First, the "educational industrialization" theoretical debate
The theory of educational industrialization is not "evil". Under the planned system, for a long time, we only emphasized the publicity and public welfare of education, and then thought that education could only be held by government investment, which formed an embarrassing situation of state monopoly and arranged education. The introduction of educational economics and human capital theory makes us realize that education is both public and private. Higher education and vocational education in the non-compulsory education stage provide a quasi-public product, the public part is purchased by the government and the private part is purchased by the beneficiaries as an individual's self-investment. In providing educational services, the relationship between schools and students is also transactional. For the country, education is not only a public welfare undertaking, but also a strategic industry with high economic return. The development of education needs to break the closure, introduce market competition mechanism and establish diversified funding channels.
The reform in developed countries from 65438 to 0980, and recently in Japan, is called "marketization of higher education", that is, by introducing market mechanism to change the governance mode of excessive government intervention, enhance the ability of colleges and universities to adapt to market demand, and improve the efficiency and effect of education. Its main contents include: reducing the proportion of state-government investment in higher education funds, and increasing the investment of non-state (including markets, individuals and families) in higher education; Strengthen the connection between higher education and private economic sectors and business circles; Strengthen the role of private higher education institutions.
In the statistical classification of many international organizations, education is classified as "service industry" and "tertiary industry". In 1992 "Decision on Accelerating the Development of the Tertiary Industry" issued by the Central Committee and the State Council, education is clearly listed as the tertiary industry, which is "a basic industry with overall and leading influence on the development of the national economy". The "Decision" proposes to establish a dynamic self-development mechanism with industrialization as the direction, and adhere to the principle of who invests, who owns and who benefits. The tertiary industry includes the education industry. The viewpoint of advocating educational industrialization takes it as the most important argument. The basic attitude of China's education authorities is to recognize that education has industrial attributes, especially higher education, vocational education and study abroad education in the non-compulsory education stage. However, from the perspective of maintaining the public welfare of education, we oppose the mention of "educational industrialization" and think that the so-called "transformation" means out and out.
Today, with the development of market economy, education has a certain industrial nature. It should be said that some ideas such as introducing some market mechanisms into education to enhance vitality, improve efficiency, and share part of education costs by individuals have been generally accepted by society. Whether we support or oppose "educational industrialization", we all have the knowledge of * * *, and the debate mainly lies in the understanding of "industrialization" and "non-industrialization" of educational industry. I don't think this kind of dispute over words actually has greater theoretical significance, but it weakens our actual concern about this process.
Although our official policy does not mention "education industrialization", in fact, the problem of "industrialization" is serious, which is not found in countries with a high degree of marketization. The realistic fate of a theory is not determined by discussion or attitude, but by realistic social demand, value orientation and interest game.
Secondly, the reality of "educational industrialization" is manifested in the fact level, and there are different views on which behaviors and contents belong to "educational industrialization". When we use this word, our meanings are actually different.
In a narrow sense, it mainly refers to enterprises, science and technology and service-run industries organized by schools. School-enterprise in primary and secondary schools declined after a period of popularity in1980s. Under the atmosphere of1990s, colleges and universities set off an upsurge of running schools and enterprises. There used to be many companies and teachers going to sea, which was a great sight. By the end of 2000, there were nearly 2 100 scientific and technological enterprises in nearly 400 colleges and universities in China. By the end of 20001,there were 33 listed companies in colleges and universities in China, including 29 listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen, with a total market value accounting for about 3% of the total market value in Shenzhen and Shanghai.
The fact behind this achievement is that there are only a handful of enterprises like Founder of Peking University and Tongfang of Tsinghua. Most school-run enterprises are unprofitable, and colleges and universities feel that the risks are huge and unprofitable. Due to the irregular operation of enterprises, the distinction between schools and enterprises and unclear property rights, it is difficult for schools and enterprises to ride a tiger. In particular, the conflict between corporate culture and campus culture, the erosion of university spirit by commercial value and the distortion of educational behavior are very obvious, which have affected the normal teaching and scientific research order in colleges and universities. From August, 20001year, Peking University and Tsinghua University carried out the pilot reform of school-enterprise system, made clear the relationship between schools and enterprises, and finally completely separated. Announce the end of this policy.
