Study On Changsha’s Policies Of Promoting Balanced Compulsory Education

As China’s basic policy,compulsory education is essential content of basic public services.The law requires the nation to achieve balanced development in compulsory education.As China’s economic and social reform walks into a “deep-water period”,people are increasingly awakening to the interests of education equity,especially to high-quality compulsory education.Whether in developed areas or undeveloped areas,educational imbalances still exist.It is a fresh task for local governments to continuously meet people’s growing needs of better life,and to take effective policies to promote compulsory education in a balanced way.As China’s first provincial capital city to realize balanced development of compulsory education in all districts and counties,Changsha’s policy system of promoting balanced compulsory education is marked.How has the policy system promoted balanced education? With the angle of public policy theory,what are the shortcomings of Changsha’s policy system and how can further optimize it? To research these issues is with theoretical value and also usable in practical activities,which can provide a reference for the public sector.This paper sets to study and analyze Changsha’s policy system of promoting balanced compulsory education in aspects of value orientation,policy system and policy process,with taking questionnaire survey,interview,field investigation and literature summary.The paper finds out that Changsha has four policy experiences: the policy objective is oriented to the public interest;the policy planning follows realistic situation and feasibility;the means of policy implementation are diversified;paying attention to policy advocacy and policy experiments.In perspective of public policy theory,the paper also finds out Changsha’s policy system of promoting balanced compulsory education has some shortcomings: the policy body is single;the policy resources are not enough;the policy target population is blind in school selection;rural teachers see great losses;there is illegal operation room for the policy implementation;the policy appraisal system is not comprehensive.After comparing the policy practices of American and Shanghai,the paper summarizes some advice to improve Changsha’s policy system over balanced compulsory education: to diversify the policy body with introducing social parts;to innovate allocation of teacher resource;to promote parents’ rational understanding of school selection;to strengthen restrictions on education funding;to raise pay of rural teachers and strengthen their vocational ideals;to improve policy supervision in whole process monitoring;to optimize evaluation system with absorbing public opinions.