Indeed, the goal of national 12 free education may be difficult to be fully realized when the investment in education has not yet completed the established goal of "not less than 4% of GDP by the end of the 20th century". It is reported that even 27 counties in China have not completed the task of nine-year compulsory education. But at the same time, whether it is the internal distribution form of existing funds or the guarantee form of external funds, there may still be great potential to be tapped. If the internal and external forces can be truly realized, popularizing 12 compulsory education is not only feasible, but also may become an important breakthrough in education reform.
In fact, some places in China have taken the lead in realizing compulsory education in 12 or even 15. Zhuhai 12 compulsory education, local officials laughed and said that they would do it; Graduation from kindergarten to high school in Zhongshan is free. The state should encourage qualified places to take the lead and let the central government free up more resources to transfer payments to poor areas in the central and western regions.
It is a well-known fact that social security in China, such as education, medical care, pension and housing, is still at a relatively low level in terms of fairness and security level. At the same time, there are still many unreasonable places in fiscal expenditure. Starting with public finance, it is not impossible to strengthen the transparency of budget revenue and expenditure and greatly increase the proportion of financial education expenditure. For example, the bus reform alone may save several times than the national free high school education.
On the other hand, even if the existing educational financial expenditure is stretched, there are unfair and unreasonable problems in the distribution of internal educational resources. First, the highly monopolized education management system has seriously hindered social capital from entering the education field. Some places stipulate that running a kindergarten requires more than 2,700 square meters of internal space and 1000 square meters of outdoor activity space; A high degree of monopoly makes our country, which has a fine tradition of respecting teachers and attaching importance to education, account for only a pitiful 3% of GDP, far behind the international average. At the same time, the limited financial funds have been seriously "diluted" in education investment, covering almost all public educational institutions from primary schools to universities, maintaining the lowest level of education. Second, even in this case, the government's investment in education is too inclined to higher education, resulting in insufficient investment in basic education.
As long as the access to education is fully opened and the monopoly of education is broken, the government's financial funds can be greatly saved, used in the cutting edge, committed to balancing educational resources, and extending compulsory education to children and high schools. At the same time, it can really make a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend in the field of education, and change the examination-oriented structure of "talent standard part" of "unified teaching materials, unified syllabus and unified examination". By then, high school education is likely to be no longer just a preparatory class for the college entrance examination as it is now, but a truly comprehensive and free-developing civic education, which will greatly increase the ability education in vocational education, life design and potential tapping.