Reflections on the differences between urban and rural areas in China's basic education reform
China is a populous country, and the rural population accounts for the vast majority of our population. Today, with the vigorous reform of basic education, we have to turn our attention to rural basic education. The great difference between urban and rural areas is a difficult problem for all educators. How to solve the problems such as the investment in rural basic education, the construction of teachers and the people's concept deserves our in-depth consideration. This paper analyzes the causes and concrete manifestations of urban-rural differences, and puts forward some solutions. The raw material of cement floor comes from soil. Being in the city, we can never forget that children in rural areas are waiting for their basic education.
Keywords: basic education, rural education differences
Education is the foundation of rejuvenating the country through science and education, especially basic education. However, there are 900 million people living in rural areas in China. Such a huge number makes us have to pay attention to basic education in rural areas. However, with the rapid economic development today, the geographical location of rural areas has further widened the gap between the rich and the poor between urban and rural areas, and the situation of the poor in rural areas is even more embarrassing. Rural development is facing more problems, and the development of education still depends on the change of rural poverty. This paper is based on the current situation of rural basic education reform in China.
First, the causes of urban-rural differences
1. Investment in basic education: According to relevant data, the management system of compulsory education in rural areas in China is "led by the State Council, with all localities taking responsibility, and managed at different levels, with counties as the mainstay". It has changed the state-run schools and the over-centralized system, and given local governments greater flexibility and autonomy. In terms of education finance, rural compulsory education is based on counties, and teachers' salaries are paid according to national unified standards. In addition to collecting tuition and miscellaneous fees from students, the rest are also budgeted by counties and townships.
But this policy has also brought many problems:
First, the urban economy is developing rapidly and the investment in teaching construction is increasing. The policy of "county-oriented" makes governments at all levels lower the responsibility of education layer by layer, and finally all of them pile up in counties, increasing the burden on counties. However, the county-level governments in rural areas of China have poor finances, which leads to poor investment in rural education. If this vicious circle continues, urban education will throw rural education further and further.
Second, the huge difference in economic development caused by historical and regional reasons has caused the difference in education investment, which in turn has caused the gap in education development. The gap in education development is not only in urban and rural areas, but also in rural areas. With the education budget tilting to the county level, the gap between rural areas has become a "bottleneck" restricting the balanced development of rural basic education in China. This gap has formed a vicious circle. The rural economy is backward and the investment in education is low, so the education development is backward, which leads to the low quality of the population, so the economy cannot develop.
2, the quality of teachers and workers:
First, manage quality. Most of the education management classes in cities have undergone professional education and training, and have the knowledge base, professional quality and practical experience as education management workers. The basic education in rural areas is still the principal responsibility system, and it is difficult for a poor village to find high-quality education managers. Therefore, as principals, most of them are local prestigious old teachers or cadres. Because the rural environment is relatively closed, many expectations for the development of education are pinned on the principal, which increases the risk of a school's development. Once the principal's development policy goes wrong, the whole school will be in a very unfavorable position.
Second, the quality of teachers. In today's new curriculum reform, old urban teachers are further improving their self-cultivation to meet the requirements of the new curriculum reform. New teachers also receive strict training in normal university, accept new teaching concepts and inject fresh blood into the new curriculum. What about rural teachers? According to relevant data, the current situation of rural junior high school teachers is worrying, with outdated educational concepts, aging age and unreasonable knowledge structure. There are more teachers who have changed from the people to the public, more substitute teachers, and more teachers who have been promoted from primary schools, and most of them are unqualified. On average, 42.9% rural teachers can barely complete the teaching task, and 4.4% teachers can't complete the teaching task at all.
Second, the performance of urban-rural differences
Through the inquiry of urban and rural education materials, the results are really emotional.
First of all, in terms of enrollment, the ratio of urban and rural primary school enrollment rate in 2002 is 1:0.75, which is not large on the surface, but considering the different base of school-age children in urban and rural areas, this ratio means that there are 1 100000 children in rural areas who can't go to primary school every year, while in cities, it is1/kloc-.
According to statistics, the number of computers per capita in urban primary schools is five times that in rural areas, while the area of dangerous buildings per capita in rural areas is four times that in cities. In the case of weak school foundation and poor conditions, the public funds and infrastructure funds of rural primary schools are pitiful, while the role of government budget is extremely low, and various transfer payments are even more drop in the bucket. In 2002, the average total expenditure, career expenditure, personal expenditure, public expenditure and infrastructure expenditure of rural primary school students were 82.60%, 83. 1%, 85.96%, 72.27% and 70.83% of the national average respectively. It is worth pointing out that the national average here is obtained on average when rural primary school students account for the vast majority. After the reform of taxes and fees, the contradiction of shortage of funds in rural primary schools has become more prominent.
Get out.
