1. It is a long way to go to promote the balanced development of compulsory education.
In 2002, the concept of promoting the balanced development of compulsory education was first put forward in relevant documents of the State Council. The Outline of the National Medium-and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan 20 10 regards promoting balanced development as the primary strategic task of compulsory education, and proposes that the balanced development of compulsory education in counties should be basically realized by 2020, and three major measures should be taken to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, regions and schools. First, formulate compulsory education standards and promote the standardization of schools; The second is to increase education funds. During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the central government invested nearly 654.38+02 billion yuan for the renovation of dilapidated buildings, the construction of rural school buildings in the central and western regions and the renovation of weak schools. The third is to evaluate the balanced development of compulsory education in order to promote reform and development. At present, 965,438+08 counties have passed the national recognition of balanced development. However, there is a long way to go to achieve the goal of balanced development of compulsory education in 2020. Nearly two-thirds of more than 2,800 counties have not achieved balanced development. There are still 12.2% in primary schools with more than 55 students, and 210.7% in junior high schools, which is particularly prominent in some places. Even "one person, one desk and one bench" has not been realized, and there are tens of thousands of compulsory education in China. The work of promoting the balanced development of compulsory education cannot be relaxed at all. During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, all forces should be mobilized to closely integrate with the national poverty alleviation strategy and give priority to solving it.
2. Popularizing high school education is not the same as implementing compulsory high school education.
It is timely and necessary to put forward the idea of popularizing high school education under the situation that nine-year compulsory education is fully popularized and the gross enrollment rate of high school education reaches 86.5%. How to understand the popularization of high school education has naturally attracted people's attention and discussion. To illustrate this problem, I want to start with three related concepts.
The first group of concepts: universal education, free education and compulsory education are closely related and completely different.
Universal education is the development goal of education, and it is also the historical requirement of continuous improvement in the process of educational development. In the early days of the founding of New China, China put forward the goal of universal primary education (three to four years), and later put forward the goal of universal primary education. During the Great Leap Forward, China put forward the goal of popularizing junior high school and even senior high school education. For a time, every village had primary schools, teams had junior high schools and social organizations had senior high schools. Even teachers who haven't graduated from primary school have taught junior high school and senior high school. Enthusiasm replaced science, and quantity overwhelmed quality. Later, they made great efforts to reduce digestion. Therefore, what level of education should be popularized and to what extent should be decided according to historical conditions.
Free education is a policy measure and an important livelihood welfare. 1985 China proposed to implement nine-year compulsory education, and 1986 compulsory education law was promulgated, but in 2008, China really realized free compulsory education in urban and rural areas.
Compulsory education is an institutional arrangement and a mandatory legal provision. Compulsory education has two basic characteristics: free and compulsory, and tuition exemption is the basic guarantee for the implementation of compulsory education. Without free education, it is difficult to ensure the implementation of compulsory education and to spread it to every child. The central and local governments exempt tuition and miscellaneous fees and help children from poor families to finish their studies smoothly, which is the guarantee for the full realization of compulsory education; At the same time, compulsory education is compulsory, and all parents are obliged to send their children to school. So we say that compulsory education must be free and universal, and vice versa.
The second group of concepts: ordinary high schools and vocational high schools are the main components of high school education.
Universal high school education is the abbreviation of universal high school education, which mainly includes ordinary high schools, vocational high schools and secondary technical education. Since the beginning of 2 1 century, according to the needs of social development and talent structure adjustment, China has put forward the goal that general education is roughly equivalent to vocational education in order to continuously improve the employment level of young people and vigorously develop vocational education. At the same time, the investment in vocational education is increasing, the reform of vocational education is deepening, the quality of vocational education is improving, and the attraction of vocational education is increasing.
The third group of concepts: public schools and private schools have made important contributions to the development of high school education.
The popularization of high school education does not mean the popularization of public education. It is also an important content to mobilize the resources of the whole society to promote the development of private high schools and meet the aspirations of different groups of people to receive high school education. The Outline of the National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development Plan emphasizes: "Private education is an important growth point of education development and an important force to promote education reform. Governments at all levels should take the development of private education as an important job responsibility, encourage investment and donations to run schools, and promote social forces to set up education in various forms such as independence and joint ventures. " In fact, private education has also played an important role and made important contributions in the popularization of high schools in China. Constantly improving the environment of private education, increasing the support for private education and strengthening the management of private education are also the inherent requirements for popularizing high school education.