The Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee pointed out: In the process of building a harmonious society, we should pay attention to stimulating social vitality, promoting social fairness and justice, enhancing the legal awareness and integrity awareness of the whole society, and maintaining social stability and unity. Therefore, it can be said that social fairness and justice play a decisive role in building a harmonious society.
"Fairness" is always associated with "justice", that is to say, only a society that pays attention to fairness is a just society. However, "fairness" and "justice" have their specific historical characteristics, and different times have different meanings for different classes or people. China is a socialist country. The essential requirement of socialist society is that the state should serve the broadest masses of the people and achieve the widest equality. Its basic meaning is to adhere to people-oriented, while pursuing material growth and wealth accumulation, to protect people's basic rights, including the right to subsistence and development, to promote the all-round development of the country and the people, that is, to realize a harmonious socialist society.
Since ancient times, both national development and personal progress have been pinned on education. Education is of far-reaching and important significance to any country. It not only undertakes the basic mission of educating citizens, improving the quality of the whole people and providing ideological and spiritual resources for building a harmonious society, but also serves the scientific and technological development of modern countries and cultivates high-tech talents. It can be said that the level of education is directly proportional to the level of development, whether for individuals or countries. Today in the 2 1 century, education is more closely related to the future of the nation and the country, and to the interests, development and destiny of individuals. At present, China is in a critical period of rapid development, with increasingly fierce employment competition and increasing pressure on individual survival. Education plays a decisive role in personal employment and income, directly determines the quality of life and future development of individuals, and even determines the rise and fall of countries and nations. Therefore, to achieve common prosperity and social harmony, we must give everyone a fair education, regardless of the rich or the poor or the region, that is, all people are equal at the starting point of life. However, the inequality of people's educational level directly affects the inequality of future economic income, which leads to the polarization between the rich and the poor in society, thus burying hidden dangers of urban and rural areas, regions and even class contradictions, which runs counter to social harmony. Therefore, educational equity is the cornerstone of realizing social equity and building a harmonious socialist society.
Second, the status quo of education development in China
Since the reform and opening up, China has carried out in-depth and extensive reforms, and achieved the cross-century development of education. So far, China has basically popularized nine-year compulsory education, basically eliminated illiteracy among young and middle-aged people, and the discipline construction and school-running scale of higher education have been continuously enriched and expanded. The gross enrollment rate reached 19% and entered the internationally recognized stage of popularization of higher education. However, while remarkable achievements have been made, many new situations and problems have emerged. Among them, educational equity is one of the most widely concerned issues. A recent research report shows that since the 1990s, the proportion of rural students enrolled by national key universities such as Tsinghua and Peking University has been declining, which is enough to attract the attention of our government. According to the analysis and summary of relevant education experts, the unfair education in China is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. unbalanced investment in education
In the 1990s, China proposed to gradually increase the proportion of fiscal education funds to 4% of GDP by the end of this century, but this goal has not yet been achieved. In 2003, tomashevsky, the rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the right to education, investigated the education situation in China, and found that China's education expenditure only accounted for 2% of the gross national product, the government's education budget only accounted for 53% of the total education expenditure, and the remaining 47% was filled by parents or other sources.
Due to the government's insufficient investment in education, the amount of funds each school receives is actually determined by the amount of self-raised funds. More self-raised funds, less government funding, less self-raised funds and more government funding eventually prompted the school to show its talents and raise funds. As a result, the school began to charge various fees such as "sponsorship fee" and "school establishment fee". At present, in addition to high fees in colleges and universities, high fees and arbitrary charges in primary and secondary schools and even kindergartens are also quite common. According to the survey conducted by the People's Bank of China in the fourth quarter of 2004, in the survey of the purpose of saving for urban and rural residents, the education expenses of children rank first, ahead of the pension and housing. Among the six hot spots of price reporting in the first half of 2004 announced by the National Development and Reform Commission, unreasonable charges for education topped the list. Many families with financial difficulties have to let their children drop out of school because they can't bear the heavy pressure of tuition and fees, which also causes inequality in educational opportunities.
The lack of overall investment in education funds has also caused and aggravated the current phenomenon of school choice. At present, the employment pressure is increasing, and the fierce market competition has also increased the pressure on parents. In order to get into universities and get into good universities and majors, people focus on a few key schools, so they do not hesitate to pay high school selection fees. The increase of funds makes the scale of key high schools bigger and bigger, thus charging more fees and forming an uncontrollable vicious circle. In this way, it not only encourages the school to collect fees indiscriminately, but also makes other non-key schools start to invest heavily and expand their scale under pressure, which finally disrupts the balanced development of the education system. Higher education in China is charged. In recent years, the high fees have become more and more severe, which greatly exceeds the affordability of ordinary families, especially poor families. All kinds of unreasonable charges have caused unbearable pressure on families in need and restricted the realization of all citizens' equal right to education.
2. Uneven distribution of educational resources
As mentioned above, the Chinese government's investment in education is insufficient, and this little investment tends to the city, making the education gap between urban and rural areas one of the most significant. Nine-year compulsory education is implemented in cities, with education funds basically borne by the government and schools funded by the government. Teaching equipment has long been modernized. In rural nine-year compulsory education, most of the expenses are borne by farmers themselves, and most of the teaching facilities are built by farmers themselves, and dangerous houses are often seen. However, at present, the rural economy is underdeveloped, farmers are not well off, and education expenditure accounts for a large part of the total household expenditure. There are many people who are poor because of their studies, and there are even sayings that "investing in education is like gambling" and "the top three laborers can't afford to support a college student". It is reported that the dropout rate of rural students remains high, with 6.67% in some places and 10% in some places. Therefore, it can be said that the increasingly heavy education expenditure not only makes many farmers breathless, but the more serious consequence is that farmers can't see the hope of "getting rid of poverty and running towards a well-off society". China is a big agricultural country, and rural education should be the top priority. Obviously, it will be an obstacle to build a well-off society in an all-round way and a harmonious socialist society to prevent farmers from seeing the unfair education in the future.