In cities, parents spend a lot of money to choose schools for their children to get a better education. Generally, the school selection fees of key middle schools in provincial-level cities have reached about 30 thousand yuan. According to a survey report in Shanghai, the total cost of raising children aged 0 ~ 16 will reach about 250 thousand yuan only from the direct economic cost. If it is estimated that the family expenditure of children attending colleges and universities is as high as 480,000 yuan. It is estimated that the total cost of unmarried children who do not study before the age of 30 will reach 490,000 yuan. Obviously, such a high investment in education is unbearable for rural families. Another survey report shows that the average education cost of children aged 0 ~ 16 in rural areas of Xianyang, Shaanxi Province is only about 3,000 yuan.
Third, countermeasures.
1. Policy: Without national policy support, rural education has no chance of development. Therefore, to change this remarkable difference between urban and rural areas, we must first change the education policy that has always been biased towards cities. Admitting differences does not mean ignoring them.
It is normal that there are some differences between urban and rural areas, which is convenient for backward areas to learn from to some extent. But once the gap exceeds a certain limit, there will be many problems, especially in the new century, where balanced development is regarded as one of the symbols of social progress. Therefore, the state should take corresponding support and subsidy measures for those areas that are backward due to the lack of history, geography and natural resources.
First of all, the state should give economic support. According to the data, during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period, the special funds for compulsory education projects in poverty-stricken areas and the national poverty alleviation education project established by the state improved the conditions for running a large number of rural primary and secondary schools, but on the whole, it is still an arduous task for the government to increase policy support and economic subsidies for rural compulsory education;
Secondly, the state should advocate higher education to help and cooperate with rural compulsory education, and ask them to provide advanced ideas, knowledge and skills for the development of compulsory education and the reform of management system, so as to change the predicament of backward educational ideas and means in poor areas. In particular, it is necessary to provide high-level teachers for the development of rural compulsory education;
Finally, the state should intensify propaganda, encourage the society to provide information propaganda and material sponsorship for rural compulsory education, use policy guidance to make rural compulsory education open to the outside world, let the outside world know the current situation of rural compulsory education, and contribute to the development and reform of rural compulsory education.
2. Economic input. According to the data, since the implementation of tax and fee reform in rural areas, the government has explicitly prohibited charging various fees to farmers. The Notice of the General Office of the State Council on Improving the Management System of Compulsory Education in Rural Areas clearly stipulates: "The sources of public funds for rural primary and secondary schools shall be arranged by the people's governments at the county and township levels as a whole, except for the miscellaneous fees charged by schools to students according to regulations." However, financial difficulties have always been a restrictive factor affecting the development of rural compulsory education.
Therefore, in addition to state grants and subsidies, firstly, government departments should formulate a strong financial transfer payment policy for compulsory education to meet the compulsory education rights of rural and vulnerable groups of children; Secondly, encourage society, enterprises, organizations and individuals to invest in helping students, and at the same time change the running mode of rural schools, and adopt various forms such as state-run private schools, private schools and private schools to reduce the financial burden of public schools; Finally, compulsory education schools are encouraged to be self-reliant, make use of holidays and local regional resources, and obtain some funds by way of work-study programs and school income generation.
3. Improve the quality of educators.
First, management. We should correct our thinking and constantly improve our management level and professional quality. We should know that our work is related to the all-round development of rural education and is also a very important part of the reform of basic education. In addition, it is necessary to implement principal training and improve the quality of leaders. In rural schools with principal responsibility system, the principal is the soul of school development, which directly affects the school-running behavior and development direction. The principal's school-running thought, management level, leadership style and even the principal's personality characteristics may become the driving force or resistance of the school system reform.
Second, build a team of teachers. Improving the quality and efficiency of education depends on a team of high-quality teachers. Building an excellent team of rural teachers is an urgent task to improve the quality of rural education. In addition to strengthening the training of existing teachers, we should also seriously implement the teacher qualification certification system so that all newly developed teachers have the required qualities. For the distribution of normal college graduates, graduates should be encouraged to support rural education. Moreover, while supplementing the number of teachers as soon as possible, we should also ensure the quality of new teachers and prevent the phenomenon of ignoring quality in order to ensure quantity. More preferential policies should be introduced to attract more normal graduates and qualified teachers in society to teach in rural areas, so as to realize the overall optimization of the teaching staff.
4. Democratic supervision. Countless facts show that all power needs supervision, otherwise it will easily lead to arbitrariness and even corruption. It is unreliable to hope for self-discipline, and the rights of principals should also be supervised.
5. Change the concept of rural people and attach importance to education. Due to economic backwardness, most rural families advocate that their children go out to work. It's no use going to school. It's common to come back to earn money. To shorten the educational gap between urban and rural areas, it is necessary to urbanize the concept of rural people. Let them understand the importance of education and the complementary relationship between education and economic development. Getting the support of parents is an important condition for the development of rural education.
Among the differences in basic education reform, the difference between urban and rural areas is the most difficult to solve, but it is also the most important. In addition to the above, there are many more specific tasks to be completed, "a century-long plan, education-oriented." We must attach great importance to the current rural education. Our education policy should reflect the educational requirements of rural areas, formulate the best development goals and strategies from the aspects of backward rural economy, unfavorable educational situation and closed environment, and realize the fundamental task of rural education, so as to promote China's agricultural modernization and realize socialist modernization.