Research On Government Function In Equilibrium Of Urban And Rural Compulsory Education

Education is the cornerstone for a nation’s great long-term development. Education, especially compulsory education, plays a significant role in promoting the national quality and developing social economy. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, our country has achieved a huge success in the compulsory education development, but there is a great gap between urban and rural in the big context of the dual division system. Thus, it is important for the compulsory education development and urban-rural integration to eliminate such gap. In view of public goods theory, education equality theory and fiscal federalism theory, the thesis constructs an appropriate analysis framework, adopts normative and empirical analysis, and combines qualitative and quantity research. Based on survey data and statistical yearbook data, this thesis focuses on the government function on equilibrium of urban and rural compulsory education.Firstly, the theory analysis of government function on equilibrium in urban and rural compulsory education is ruled out at the thesis. The compulsory education is a typical public good, endowed with non-competitiveness of the consumption and non-exclusiveness of the interest, so the government is the main liability subject of providing compulsory education. Equilibrium in urban and rural compulsory education means education equity. It is necessary that the government should balance the compulsory education resources, narrow disequilibrium degree and promote social equity between urban and rural, except for developing compulsory education and meeting all kinds of public’s demand of receiving it. In the process of carry compulsory education forward, the government should straighten out the fiscal relationships and scientific divide function boundary at all levels of government with the guidance of fiscal federalism theory to show the comparative advantage of all the levels of government,and then to maximize the equilibrium urban and rural compulsory education.Secondly, the author investigates the current situation of equilibrium in urban and rural compulsory education and discusses the negative effects of disequilibrium. Combined with space, time and element, an analysis framework, the triple dynamic relationship of equilibrium urban and rural compulsory education, was constructed. This framework sets up relative measurement index and is divided into three parts:the beginning equilibrium, the process equilibrium and the ending equilibrium. The empirical monitoring results show that the equilibrium urban and rural compulsory education in our country has a series of typical features including relativity, difference, dynamic process and systematic process. The beginning disequilibrium, the process disequilibrium and the ending disequilibrium exist at the same time. The first caused the latter, and the latter was deterioration of the first. Compulsory education disequilibrium development was not in favor of the education system development, which led to the sever phenomenon of selecting school. This didn’t help to solve the problem of left-behind child. The disequilibrium also aggravated compulsory education as a tool trend, which prevented from the development of rural for failing to improve rural residents’qualities, and contributed to the wider income gap between urban and rural resident, which intensified the dual economic structure of urban and rural and worsened the social justice.On the basis of above discussion, the researcher rules out the government function at home and abroad about education function presence, function absence and function offside. Since the founding of our country, especially after the reform and open policy, in all the levels of government, in the process of promoting the equilibrium urban and rural compulsory education,the function presence displays main five aspects:setting up the ideal that the equilibrium urban and rural compulsory education is the basic government function, strengthening legislation to promote equally development, establishing equally development policy, enlarging the investment and exploring new mechanical of rural teacher complementary. The function absent appears at investment, resource distribution, construction of teaching staff, and relative legislation and policy making. The function offside shows at the higher level authorities with the low level authorities, the government treats with the compulsory education school, and the government treats with educational intermediary organization. Those problems not only exist in our country, but also exist in other developing country. However, the developed country (Japan, America and England) and some developing country (India, South Africa and Cuba) paid more attention to promote the equilibrium development of compulsory education and gathered many experiences by using government function. Those experiences inspire our country to value the government function at promoting the equilibrium development of compulsory education, scientifically define function boundary of all the levels government and efficiently carry out the government function in the promoting equilibrium urban and rural compulsory education process.Finally, based on goal of equilibrium development of compulsory education, this study scientifically defines function boundary of all the levels government. In the process of promoting education equilibrium, each governments, from the center and the local, has its own advantages and disadvantages, and both of them must be compatible with the efficiency and equity, match the financial and administrative powers and have the function boundary dynamic. The government should bear much responsibility on investment in compulsory education and explicit the investment proportion with local government through program. In the compulsory education resources distribution process, the center government strengthens transfer payment system construction and balances allocation education resources; the provincial government makes overall consideration to balance allocation education resources; the county government and the others base organizations manage and make a good use of the compulsory education resources to improve the efficiency. During the teaching staff construction, the center government takes full of advantage from national programs to enhance the rural teacher’s quality, the provincial government takes positive-disparate treatment for allocating education resources between urban and rural, and the county government undertakes main responsibility of teaching staff construction. The county government major function is responsible for directing the compulsory education equilibrium development in its jurisdictions, doing well the public ideological work, properly handling all kinds of conflicts and disputes, making every efforts to renovate school environment around, and safeguarding regular education and teaching program.This thesis, at first, makes an innovation in studying the balance of urban and rural compulsory education in all levels of government function and constructing a triple dynamic relationship framework, which establishes a theoretical basis for scientifically and accurately measuring the equilibrium in urban and rural compulsory education. In the respect of research method, this thesis emphasizes the qualitative method and overcomes researcher-oriented problem. However, the cited data in this thesis has a weak spot because the government function boundary division needs to be refined.