Previously, nationwide, only a few places provided 12 years of free education for disabled students or orphans.
Zhuhai ranks first in China. Doing so not only blocked a charging channel, but also increased the financial burden of the government. The vision, courage and courage of Zhuhai Municipal Government are admirable.
A long time ago, some scholars suggested that popularizing 12 education should be the new goal of national education development; In 2005, Xie Hongguang, senior statistician of the National Bureau of Statistics, suggested amending the Compulsory Education Law, extending the nine-year compulsory education to 12 and making it free. At the National People's Congress in recent years, the issue of 12 free compulsory education was repeatedly mentioned by the deputies. But it never happened.
According to the report of the Asian Development Bank, more than 70 countries and regions in the world have achieved free compulsory education. Most developed countries have popularized 12 years of free compulsory education and are moving towards 15 years of free compulsory education. Even in underdeveloped countries, 12 years of free compulsory education is becoming a reality. For example, Cuba's education expenditure accounts for 6.3% of GDP. Even in the most difficult times, it still implements 12 years of compulsory education, and the school not only does not accept students. Many poor African countries have also implemented 12 free compulsory education.
The economic strength of Cuba and many poor African countries is extremely poor. Then, after decades of rapid economic development, China's national strength is getting stronger and stronger, and there is no reason why it can't be done. At present, nine-year free compulsory education is being fully implemented. Then, should 12 year free compulsory education also be put on the discussion agenda? If it can be realized, it will be of great significance to the development of the country and the fairness of society.
The implementation of 12-year free compulsory education can alleviate or even eliminate educational injustice.
The biggest beneficiaries are the children of low-income families in rural and urban areas, which will alleviate the unfair education and the related widening income gap. To narrow the income gap, we must first narrow the education gap and ensure that the next generation receives education as equally as possible. This is a basic right to development and a basic human right.
The implementation of 12 year free compulsory education can improve the quality of children from low-income families in urban and rural areas as a whole. Research shows that the rate of return on education is about 50% higher than that on physical capital investment. Some scholars estimate that the return rate of human capital investment in China may be as high as 30% to 40%. Considering that education can change the quality of the people and enhance social harmony and cohesion, the return will be higher. According to the Outline of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Education Development, in 2005, there were 40,309,500 students in ordinary high schools nationwide, with a gross enrollment rate of only 52.7%. It shows that many children are pushed into the job market after graduating from junior high school, and this phenomenon obviously needs to be changed.
Popularizing 12 years of free education and taking high school and secondary vocational education as "preparatory classes" before children enter the society can not only greatly improve the quality of the people, but also actively promote educational reform, so that the college entrance examination is no longer the only baton of junior high school education and promote educational modernization.
According to experts' analysis, assuming that all school-age children can enter school according to law, the average annual compulsory education cost for each primary school, junior high school and senior high school student is 500 yuan, 1.000 yuan and 1.500 yuan respectively. According to data, in 2006, the cost of compulsory education in China was about 226 billion yuan. Last year, the national fiscal revenue was nearly 4 trillion. It can be said that financial affordability is not the fundamental problem to realize national 12 free education. The fundamental question is: How determined are we? How well do you know this?