The development of education industry also refers to the development of private education, development education and training, study abroad education and other education markets. Indeed, private education should have been the most important and main force in the industrialization of education. Although private education has made great progress in recent ten years, it is still very weak. In 2002, private primary school students only accounted for1.83% of the total number of primary school students in China; Private ordinary middle school students account for 0.9%, and vocational middle school students account for 1.25%. There are 320,000 students in private colleges and universities who are qualified to issue academic diplomas, accounting for only 2.2% of the total number of college students; Even if all kinds of students in private higher education institutions (including a large number of tutors who failed in the college entrance examination) are counted, it only accounts for 9.6%. Compared with the scale and level in 1950, it is almost incomparable with other developing countries and developed countries. Private education lacks a policy environment of equal competition with public schools, and its property rights are unclear and difficult to guarantee, which has become an important problem restricting the development of private education.
In a broad sense, educational industrialization generally refers to various measures to expand educational resources by market means and "manage" education by market mechanism. Among them, the most prominent is to raise education funds and pay university fees through various channels. The popularization of nine-year compulsory education in rural areas of China is mainly supported by raising funds to run schools. The so-called "people teach and run by the people", farmers pay the bill themselves.
In recent years, with the reform of rural taxes and fees and the implementation of the "one-fee system" in schools, compulsory education in many places has fallen into an unsustainable and unprecedented predicament. 1997, the national colleges and universities realized the merger of "public students" and "self-funded students". The tuition standard of colleges and universities has risen rapidly from 198 to 1000 yuan, and now it is more than 4000-5000 yuan. Plus other expenses and living expenses, the actual expenditure of college students is much higher, which is roughly equivalent to one employee in a city. As a result, there are "poor students" who account for about 20% of the total number of college students. Every year, parents commit suicide because they can't afford tuition. Although the state has five ways to help poor students: award, loan, diligence, reduction and supplement, for various reasons, it is difficult to popularize the subsidy method with the national student loan as the main body.
It is not difficult to understand that the development of education industry in recent years has its positive value, such as the expansion of education and training capacity, the improvement of efficiency, the diversification of educational funding sources, the formation of educational services and educational consumption concepts, the emergence of educational market and educational selectivity, and the establishment of new relationships between schools and governments, society and students.
But the disadvantages and costs of this process are equally huge. The huge market formed by the shortage of educational resources is connected with the outdated and backward system, and various "rent-seeking" activities have appeared, resulting in distorted educational behavior and countless educational corruptions. All kinds of "reform schools" with vague values and property rights, such as "private schools" and "public schools", "school lieutenant colonel" and "secondary colleges" that implement "one school, two systems". Use state-owned resources and famous brands to make big money. The erosion of schools and education by social corruption, the successive cases of college entrance examination fraud, academic plagiarism and diploma flooding, the gradually institutionalized transaction of rights and money, the artificial "school-choosing fever" and huge "school-choosing fees", and the serious arbitrary charges for education have led to changes in the functions and appearance of schools, and the social image and credibility of education have been seriously affected. The strong criticism and denial of "educational industrialization" by public opinion is based on this broadest understanding, that is, all kinds of strange things and chaos caused by school management and income generation are attributed to "educational industrialization". Because the education industry and the marketization of higher education have specific connotations in theory, I prefer to attribute the above disadvantages to the consequences of the reform of "single financial perspective", which is what we need to understand and analyze in particular at present.
Third, thinking about the educational reform from the perspective of "single finance"
Under the background of serious shortage of education funds, the education department has been carrying out a reform called "financial perspective" or "economic route" for many years. Its main motivation is to make up for the shortage of education funds, and its excitement focuses on income generation, management, restructuring, listing, property rights, marketization and other issues, with growth and efficiency as the main pursuit, while paying little attention to education fairness and quality. To a large extent, economic discourse. So there is such a strong contrast in real life: on the one hand, the number and scale of education have increased, and people's opportunities for education have increased significantly; At the same time, education is becoming more and more expensive and luxurious, and enjoying "quality education" is increasingly becoming a contest between money and power. On the one hand, the development of education at all levels reached the best level in history; At the same time, the imbalance of educational value, the anomie of educational behavior and the deterioration of educational quality have made the public's evaluation of education fall to the lowest point in 20 years.
