Because the Education Law clearly stipulates that governments at all levels should ensure "three growth" in education investment, that is, the proportion of national fiscal education expenditure to gross national product (GNP) should be gradually increased with the development of national economy; The proportion of education funds in the total financial expenditure at all levels should be gradually increased with the development of the national economy; The growth of financial allocation for education of people's governments at all levels is higher than the growth of recurrent income. The finance of local governments is facing great pressure and challenges, and the actual investment in compulsory education funds is not optimistic.
The main problems are as follows:
1. There are disadvantages in the investment system of compulsory education.
China's current compulsory education investment system is mainly managed by local governments (mainly county and township governments) and raises funds through multiple channels. This system has two characteristics: one is "local responsibility" and "hierarchical management"; The second is "multi-channel financing". China's current compulsory education investment system actually acquiesces in the imbalance caused by the serious imbalance of economic development in various places, which eventually leads to the popularization of compulsory education and the development of compulsory education into an unbalanced state. The disadvantages of China's compulsory education investment system have affected the development of education. Effective measures must be taken to reform and establish a scientific compulsory education investment system to ensure the smooth flow of compulsory education funds.
2. The total investment in public education funds is insufficient.
In China, the education expenditure and public expenditure of primary and secondary school students are far lower than that of high school students. This gap is particularly prominent in most rural primary and secondary schools. The overall level of investment in compulsory education in China is low, which is far from the strategic goal of popularizing nine-year compulsory education in China.
3. The additional collection of urban and rural education fees is not in place
Surcharge of urban and rural education has always been one of the main sources of compulsory education funds in China, which has played an important role in promoting the development of compulsory education. During the period of 1986, the state issued a guiding document for the reform of rural basic education system, and implemented the method of "rural levy, county management and rural use" on the issue of additional rural education fees. It also adjusted the management responsibilities at the county and township levels, and increased the decision-making power and overall planning power of the county-level government. However, due to the unfavorable implementation of specific measures and imperfect restraint mechanism, some problems have appeared in actual operation.
4. Poor conditions for running schools in economically underdeveloped areas.
Due to the insufficient investment in education funds, a considerable number of areas are seriously short of school hardware facilities, such as school buildings, desks and chairs, experimental equipment, logistics support and so on. , can not meet the basic conditions of compulsory education stipulated by the state, or even meet the basic needs of the teaching process.
5. The problem of teachers' salary arrears is more serious. In China, except for large and medium-sized cities and some relatively developed provinces, teachers' salaries are in arrears to varying degrees, and the arrears are getting bigger and longer. According to the incomplete statistics of the education department, as of April 2000, the total arrears of teachers' wages in 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government reached 7.668 billion yuan. In Henan Province, a populous province, as of May 2000, there were 18 cities in arrears with teachers' wages, among which 19 and 4 1 towns were in arrears with teachers' wages, accounting for more than 90.2% of all towns and villages, involving more than 500,000 teachers, accounting for more than 85% of the total number of teachers.
6. The charging situation in compulsory education stage is chaotic, the cost is low, and the public funds are tight. To this end, some education departments use various expenses, such as school selection fees, course selection fees, even seat selection fees and unreasonable tuition and miscellaneous fees, to alleviate the contradiction between the growing demand for funds and the lack of total investment in the process of running schools.
7. The level of investment in compulsory education is uneven.
In 2000, the primary school enrollment rate and the fifth grade consolidation rate in the east and west were significantly higher than those in the west. Only from the perspective of consolidation rate, the gap between the western region and the national average is 33.43 percentage points at the highest, and the lowest consolidation rate in the western region is only 61.1%in Tibet. Judging from the graduation rate of primary school students, the west is the highest, which is 49.67 percentage points lower than the national average, and Tibet is the lowest, which is 55.22%.
8. Inefficient use of compulsory education funds.
According to statistics, there were 553,600 primary schools in China in 2000, with students130132,500 and full-time teachers of 5,860,300. The qualified rate of full-time teachers is 96.9%, and the ratio of students to teachers is 222.2 1: 1. From the comparison of the above statistics, we can see that the ratio of primary and secondary school students to teachers in China is relatively low at present. The direct consequence of this situation is that under the premise of limited investment in education, personnel funds increase and public education funds decrease.