Research On Indian Rural Primary Education Policy In The Process Of Urbanization

Stemming from British colonists’demand of pillaging resources and expansion, Indian urbanization is a history process closely linked to industrialization, and it is also a dynamic development process which is based on the traditional urban-rural dual structure, gradually assembles population, capital and technology together and then promotes profound revolution of industrial and social structures. Taking the close relationship between urbanization and population distribution, this study follows the data of six Indian national censuses, and analyzed hidian urbanization process in different stages. Indian urbanization process includes three stages:Concentrated development stage (1947-1970), Rapid development stage (1971-1991) and steady development stage (1992-2011). It shows its characteristics of low and uneven development, rural poverty as main pushing force and various patterns of the development gap between rural and urban areas. Under the background of urbanization, as a traditional agricultural country with large population, Indian faces problems of rural primary education which are similar to those of Chinese rural compulsory education during the process of development. For example, the distribution of urban-rural education resource is unbalanced, high-quality education resource, like excellent teachers continually gathers in urban areas, leaving the rural schools in a weak position in the process of urbanization, the gap between urban and rural education has been widening and the lack of teachers, poor schooling conditions and plenty of small schools show up in rural areas, and so on. Given this, the central government and local government of India promulgated a series of primary education policies, gave more policy support to rural areas by strengthening government’s macro-control, gave full play to the lever effect of education policies, aiming to narrow the gap between urban and rural education, to reach the goal of popularizing primary education and then to propel education equity, even social equity.When the appeal of education policy is beyond education itself, research on education policy needs to cross the boundary of education and choose a more appropriate research method. What’s more, the external factors like Indian politics, economy, culture, society and so on must be explored while analyzing its rural primary education policy. This is the origin of the scope and profundity the study pursues. According to this, the paper follows basic views of policy science theories, adopts problem-oriented policy research paradigm. Based on policy texts and a large number of latest statistic data, this study applies documentary research method, comparative research method, policy analysis method and statistical analysis method to comprehensively analyze the problems, goals, environment, resources and effects of Indian rural primary education policy during its urbanization process. According to the specific goals of these policies, the policies fall into three types:no—charge affordable category, promoting category and preferential support category. If we review the policy environment of Indian rural primary education policy beyond the frame of education, we can find that:the tripartite political system and democratic system of all people participation strengthen citizens’attention to and supervision of the policies; the differences of economy among the states in Indian affect the implementation of policies, and the caste system hinders its implementation. As to the policy resources, the Indian rural primary education policy has basically formed a resource integration model giving first place to government sponsor, and Non government organization participating jointly, which ensures the sustainable resource supply for Indian rural primary education policy. As to policy effectiveness, the statistical data shows the popularity degree of Indian rural primary education is promoted a lot, and the enrollment rate of children of6-14years old is more than96%. The infrastructure construction of rural schools, school function and environment are improved, and students’achievement is also improved. However, it is worth noticing that the dropout rate of rural primary education is a little higher, especially that rate of girls aged11-14reaches6%. What’s more, the insufficiency and low quality of teacher becomes the bottleneck of Indian rural primary education.Educational science theories think the researches on education policy should not focus on policy texts and policy effectiveness, but take "education policy implementation" as research object, and present the influence and function of institutional factor to education policy implementation. Therefore, based on the explanation of the process of policy setting, management and implementation, this study analyzes the benefit framework of Indian rural primary education policy during its urbanization, and finds that the public benefit is expressed by education management and implementation, each state government takes charge of policy implementation to get more authority, and "County-Town-Village" is responsible for planning policy implementation to strengthen authority. Non-government organization supervises and assesses the policy implementation process to ensure its philosophy. This study analyzes the benefit structure of rural primary education policy, and then analyzes different benefit appeals of different classes in Indian. According to social stratification theory, the society in Indian can be divided into upper class, middle class and lower class; and the first two are differentiated severely. As a catalyst of urbanization, the middle class has high social mobility and strong influence on education policy. In this social structure, the rural primary education policy presents its human-orientation on question level, equity orientation on goal and environment level, democracy orientation on management and implementation process, and authority decentralization orientation on policy resource.Generally, the urbanization has a profound influence on development of Indian rural primary education policy. First, urbanization brings new problems and challenges. If we attach importance only to hardware popularity, and neglect its quality, this may turn rural schools into’"slumdog" of education. Second, urbanization makes the education policy distribution uneven indirectly, which is the main cause of policy goals’ adjustment and change. Third, urbanization places a profound influence on Indian politics, economy and social development, and changes the structure of education policy environment. With the development of urbanization, the boundary of small-medium cities and rural areas will fade away gradually, and weaken the policy effectiveness. Putting Indian rural primary education policy into its politics, economy, culture and social environment, we can further extract policy characteristics. The benefits conflicts will break out any time because of democracy system. Meanwhile, because of the differences of economic, social and politic status of different interest groups, the education policy in Indian cannot represent farmers’benefit, and even go against education equity which is the original intention of education policy. The period of forming education policy that all people participate will be long, and the multiple managements make lower policy implementation efficiency. Besides, Deep-rooted caste system has limited the equity of primary education policies, causing some vacuum of education equity among different castes. Therefore, it is the conflict and counterbalance among educational system, political system and social system that hinder the implementation and development of Indian rural primary education policy.Although India’s primary education development drops behind integrally compared with China, it has gained many previous experiences of rural primary education policy in the process of urbanization, some of them certainly merit our reference and study.(1) Education investments, which from India federal government to the small-size schools in remote rural areas and extremely cold areas, are used to pay schools’ operating costs in accordance of with school’s daily cost standards. These kinds of idea and policy choice have very strong reference value in overcoming the limitation of geological conditions to promote the consolidation rate, and reach the goals of making nine-year compulsory education generally available and basically eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged adults.(2) Many private schools lay a realistic foundation for reaching the policy goal of the universalization of primary education in India’s rural areas. The government treated education quality as prerequisite, and provided various forms of aid such as land resources, teacher salaries, and student aid to private schools, which did not change the essential properties of primary education in India’s rural area, such as the features of being forceful, free, and universal, instead, have introduced reasonable competition, reinvigorated educational resources, made the development plan of rural primary education more reasonable and flexible. All above benefit from strict qualification approval and special subsidization management of central and local government of India; avoid excessive competition and plan layout management; insist on the equal status of teachers in state-run and civilian-run schools, and standardize teacher management; carry out assessment and supervision, and strengthen multi-dimensional management ideas and action.(3) Good information management system and auditing system can ensure the implementation of funds.