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China Education Pioneer Network April 9, 2003 Author: Fan
(xi An Si Yuan College Shaanxi Xi An 7 10038)
"The government has the responsibility to invest in education, but it does not have to run schools." This is the winner of 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics; Milton friedman, the most influential American economist after World War II, has always advocated. In Friedman's view, government monopoly and insufficient competition are the primary reasons for the low quality of running schools. In a paper entitled "The Role of Government in Education" in 1955, he proposed the voucher system-the voucher system, and suggested that competition should be introduced into the public school system to realize the survival of the fittest in the flow of vouchers, so as to eradicate the "excessive centralization" of public schools and appropriately curb the growth of educational bureaucracy. 〔 1〕
What is an education voucher? Education voucher means that the government converts education funds into a certain number of securities and sends them to every student. Parents and students can choose their own schools with different charging standards, and the insufficient part is paid by themselves, which is no longer limited by school districts or school categories. The school will exchange the education vouchers collected with the government's cash to pay for running the school. Therefore, schools compete with each other for students, and striving for students means striving for more government education funds, so we should strive to improve the quality of education. An open and free education market will certainly improve the efficiency and benefit of the school. So as to make the whole education system more dynamic and fairer. 〔2〕
Changxing County, Zhejiang Province is the first region in China to implement the innovation of education voucher system in secondary education, which is of far-reaching practical significance for China to seek educational equity and introduce market competition mechanism in schools with different public and private systems. The education voucher system can be introduced into secondary education, which is also feasible for higher education in China. How to reflect the rationality of fair competition in higher education? Make private colleges and local public colleges and universities entering the general higher education series on the same starting line? This is the problem to be discussed in this paper.
Higher Education —— The Last Hereditary Territory under China's Planned Economy System
1. The expansion of higher education demand and the serious shortage of government investment
Today, with the high development of information technology characterized by knowledge economy, the demand for higher education is increasing day by day, but the public education expenditure has been difficult to support, thus making the popularization of higher education, the contradiction between popularization and insufficient government investment become a worldwide topic. In this process, most countries have taken measures to develop private higher education.
China's higher education has expanded dramatically since 1999. In 200 1 year, the number of midwives in colleges and universities nationwide reached about130,000, an increase of nearly 90% compared with 1998, and the average size of colleges and universities (full-time undergraduates) reached about 6,000, with a ratio of 1998. The ratio of students to teachers in colleges and universities reaches 18: 1 (calculated by the number of students), which is more than 60% higher than 1998. 〔3〕
Such a speed of development has improved the situation of insufficient development of higher education in China. However, the overall development level of higher education is still low. At present, the gross enrollment rate of universities in China is only 13.3%, which is lower than the average level of developing countries and far below the level of 40.2% in developed countries. The proportion of education funds in GDP has been hovering around 3%, far below the average level of 4.3% in developing countries. In recent years, the government of China has clearly put forward the development strategies of "rejuvenating the country through science and education" and "popularizing higher education". To achieve this goal, it is difficult to solve the contradiction between supply and demand of education for a long time to come only by government financial investment. Privatization of education is a major trend of education development in the world. Private colleges and universities in China should make great achievements in the popularization of higher education.
2. A brief history of modern private higher education in China.
Like the development history of private higher education in the world, modern private higher education in China has also written a brilliant chapter. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, China's private higher education went from Wenhua University, the first missionary university established by western countries such as 187 1 to Nanyang Public College (predecessor of Jiaotong University), Tianjin Chinese and Western School (predecessor of Tianjin University), Zhonghua Public College and Fudan University, the pioneer of Chinese private universities in the late Qing Dynasty, to the cultivation of "national spirit and master's degree" in the early Republic of China. [4] On the eve of liberation, China's private colleges and universities have developed to account for 39% of the total number of colleges and universities, accounting for 3 1.4% of the total number of college students. At present, a number of first-class famous universities in China, such as Fudan University, Jiaotong University, Tianjin University, Nankai University and Xiamen University, are all private universities.