The limitations and consequences of "single financial perspective" education reform have been highlighted. Therefore, we need to reflect deeply, re-understand the basic laws and values of education development and reform, and understand the educational function and behavior orientation of the government in the market environment.
1. The healthy development of education must adhere to the people-oriented educational concept and safeguard the basic value of educational equity.
With the increasingly close relationship between schools and society, education and economy under the market economy environment, preventing and preventing the alienation of market value to educational function and value, and maintaining the humanity, fairness and purity of education have become the basic challenges facing education at present. We can't help but see that the pressure of some schools being forced to generate income is becoming the driving force for taking the initiative to make profits and forming a certain interest group (the recent enrollment scandal of Beihang University is an example-editor's note). In the educational activities with economic interests as the main pursuit, some places regard key schools as the source of local finance; Through government intervention, many places set up expensive "key schools" and "demonstration schools" completely divorced from China's national conditions (it often takes tens of millions, 100 million, 200 million or more to build a high school), and passed on the debts to the parents of students at high fees. Similarly, if the profit of private education is unreasonable, is it allowed for public schools with high-quality resources to make large-scale profits with government funds?
We need to re-examine the gradually forgotten educational objectives and policies, understand the moral basis of modern education system and education policy, and understand the essential functions of compulsory education and public schools. We need to reaffirm the educational values, especially the values of social justice and educational equity, which are the fruits of human civilization and followed by all countries in the world, so as to avoid the educational reform falling into an arrogant and mercenary value vacuum.
2. Clarify the orientation of the government's educational function.
The most important educational responsibility of the government is to fulfill the obligation of implementing compulsory education according to law; The most important function of education is to establish and maintain the educational order under the market environment, and to ensure educational fairness through measures such as financial transfer payment. The reality of insufficient education funds for many years is the fundamental reason for forcing schools to fend for themselves and education to take the road of "industrialization" The fundamental way to solve the crisis of educational funds is for the government to undertake its own educational obligations. Deng Xiaoping once said, "We should try our best to be patient in other aspects, even at the expense of a little speed to solve the education problem". This is one of Comrade Xiaoping's last wishes that have not really come true so far. Ensuring the investment in education funds, even reducing some economic growth rates, and doing a good job in compulsory education and rural education are all important contents.
The basic value of modern national education policy and the main function of the government are to promote and guarantee educational equity, almost without exception. Education cannot "rob the poor to help the rich", and no government takes supporting the strong, creating and widening the gap as its education policy. It is a typical anti-education behavior to artificially create and expand the gap between schools with inclined policies, transplant the idea of bubble real estate development, and regard building luxurious and expensive "quality education" as a political achievement project and a vested interest. We should truly implement the principle of balanced basic education, not just as a fashionable slogan.
3. The fundamental way to improve the efficiency of education is to reform the allocation of macro educational resources.
The "educational industrialization", which aims at improving educational efficiency and expanding educational resources, is bound to be abnormal and unhealthy if it does not liberalize educational resources at the high-end and macro levels, break the government monopoly, disperse the crisis to the terminal and "invigorate" schools and teachers at the micro level. The fundamental way to improve the efficiency of education is to break the monopoly of educational resources, attract social funds to education, make education a cause in which the whole society participates, establish an institutional environment for fair competition between private education and public education, and promote the benign development of private education.
Besides, no country can monopolize and monopolize higher education. As many scholars have suggested, in the case of limited education funds, a feasible choice is for the government to concentrate on running a number of excellent colleges and universities, let some colleges and universities change their systems, and use the surplus of government education funds to support compulsory education.
4. To improve the efficiency and quality of education, we must promote the reform of education management system.
The government has taken on too many responsibilities, and the disadvantages of administrative management and the will of the chief executive in educational decision-making are serious. Combined with the distorted education market, it can easily become a hotbed of education corruption. Therefore, we must make the educational reform go beyond the pure financial perspective and enter a more substantive reform of the management system and school-running system. In the current institutional environment, promoting the reform of management system, reducing redundant staff and government, and establishing democratic management with open information and social participation can not only effectively reduce education costs and improve efficiency; It is also an important way to improve the quality of education and promote educational equity in the market environment.
(The author is a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology)