The views on "national education" have always been ambiguous.
The Dictionary of Education edited by Mr. Gu Mingyuan explains: "National education is also called public education. Refers to the school education organized by the state for its own nationals (or citizens). It is generally primary and junior high school education, and some countries also include early childhood education and higher education. " And pointed out: "After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the name of national education will no longer be used." However, influenced by the international educational environment and the historical evolution of education in China, the name and concept of "national education" have not retired from the historical stage. Especially at the end of the last century, due to the deepening and sublimation of the educational circle's understanding of China's educational reform and development in a systematic and comprehensive direction, words such as "national education" and "national education system" frequently appeared in China educational periodicals, which triggered an unprecedented enthusiastic exploration of China's educational reform and development and became the academic basis for the macro-educational development goal of "forming a relatively perfect modern national education system" proposed in the report of the 16th National Congress.
In the past, it was generally believed that national education refers to "primary and junior high school education", which is roughly equivalent to compulsory education. But in reality, national education often goes the same way as school education, and is closely related to academic qualifications and student status. In the educational structure of our country, as a basic part, it obviously has the nature of the main series of the national education system. Therefore, it should not be limited to the level of "primary and secondary schools", but should have the nature of running through all levels and covering all kinds of education. The author believes that national education is essentially a national education with school education as the main body and growth education as the center of gravity, while the national education system is a national education system composed of all elements of national education. In this sense, the establishment of ethnic education system should be the basic and prerequisite work for the existence and development of ethnic education.
In fact, China's national education system has been under construction, but it lacks scientific ideas, clear goals and conscious awareness. Such as all kinds of full-time, half-day schools, night schools, ordinary primary and secondary schools, workers and peasants tutorial schools, secondary specialized schools, technical schools, normal schools, vocational high schools, art schools, sports schools, special education schools, etc. All belong to the national education system. However, these schools do not coexist harmoniously and form a whole with clear division of labor, reasonable structure, mutual communication and coordinated development. Conflicts and obstacles are very prominent, and there are still some difficulties and blind spots that have not been solved (such as school education for talents with special skills such as sports competitions and acrobatic performances, and systematic education for non-discipline majors, etc.). ), making it impossible for some types of talents (such as talents with special skills) to obtain basic academic education. In this sense, the goal of building a national education system has not really been established. So far, China's national education system has existed spontaneously under the traditional economy and concession system, which can be called the traditional national education system.
The modern national education system is just the opposite to the traditional national education system, and its basic characteristics, main functions and internal structure are clearly reflected in the comparison with the traditional national education system.