Twelfth Five-Year Plan of the Development of Education Work in Jiangxi Province 《江西省教育事业发展 ( “十二五” 规划》) proposed to establish 100 “educational garden areas” in towns and cities, which will be promoted simultaneously with the goal of “reaching the province-wide urbanization rate of 46% by 2012.” In Rongan county of Liuzhou city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, junior high schools in countries were pushed to concentrate in towns in an effort to build “City of Middle Schools,” one important measure to build a sub-central city of Liuzhou city. In 2012 when Document from the State Council stopped this policy, Xinjiang, Chongqing, Fujian, Yunan and Shandong started to adjust school layout, suspending this removal and merge. In some places, proactive measures were taken to solve pronounced problems left behind by this policy and some of the small-scale schools were recovered and maintained according to local needs. For instance, Xuzhou City invested 570 million Yuan to reconstruct and expand 121 primary and secondary schools in rural areas, solving the problem that 12,987 students have to travel 5 miles to go to school.

An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping

III

63

Evaluation of the Effects of the Adjustment of School Mapping in Rural Areas

Due to huge differences in geography and social development levels in different places throughout the country, the effects of removal and merge of rural schools varied from one place to another. Though it improved the school-running conditions in rural schools, other salient problems also arose. A The School-running Conditions Have Been Improved to Some Extent From a macro perspective, the removal and merge of rural schools optimized the rational allocation of education resources and school-running conditions in rural areas in western China were improved and upgraded, from which plenty of rural students benefited. According to the random survey conducted in rural primary and secondary schools in 10 provinces by the 21st Century Education Research Institute, 66.2% of primary school students “like to go to school”; 68.2% of the students surveyed believed that staying with classmates in school was relatively happy for them; 23.0% think that it was “OK” to go to school; 41.6% of junior high school students held that the school conditions were so just so-so and had relatively low evaluation of dormitories and cafeterias. The Long Distance of Schools Resulted in a New Round of Dropout among Rural Students The direct consequence of the massive removal and merge of rural schools was the increasingly long distance for rural students to go to school. According the aforementioned survey, the average distance from school to home for rural primary school students was 10.83 miles; for junior high school students in rural areas, the average distance was 34.93 miles. According to another survey conducted in a “Wanxiao” boarding school in Quechang County in Gansu province, the longest distance for students to go to schools was 10-mile-long mountain road. In a village central primary school in Quannan County in Jiangxi province, the furthest distance from school to home was 9 miles. It took two hours to walk on this rugged and river- interrupted mountain road; in addition, when rivers surged in summer, there was hidden peril in transportation for students. The investigation in Peiling district in Chongqing city revealed that students in remote mountainous areas had to get up at four or five o’ clock in the morning so as to get on the bus to go to school and some of the parents had to accompany them by holding electric torch for their children. This directly contributed to the rise in students’ dropout. According to the investigation carried out by Han Qinglin, the prior vice director of the Department of Education of Hubei province, the dropout rate of primary B

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school students rebounded from 2007 on. It was 5.99% in 2008, 8.97% in 2009, 8.22% in 2010 and 8.89% in 2010. This indicated that there were around 800,000 to 900,000 rural primary school students dropping out of schools annually. There was a clear linear relation between the surge of primary schools dropout rate and the over-removal and –merge of teaching centers. For instance, the retainment rate of primary school teaching centers was relatively low among the nine provinces with relatively high dropout rates, including Qinghai, Jilin, Guangxi, Xizang, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning.1 C Heavier Education Burden for Farmers The boarding fee and transportation costs brought by the re-mapping of schools increased the education burden for rural families, which to a large extend offset the effects of free compulsory education. According to the random survey in 10 provinces conducted by the 21st Century Education Research Institute, for rural junior high school students, the average annual education expenses, boarding and dinning fees and transportation costs included, was 1911.5 Yuan. D Large-scale Schools and Large Class in Towns Pronounced Due to the removal and merge of schools, the scale of schools in towns and cities exploded, directly causing the emergence of large class and super-sized schools. There were quite a few primary schools with 5,000 or 6,000 students and secondary schools with 10,000 or 20,000 students. A normal class in primary schools should have 40 to 45 students and in normal secondary schools, 45 to 50 students, according to the standards set up by the Ministry of Education. The investigation in the Fuling district in Chongqing city, large classes accounts for 86.3% of the total number of classes of compulsory education period in urban areas, with the class size in many concentrated school-running stations or schools in towns exceeding 70 people. According to the survey conducted by 21st Century Education Research Institute in 2011, among the 450 senior high schools in the six provinces in western China, large classes occupied 32% and over-sized classes accounts for 35.8%, far outrunning the national proportion of 8.8% and 5.5%. The survey 1 Han Qinglin 韩清林, “Zhongguo xiaoxue jiaoyu: chuoxuelü liannian dafudu huisheng— guanyu baochi nongcun xiaofuimo xuexiao changqi wending de zhengce yanjiu baogao 中国小学教育：辍学率连年大幅度回升—关于保持农村小规模学校长期稳定的 政策研究报告 [China’s Primary School Education: the Continuously Increasing Dropout Rate—A Report on the Research of the Policy on Maintaining the Stability of Small-scale Schools in Rural Areas],” July, 2012.

An Investigation of Adjustment of School Mapping

65

of 35 junior high schools in 8 cities revealed that the proportion of large class, over-sized class and supersized class was 42.9%, 8.6% and 17.1% respectively, occupying 68.6% of all classes. The Second Middle School in Shangcai County in Henan province had an average class size of 120 students and the largest class of 160 students. In addition, in a key primary school in Dengzhou City in the same province, the average class size reached 133 students.2 E Desolation of Rural Cultures Accelerated Schools are symbols of national value and social progress, and the spiritual and cultural center of rural areas, while teachers, as the intellectuals in rural society, play a salient yet invisible and important role in promoting progress in rural culture and altering local habits and customs. The removal and merge of schools accelerated the imbalance of the population structure in rural areas, the breakage of family relations, and loss of recognition for countryside, leading to the desolation and the “desertification” of the rural cultural habitat. Consequently, most of the rural residents were reluctant to remove schools and said that “villages without schools are like families without kids.” Due to the trend of “schools entering cities,” many parents in rural areas have to move into towns and cities to accompany their children. In many of the banners (counties) in Inner Mongolia, “villages of herdsmen” that accompanied students to schools emerged, which greatly impacted the production and lifestyle of farmers and herdsmen. Young women’s entrance into cities to accompany their children led to the frequent cases of divorce. In addition, the kindergartens, once affiliated with those primary schools or teaching centers, was an important way to actualize the preschool education in rural areas. However, as the policy of removal and merge of schools were implemented, there were no primary schools for kindergarten to rely on or to actualize the preschool education in rural areas. IV

Basic Conclusions

First, boarder areas and remote western villages and mountainous areas with poor natural environment and economic development were places where 2 Teng Man, Liang Hong 滕蔓、梁鸿, “Henansheng dengzho shi zhongxiaoxue daban’e xianzhuang diaocha 河南省邓州市中小学大班额现状调查 [A Survey on the Current Status of Large Class in Primary and Secondary Schools in Dengzhou city, Henan province],” in Zhongguo Jiaoyu fanzhan baoga (2012) 中国教育发展报告 [China Education Development Report (2012)], ed. Yang Dongping (Beijing: China Social Sciences Publishing House, 2012).

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the scale of removal and merge of schools was the largest and where such problems as the loss and dropout of students, long distance to school and the increase of hidden peril in safety were the most pronounced. The disadvantaged population in this region was the main victims of the detrimental impacts of this policy. Second, in the plain areas with a relatively developed economy and convenient transportation, this policy exerted relatively little negative influence upon students. Instead, the integration of resources upgraded school-running conditions and the positive effects outweighed its negative ones. Third, with widely existing problems such as poor school conditions in super-sized schools, large classes and boarding schools in middle and western part of China, the realization of education equity and the improvement of education quality were greatly restricted. Fourth, as education resources continue to concentrate in towns and cities, the gaps of urban-rural areas, of different regions and schools in most of the regions were still widening amid the process of rapid urbanization. Fifth, this policy had an extremely far-reaching negative influence upon the construction of new rural areas and its culture in almost all of the rural areas. In the era of “post removal and merge of schools,” we need to pay attention to the disadvantaged groups belonging to the “last 20%” of the rural areas and insist on the priority of equality and the principle of school attendance based on geographical proximity. Meanwhile, we should actively explore the type of education needed by rural areas and promote the development of science in rural education. (This article was originally published in Chinese in 2013.)

chapter 5

Research on the Learning and Life of Primary and Secondary Students in Rural Schools Zhou Jinyan and Qi Xiang Abstract In recent years some issues of rural education became more and more obvious, such as the education of the left-at-home children, transportation safety issues and student dropouts issues, which were mostly caused by excessive closure of rural schools. Those problems arouse great concern from the government and the society on the rural students’ living and learning. The 21st Century Education Research Institute conducted a large-scale survey on Chinese rural primary and junior high schools. This article reported the survey results of general learning and living conditions of rural primary school students and junior high school students respectively, and built up statistical models to explore the influencing factors of the students’ academic performance.

Keywords Rural Education – Education Survey – Learning and living – Influencing Factor

Rural education has always been the focus area as well as the week point in China’s education development. It has an important bearing on the educational modernization and the development of rural areas in the long run. In 2012, the Report to the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) (中共十八大报告) pointed out again that “educational resources should be allocated appropriately, prioritizing the needs of the rural areas, remote areas, poverty-stricken areas and ethnic autonomous areas, so that every child can grow into a competent person”. In order to implement this important development strategy, we need to conduct an in-depth research on * Zhou Jinyan 周金燕, Lecturer at Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, focuses on education economics; Qi Xiang 祁翔, Graduate student at Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004270787_�06

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current education situation in rural China, especially in central and western regions of China, and get a good understanding of the learning and living conditions of primary and secondary school students in rural areas. In recent years, both the government and the public are paying great attention to many issues in rural education, such as issues with left-at-home children (留守儿童). The removal and merge of rural schools also caused many problems: it becomes harder for some students to find a school; it brings transportation safety issues; drop-out rates rises and all other kinds of problems relating to the learning and school life of rural students occur. All these issues catch the attention of the government and the public and call for prompt solution. The 21st Century Education Research Institute (21世纪教育研究院) conducted a survey of fairly large sample size on above mentioned rural education issues with fifth, sixth and eighth graders in rural schools during April to August in 2012. The survey included questions on students’ home environment, whether they are left-at-home children, boarding school conditions, transportation conditions, studying, expectations on future education and life, and etc. The samples mainly covered rural areas in central and western China, including ten provinces: Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Chongqing, Hainan, Anhui, Hunan, Yunnan, Hubei. We were able to receive 1382 properly completed questionnaires from primary school students, including 50.5% males and 49.5% females. 55.5% of the respondents were of Han nationality, while 44.5% were from other ethnic groups. The average age of the respondents was 12.13 and they were 146.11cm tall in average, among them, 40% were boarding students. For junior high school students, 1598 properly completed questionnaires were collected, including 46.2% male and 53.8% female. Han students took 58.8% of the total respondents, while 41.2% were from other ethnic groups. The average age and height of the respondents were 14.71 and 159.77cm, respectively. 61.6% of the respondents were boarding students. Based on the survey data, this article will report on the basic studying and living conditions of rural primary school and junior high school students. Then we will further explore factors that influence the academic achievement of rural primary school and junior high school students, through establishing statistical models. I

Rural Primary School

A Research on General Condition of Rural Primary School Students The study shows that a large proportion of rural primary school students received pre-school education. 81% of them had been to kindergarten or preschool, while 19% of them hadn’t.

Research on the Learning and Life of Students in Rural Schools Table 5.1

69

General conditions of primary school students in rural area

Type

Father Mother Care-giver

Percent- Distance Percent- Transport­ Percentage to school age ation age

Living together Migrant worker

56.2% 65.9%

Self

5.8%

41.2% 30.2%

Parents

60.6%

Passed 2.6% 3.9% away/Left home Both 24.5% parents are migrant workers

Below 3km Below 5km

50%

School bus 10%

65%

Longdistance bus Farm vehicle

12%

Bike or walk

74%

Grandparents 27.9%

Below 10km

76%

Brothers, Sisters/Kin

Below 30km

90%

5.6%

3%

There were still many left-behind children. 24.5% of all surveyed primary school students had both of their parents working in other cities. The percentage of students with fathers working at other cities was 41.2%, which was higher than that of mothers’ (30.2%). Most of students in rural primary school were taken care of by their parents (60.6%) or grandparents (27.9%). However, nearly 6% of students live on their own. Most of the students in rural primary school lived far away from school, with 50% of them travelling over 3 kilometers to school from home. Around 74% of them rode bikes to school or walked to school, while only 10% of them took school buses. 66.2% of students said they liked going to school, while only 2.5% of them expressed explicitly that they didn’t like school. Primary students were in good condition regarding emotional health in general. Most of them would get help from classmates, friends, and parents if they feel unhappy. Students who considered themselves as always happy and calm took up 72.5%, while 27.5% of the students often felt boring, anxious, and depressed. When the primary students were in a bad mood, 51% of them would talk to classmates or friends, 20.2% would choose to go to parents, maternal grandparents or paternal grandparents, while only 1.5% of them would speak to teachers. There were still 22.1% of students claimed that they wouldn’t tell