In addition, the unfairness of urban and rural education is also reflected in the treatment of teachers. The wages of urban teachers are paid by the government, while the treatment of rural teachers is not only generally low, but also the phenomenon of IOUs is very common. The huge difference in treatment between urban and rural teachers is also one of the important reasons for the huge contrast in teachers' quality. Because excellent talents always flow to an environment more conducive to their own development, the disadvantage of rural education environment makes excellent teachers gradually flow to towns and economically developed areas, further widening the gap between urban and rural areas, and finally forming an unstoppable vicious circle. This cycle not only created a worse rural education environment, but also produced a worse result-more rural students lost the opportunity for further study.
3. The education policy orientation is unbalanced.
In addition to the above reasons, some current policies in China are also important reasons for unfair education. Such as the college entrance examination system, there are also differences between urban and rural areas in China's college entrance examination admission standards, and the admission scores of urban candidates are usually lower than those of rural candidates. It is reported that the admission scores of candidates in Beijing are 80- 100 points lower than those in other regions, so candidates from cities, especially those from big cities or universities, are more likely to enter colleges and universities than those from rural areas. There is a big gap between urban and rural education environment and resources in China, and rural candidates are at a disadvantage. Coupled with the difference in admission scores, it is more difficult for them to enter colleges and universities for further study. According to the survey, among the national key universities, urban students with a lot of cultural, economic and social capital account for a considerable proportion, while rural students and children of vulnerable groups are gradually decreasing. In addition, colleges and universities in China have different emphasis on the admission rate and majors of candidates from different regions. Some areas have many majors, good majors and many places, while others have few majors, poor majors or few places, which also leads to unequal opportunities for candidates to receive higher education. At present, there are ways to expand enrollment in colleges and universities, such as "upgrading from junior college to undergraduate college" and "upgrading from junior college to undergraduate college", which are also at the expense of paying high tuition fees. It is difficult for students with poor family economic conditions to win such opportunities. Therefore, these new educational methods are also the reasons for unfair education.
Third, increase efforts to achieve educational equity.
The ultimate goal of education is to develop society and realize social equity. Therefore, to build a harmonious society, we must ensure that every citizen has equal opportunities for education, so as to truly realize the rights stipulated by law.
1. Increase investment in education to alleviate educational unfairness.
In order to eliminate the unfairness in education, the government should actually increase its financial input in education. The increase of national investment in education and the equalization of resource supply are important ways to realize educational equity. Therefore, the government should realize the set goal of education expenditure accounting for 4% of GDP as soon as possible, and provide the necessary material guarantee for education equity in China.
Since 2005, the government of China has implemented "two exemptions and one subsidy", that is, in the compulsory education stage in rural areas of key poverty alleviation and development counties, students from poor families are exempted from book fees and tuition fees, and boarding students are subsidized for living expenses. This decision actually indicates the beginning of increasing investment in education. Some experts believe that it is difficult to solve the huge funding gap of rural compulsory education, and the burden of compulsory education should be gradually transferred from county level to provinces and the central government. According to estimates, the most important teacher salary in rural compulsory education expenditure needs 44.6 billion yuan, accounting for only 2.3% of the total national fiscal revenue in 2002. Therefore, it is completely feasible to use the central finance to pay the teachers' fees in the compulsory education stage.
2. Reform education policy and promote education equity.
Although increasing investment in education will enable more people to get equal educational opportunities, it is only a prerequisite for achieving educational equity. To truly realize educational equity, it is necessary to properly adjust the structure of educational investment and allocate educational resources in a targeted and focused manner. Priority can be given to rural areas, poverty-stricken areas, poor people or dropouts, and priority can be given to basic education such as primary and secondary schools in the investment field to ensure that all citizens start to develop from the same starting line. The corresponding departments should also improve their work efficiency and make the limited educational resources play the best role. Therefore, the government should strengthen supervision and evaluation to prevent the waste of educational resources.
The state should also formulate relevant policies and regulations, strictly control the phenomenon of high fees and arbitrary charges, and make the charging standards open, reasonable and transparent, such as the "one fee system" policy; We must also severely stop educational corruption caused by fees or enrollment, such as the recently launched "Sunshine Project" aimed at college enrollment fraud.
3. Control the gap between the rich and the poor and achieve educational equity.
It is normal for China to have a certain gap between the rich and the poor during the social transition period. However, if the gap between the rich and the poor is not controlled and developed excessively, it will seriously damage social fairness and justice, and then cause disaster to social harmony. Therefore, in the process of realizing educational equity and building a harmonious society, we must devote ourselves to improving productivity, controlling and even narrowing the widening gap between the rich and the poor, preventing polarization, constantly improving the social security system, earnestly paying attention to and protecting the interests of the disadvantaged groups in society, striving to achieve common prosperity of the whole society, fundamentally solving the unfair distribution of interests, and providing a material basis for realizing educational equity.