In the early days of liberation, due to historical policies, the number of private colleges and universities decreased sharply in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. 1956 after the socialist transformation was basically completed, all private colleges and universities were nationalized. After the founding of the People's Republic of China for more than 30 years, there has been a state of "only officials have learned, and the people have no learning". University education continued the planned economic system in which state-owned finance paid tuition fees, graduates were uniformly distributed by the state, and all funds for running public schools were allocated by the state until 1997 merged. Private higher education, which started in the mid-1980s, is only a self-taught student-aided unit outside the national education system and has no status at all. Folklore research is struggling to survive in the gap between planned economy and market economy. This kind of higher education system under the planned economy system for decades has bound people's thoughts and formed a firm mindset in the nearly 20 years after the reform and opening up.
3. Higher education-the last hereditary territory under the planned economy system in China.
With the popularization of higher education from elite education to popular education, there has been a precedent in the world to solve the contradiction between supply and demand of insufficient funds for higher education, that is, to develop private higher education (that is, private higher education). Privatization of education is a major trend in the development of education in the world today. Private higher education has held up a blue sky abroad, such as the United States, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and other private institutions of higher learning accounting for more than 60%. Over the years, most famous universities are private universities. World-class universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Plymouth University, Waseda University and Keio University are all private universities.
China's private higher education started with the higher education self-study examination in 1980s, and came into being in 2003 1 month when the Private Education Promotion Law was not promulgated. It was born in the debate of "surname capital or surname society" and survived in the "white eyes" of society and people. Up to now, although there are a number of private universities with more than 10,000 people, such as Huanghe University of Science and Technology, Xi 'an Translation Institute and Xi 'an Siyuan College, there are still more than 100 private universities that have entered the national unified recruitment series, especially more than a dozen well-known private universities with 10,000 people. Their teachers' strength, scale, teaching facilities, teaching quality and teaching management are not inferior to those of ordinary colleges and universities promoted by local finance and piled up by the state with a large amount of funds. However, these well-known private colleges and universities do not enjoy the generous treatment of local ordinary colleges and universities in terms of policies, enrollment and funds. When entering the national unified recruitment series, the word "private" must be marked to distinguish it from the national public colleges and universities. This kind of identity discrimination can be seen everywhere.
In some provinces, the author learned such a situation. Some public adult colleges, night universities, staff universities and technical secondary schools with poor enrollment are as shabby as quadrangles, with few students and few teaching staff. Under the banner of state-owned public higher vocational education, or several schools are merged, or a single primary school with only one or two hundred students has become a junior college and a higher vocational school. Some managers and teachers add up to no less than students. Just because they are changed to higher vocational colleges, the teaching staff can continue to enjoy the education funds and wages allocated by the state. No one knows how much local protectionism under this planned economy system has cost our limited education funds. What kind of junior college students can such local colleges train under the banner of college enrollment expansion? The generous treatment enjoyed by such local colleges and universities is beyond the reach of famous private colleges and universities that have worked hard for many years and have no state investment. National first-class key universities and provincial key universities should invest more and focus more. However, the financial allocation system of ordinary local colleges and universities is actually protecting backwardness, and the limited education funds continue to support the vicious operation of such colleges and universities that should have been eliminated. This is a manifestation of the unfairness of higher education, which shows that the operation of higher education in China cannot get rid of the shadow of the planned economic system. Higher education is still the last hereditary territory under the planned economy system.
Education Voucher —— An Innovative System for Pursuing the Fairness of Higher Education
Private colleges and universities in China have developed in an inferior environment and unfair competition environment. Whether it is the Yellow River Institute of Science and Technology, which has the qualification of enrolling students in ordinary colleges and universities and accumulated hundreds of millions of assets for many years, or Xi 'an Siyuan College, which started with 500,000 shares and accumulated nearly 200 million fixed assets, the state has not invested a penny, but it has developed to some places far beyond the scale and quality of ordinary colleges and universities, fully demonstrating the power of educational innovation mechanism.