17.7%

Anxious 4.3%

Boring

66.2%

No one

Classmates, Friends, Brothers, Sisters Teachers

22.1%

 1.5%

Supplementary classes/  3.7% Interest classes TV/Internet/Sports 31.4%

Reading Extra-curricular 15.1% books

Like

23.6%

51%

Calm

31.4%

59.8% Music/ Painting/ Sports Chat/TV/ 31.4% Surf on Internet Others  1.8%

Reading

Fine

41.1%

Help with house work

20.2%

 6.9%

Parents/ Grand­parents

Happy

Dislike  2.5%

48.9%

Percentage

School Percentage Emotion Percentage Who do you talk to Percentage Extra-curricular Activities Percentage Interests

Table 5.2 General conditions of primary school students in rural areas

70 zhou and qi

Research on the Learning and Life of Students in Rural Schools

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Table 5.3 General conditions of primary school students in rural areas School Location Percentage Education Level Expectation Expectation

Percentage Career Expectation

Percentage

Village

28%

High school

10.3%

 0.7%

Town

22.9%

County

49.1%

Technical  3.4% secondary school College 25.4%

Peasants or herdsmen Government officers Learn skills, Technicians, Businessmen Scientists Soldiers

13.6%

Graduate school 24.5% and above Study abroad 36.4%

 6% 26.3%

24.8%

anyone or they had no one to talk to. These results reflected the emotional and psychological status of the left-at-home children. The questions on how primary school students in rural area spending their time outside classroom showed that 41.4% of the students mainly helped with house work, 3.7% of them went to supplementary classes or interest classes, and 15.1% of the students read extra-curricular books. We would like to emphasize here that only 6.9% of students chose reading books as their interests. Almost half of the students (49.1%) hoped to go to county schools. Another 22.9% of students preferred schools in towns, while only 28% of students wanted to go to schools in villages. Generally speaking, students had high expectations on future education: 86.3% of them wanted to go to college and graduate school, and around 1/3 of them hoped that they could study abroad in future. As regarding career plan, only 0.7% of the students wanted to become peasants or herdsmen. Many of them wanted to learn some skills and become technicians, do businesses, serve in the government, become scientists or join the army, and etc. Survey on the primary school students, who had the experience of going to village schools and went to center schools later, showed that they considered center schools to be better than village schools in all aspects, including

72

zhou and qi Relationship with teachers Relationship with classmates

Village primary school is better

Teachers’ quality

Center primary school is better

Classroom teaching

No much difference

School environment 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Figure 5.1 Rural primary school students’ evaluation on village primary schools and center primary schools

school environment, classroom teaching, teacher quality, relationship with classmates and teachers. The number of students who thought center schools had better school environment and classroom teaching, higher teacher quality was much more than those who preferred village schools, with 2/3 of students claimed center schools to be better as compared with village schools in the three above said aspects (Figure 5.1). Analysis on Factors That Influence Academic Achievements of Primary School Students in Rural Area In this part, a statistical model was established to further explain the academic achievement difference of primary school students in rural schools. Students’ report of the rank of the latest test scores in class in the survey was coded for academic achievement variable, with higher value representing better academic achievement (below average=1, average=2, above average=3).1 We decided to use ordinal logistic regression2 because the achievement variable was a continuous variable. The wbasic formula is as follows: B

1 We would like to point out that the difficulty level of tests might differ in schools in different areas. Therefore, it might not be very accurate to compare students’ academic achievement according to the reported class rank of the latest examination. However, considering the fact that most study participants were from rural schools in central and west China, there wouldn’t be much difference in examination difficulty levels. Hence, it is still appropriate to adopt the current coding method. 2 Ordinal logistic regression (Notes from translator: also called proportional odds model) is an extension of binary logistic regression. Assuming that the odds of explanatory variables to

Research on the Learning and Life of Students in Rural Schools

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Table 5.4 Explanatory model of rural primary school students’ academic achievement scores Explanatory variable

Regression coefficient

Dominance ratio

p value

Han people Male Both parents are migrant workers Had been to kindergarten or pre-school Helping with family work during weekends or after class Teacher asking questions in class Self-expectation on highest education level Boarding school Had been to village school Goodness-of-fit index Parallel test

 0.185 –0.467*** –0.355*  0.351* –0.350*

1.20 0.63 0.70 1.42 0.70

0.230 0.001 0.040 0.050 0.017

 0.326***  0.358***  0.022 –0.045

1.39 1.43 1.02 0.96 p=0.0090.01

0.001 0.000 0.891 0.754

Notes: *** p