The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) recently announced that it will carry out a nationwide special inspection of education fees from mid-September to the end of February, which has aroused great concern in society. With the hope of readers, the reporter interviewed the person in charge of the Price Supervision and Inspection and Anti-monopoly Bureau of the National Development and Reform Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Price Supervision Bureau) on this special inspection of education fees. ?
Reporter: Could you please tell us about the decision-making background of this special inspection of education fees? ?
Person in charge of price supervision bureau: it is the key work of the price department to control unreasonable charges in education. Since 2003, our Committee has deployed a national special inspection of education fees every autumn. After years of governance, the behavior of unreasonable charges in education has been curbed to some extent, and some problems of unreasonable charges have been basically solved. ?
On the other hand, however, we should also see that the masses' reaction to the problem of arbitrary charges in education is still very strong, mainly because the phenomenon of arbitrary charges such as donations linked to enrollment and enrollment has been repeatedly banned, and even intensified in some large and medium-sized cities; At the same time, some local governance work is still not consolidated, and the deep-seated contradiction of education fees is constantly exposed, and the pressure of arbitrary charges cannot be ignored. ?
In order to implement the Opinions of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection on the Division of Work of Central and State Organs in Implementing the Anti-corruption Work Deployment in 20 13, and according to the work arrangement of the National Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on the Control of Arbitrary Charges in Education for 20 13, our commission will continue to deploy and carry out the national special inspection of education fees this fall, with the aim of strictly implementing the national education fee policy, promoting education fairness and earnestly safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of students and parents. ?
Reporter: What are the key rectification objectives of this work and what problems are mainly solved? ?
Person in charge of Price Supervision Bureau: The scope of this year's special inspection of education fees includes the charging behavior of schools and education authorities at all levels since the beginning of the fall of 20 12, focusing on rectifying the following five problems:
First, donations are linked to admission. The national policy has repeatedly emphasized and reiterated that it is strictly forbidden for local governments, relevant units and schools to collect donations linked to enrollment in any name. However, in large and medium-sized cities, some high-quality schools and kindergartens charge fees linked to enrollment and enrollment in the form of "voluntary donations". ?
Second, it violates the policy of "one subject and one supplement" in primary and secondary schools. The Notice of the Ministry of Education and other four departments on Strengthening the Management of the Use of Auxiliary Teaching Materials in Primary and Secondary Schools stipulates that only 1 set of auxiliary teaching materials can be selected for each edition of a subject, that is, "one subject and one auxiliary". ?
Judging from the situation reflected in various places, this policy has not been well implemented in some places. There are many cases of "two supplements in one subject" and "more supplements in one subject", and the behavior of ordering teaching materials beyond the list of evaluation announcements is also more prominent. This special inspection will comprehensively check the implementation of the policy of "one subject and one supplement" in primary and secondary schools, strictly implement the policy, and effectively reduce the financial burden of parents of students.
The third is to collect tuition fees, sponsorship fees and other arbitrary charges for the children of migrant workers. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to migrant workers' groups and issued a series of documents to guarantee their children's legal rights to receive compulsory education. In violation of national policies and regulations, some localities and schools charge migrant workers' children tuition fees that have been explicitly cancelled, sponsorship fees linked to enrollment that have been explicitly prohibited, and educational donations in various names. ?
Fourth, service charges and agency charges are not standardized. At present, there are still many problems in service fees and agency fees, such as self-supporting project fees, continuing to charge for projects that should be exempted, and violating the principles of voluntariness and non-profit. For example, some schools charge "military training fees" for self-supporting projects, and some schools continue to waive fees for freshmen's first card application and library computer service fees. ?
Fifth, colleges and universities raise tuition fees in disguise. Some colleges and universities ignore the requirements of the state to stabilize the tuition standard of colleges and universities, and increase the tuition standard without authorization by confusing the professional categories, which increases the economic burden of students. For example, in last year's inspection, it was found that some colleges and universities confused the classification level of art majors and charged tuition fees for the second and third majors according to the higher standards of the first major. ?
Reporter: How to carry out the inspection of education fees? ?
Person in charge of the Price Supervision Bureau: The special inspection of education fees is uniformly deployed by our Committee, and implemented by local price departments at all levels. Our Committee requires that all localities should sort out the investigation and handling of special inspection cases and reported cases in recent years, systematically analyze the main problems existing in local education fees, formulate inspection plans according to local conditions, and carry out inspections mainly through effective methods such as checking the next level and cross-checking. In the fourth quarter, our Committee will supervise and inspect the education fees in key places together with relevant departments. ?
Reporter: How to establish and improve a long-term mechanism to control unreasonable charges in education? ?
Person in charge of the Price Supervision Bureau: In combination with the work responsibilities and the deployment of the Outline of the National Medium-and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan (20 10-2020), in the next step, the price authorities at all levels will continue to strengthen the publicity of education charging policies, seriously investigate and deal with arbitrary charges in education, expose typical cases of arbitrary charges, and standardize the order of education charging. ?
Recently, in order to improve the long-term mechanism for investigating and handling price violations, according to the instructions of the leaders of our Committee, our Committee is building a 12358 price reporting management information system linked by the central, provincial, municipal and county levels, realizing the informationization of receiving, sorting, classifying and handling clues of price and fee reporting cases, supervising all major price violations, and quickly handling reported cases of arbitrary charges in education according to law, which is convenient for students and parents to inquire.
Should we start with the root causes to rectify the unreasonable charges in education?
Over the years, unreasonable charges for education have been a strong social problem. The problem of arbitrary charges has been strictly investigated for many years, but it has been banned. Nine-year compulsory education exempts students from tuition and miscellaneous fees, but the financial burden of students' families has not been alleviated. The reasons for the repeated prohibition of education fees are intriguing. ?
The fundamental problem of unreasonable charges in education is that the power operation of education management and resource allocation is neither open and transparent nor objective and fair, so it is developed.
There are two kinds of irregular charging behaviors:?
One is passive charging behavior. For example, some schools in remote rural areas and private schools that mainly accept migrant workers' children and left-behind children, although performing the functions of compulsory education, rarely receive financial and related policy support from the government. In order to maintain normal operation, these schools have to charge fees illegally. ?
The other is active charging behavior, which is due to the irregular operation of government power, resulting in uneven distribution of educational resources between schools, which in turn leads to school selection problems and various arbitrary charges linked to further studies. The root of this problem lies in the lack of fairness in the operation of administrative power and the process of resource allocation related to education, but years of governance have not touched this problem, and its effect can be imagined. ?
Therefore, the key to control unreasonable charges in education is to supervise the operation of relevant powers, make them open and transparent, and gradually realize objectivity and justice. At present, the pre-evaluation of educational financial investment in some places is a positive effort at the macro level. ?
Microscopically, the right of schools to choose students in compulsory education should be completely abolished. Theoretically speaking, in the stage of compulsory education, public schools perform their statutory duties and have no right to criticize students; Judging from the reality, it is precisely because some powerful schools have the privilege of choosing "young to small" or "early" that a series of interest chains such as class occupation, co-construction of students, Olympic Mathematics, tutoring and school selection have been derived, which has led to arbitrary charges. ?
More crucially, while abolishing the school's "right to choose a school", the education authorities must establish a perfect enrollment allocation scheme based on the principle of nearest admission, so that students and parents can have the right to choose a school within a certain range. ?
To sum up, only by letting public power really run in the sun can we completely change the embarrassing situation that the effect of controlling unreasonable charges in education is not obvious for many years.