Milton Milton friedman believes that the government's financial support for public schools leads to the monopoly position of public schools, which is contrary to competition and leads to the low quality and efficiency of public education; On the other hand, public schools naturally receive financial support from the government, and it is easy to ignore quality and efficiency. The theory of education voucher is his countermeasure to solve the problems of education quality and efficiency. The positive significance of the original theory of education voucher lies in frankly acknowledging the objective educational competition. [5]
However, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, under the planned economy system, homogeneous public universities, unified teaching syllabus and unified examination-oriented education standards have created a talent group with little difference. Public institutions of higher learning have no competitors, and all education funds are supported by finance. For decades, no one has been trained as a Nobel Prize winner. There is not a world-class university in a vast country. It's time for us to review the shortcomings of the higher education system in the whole country.
Private education in China is still a vulnerable group, which is far from the relaxed environment of foreign private universities. In foreign private universities, tuition income only accounts for a small part of school education funds, and the rest is funded by the government and enjoys the same treatment as public universities; Second, donations from large social enterprise groups; The third is to generate income from school-run industries. As China is a developing country, the scale benefit of large enterprise groups is far from that of developed countries in Europe and America. Therefore, it is not feasible for private colleges and universities to rely on donations from enterprise groups in the short term. Only by tuition income can we accumulate and develop ourselves. Obviously, this is on a very unfair competition line with the strong support of public universities relying on national education funds. The government does not distinguish the advantages and disadvantages of all ordinary colleges and universities, but implements financial support, which actually plays a role in protecting backward colleges and universities and limiting the development of excellent private colleges and universities.
Since Changxing County, Zhejiang Province and other regions have introduced the education voucher system in secondary education, China's higher education can also try out the education voucher system. The education funds allocated by the state finance to local universities (excluding national key universities and provincial key universities) are distributed in the form of education vouchers, so that students who enter the college entrance examination score line can freely choose universities according to their grades. Then the development of public colleges and universities will be like the development of private colleges and universities. In the competition, some public universities will get better and better, and the growth of educational litigation bureaucracy will be curbed. Due to the implementation of education vouchers, some excellent ordinary private colleges and universities will also receive financial support from the state with reasonable strength and quality. Then ordinary colleges and universities with low quality and poor environmental conditions under the protection of local planned economic system will be eliminated naturally and will no longer occupy the scarce education funds allocated by the state. For such schools, or by the merger and reorganization of better colleges and private colleges, the model of Wanli College organized by Zhejiang Wan Li Group is adopted. Or auction state-owned assets, and faculty members are laid off and distributed like employees of large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises. In that way, all ordinary universities (excluding national key universities and provincial key universities) and private universities will compete fairly on the same starting line. Therefore, education voucher is not only an institutional innovation to achieve fairness in secondary education, but also an innovative model to seek fairness in higher education.
Once China's private universities and local universities stand on the same competitive starting line, a few years later, China's private higher education will form a win-win outcome with a number of outstanding public universities. Fudan University, Xiamen University, Nankai University and other former first-class private universities reappeared, recasting the glory of China's private higher education standing among the nations of the world.
refer to
[1] compiled by Li Mao. Friedman: Competition will bring more good schools. Teacher China. 2003. 1. 1.A3 version
[2] Education voucher: seeking free market and education equity. Vocational and technical education. 2002 (no 27)
[3] Wu Tianjun. How to get out of the predicament of higher education? Research on educational development. 2003 (No.1)
[4] Wang. History of Chinese and foreign educational management. Hunan Normal University Press. September 2000 (issues 8 and 9)
[5] Wen Xinhua et al.: Analysis of Education Voucher. Research on educational development. 2003 (No.1)
Higher education is fair, the gap between urban and rural areas is improving, and the class gap is prominent.
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