Removing barriers to Education For All: What

1
Removing barriers to Education For All Whats
new and notable China Case

• Prof. Zhou Mansheng
• Deputy
  Director-General
• National Center for Education
  Development
• Research of China

2
Overview

• 1. The overall Progress in meeting the EFA
  goals Concepts, Achievements
• 2. The education system Administration, Finance
• 3. Key policies and good practices
• 4. Foreseen challenges and the plan in
  education beyond 2020

3
The overall Progress in meeting the EFA goals
Concepts, Achievements

• Concepts (p1)
• Basic education is the cornerstone of the
  national education system, the key to increase
  the comprehensive national strength and to
  improve citizens quality, the foundation of
  social justice and a humorous society, and an
  important way to eliminate poverty.

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Concepts (p2)

• The main objectives
• to improve the overall quality of the labor
  force continuously,
• to increase the strength and competitiveness of
  the nation ,
• to shift from a big country in term of its huge
  population to a powerful country in term of its
  advanced education system.
• There should be five principles
• A giving priority to development.
• B taking the cultivation of people as the
  starting
• point.
• C carrying out reform and innovation.
• D promoting equity.
• E improving quality.

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Achievements (p1)

• In 2009, 99.5 counties in China, which had 99.7
  of the total population, realized the goal of
  basically popularizing the 9-year compulsory
  education and basically eliminating illiteracy
  among youth and mid-aged population. The net
  enrollment rate for children of primary school
  age rose further to 99.40.

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Achievements (p2)

• Enrollment gap between boys and girls has been
  closed. The national gross enrollment rate of
  lower- and upper- secondary school reached 100
  and 82.5 respectively in 2010.
• The average years of schooling of the population
  above 15-year-old is 8.7 years now, 3.5 years
  higher than the figure in 1982, and the average
  years of schooling of the newly added labors has
  exceeded 11.5.

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2. The education system Administration,
Finance

• The Administrative Division in China
• Ministry of Education
• law, plan, policy, supervision
• Provinces
• local policy, evaluation
• Counties
• major responsibility, and managed mainly by
  county-level governments.
• Towns
• implementation

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A balanced system

• Chinas economic and finance system reforms moved
  toward decentralization and the education finance
  and management system followed suit. Chinas
  approach has been to seek a balanced system of
  decentralization with both shared responsibility
  and costs across levels of government.

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Finance

• Improved budget allocations.
• Increased revenues in Chinas financial progress
  .
• Total public funding for compulsory education
  increasing.
• Total public funding is the direct and indirect
  funding for education provided by all levels of
  government .
• Public funding per student in compulsory
  education increasing .
• Central government proportion of total education
  spending increasing .

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Brief Summary

• Chinas experience may provide valuable lessons
  on designing effective strategies for
  decentralized education management, ensuring
  adequate funding for compulsory education. It
  reflects clear central level commitment and the
  shifting of responsibilities to upper levels of
  government increased central revenues and
  targeted assistance to local governments and
  increased oversight with accompanying
  accountability measures.

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3. Key policies and good practices

• Recent policies and measuresFocus to solve the
  rural education problems in depressed areas by
  key projects and committed investment. A series
  of projects, such as A.the National Project of
  Depressed Area Compulsory Education, B. the Rural
  Primary and Secondary Schools Dilapidated
  Building Renovation Project, C.the Western Area
  Two-basic Universality Breakthrough Project,
  D.the Rural Primary and Secondary Boarding
  Schools Project, E.Project of Modern Distance
  Education in Rural Primary and Secondary Schools,
  F.the Rural Teacher Special Posts Project and
  G.the pilot project of Free Normal Education have
  been implemented.

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ExampleA The Rural Primary and Secondary
Boarding Schools Project

• China has carried out the Rural Primary and
  Secondary Boarding Schools Project , which has
  improved the school-running conditions and the
  learning environment of compulsory education in
  poor mountainous and traffic hard areas. By
  2007, China had established 7,651 new lodging
  schools, offering basic accommodation for the
  newly increased 2.07 million lodging students in
  the west.

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Education situation analysis

• Regional gap has been narrowed in terms of
  popularization level of compulsory education.
  Differences in net enrollment of primary school
  in various areas of China (referring to 31
  provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities)
  have been reduced too.

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4. Foreseen challenges and the plan in
education beyond 2020

• Main Challenges and Difficulties
• An uneven distribution of the limited education
  resources. Education quality among regions and
  schools, between rural and urban areas is still
  disparate. Rural compulsory education is still a
  weakness.
• The quality of the education
• Outdated educational ideas and methods, which
  cannot meet the demand of the fast changing
  society and the international competition. Heavy
  students workload, cramming, lack of sleep,
  de-emphasis on social practice have seriously
  influence the overall development of the children
  and their health.

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Chinese Education in the Next Decade

• National Outline for Medium and Long Term
  Educational Reform and Development (2010-2020)
• The Outline includes a comprehensive plan for
  education reform and development by the Year 2020
• General Strategy
• Development Missions
• Educational System Reforms
• Guaranteeing Measures

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OutlineGeneral Strategy

• Guidelines
• Giving strategic priority to education
  development
• Prioritizing talent cultivation as the bottom
  line for education
• Reform and innovation as a driving force for
  education development
• Equal access to education as a basic state policy
• Quality enhancment as the central task for
  education reform and development

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New Development

• MOUs are signed by central and provincial
  governments to ensure the balanced development of
  basic education.
• Plans developed by provincial governments
• Plan for balanced development of compulsory
  education in province
• Basic standards for school running
• Plan for implementing national projects on
  standard construction for compulsory schools
• Implementation plan for national projects on
  education system reform
• All documents are required to submit to MOE by
  deadline

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Responsibilities of Central Government

• Qualification authorized and certificated
• Monitory and evaluation
• Curriculum innovation support
• Guidance and supports for National innovation
  projects and programs on education
• Experiences-sharing promotion
• Financial support for migrant children
• Financial support for less developed provinces
• Special funds to support informal education

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Responsibilities of Provincial Governments

• Developing provincial goals for balanced
  development of education in 2012 and 2015
• Financial support for education especially for
  poor areas in the province
• Developing curriculums meet the local needs
• Providing quality compulsory education for
  migrant children
• Developing indicators for quality of compulsory
  education
• Promoting the national pilot projects of
  educational system innovation
• Plans developing

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New policies and measures

• To set up national quality standards for
  compulsory education and to establish a
  monitoring system. To complete the school
  standardization process step by step by 2020.
• To balance the educational resources of teachers,
  educational equipments, library and books, school
  buildings and so on. To transform the weak
  schools, improving the quality of their teachers
  and establishing a teacher and school principle
  mobility mechanism.
• To guarantee the migrant childrens right to
  compulsory education, with full-time public
  schools shouldering the main response.

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Conclusion

• Chinese education reform is still being explored.
  In general,China can concentrate sufficient
  national financial resources to do big things,
  but is still low per capita income and a large
  disparity of wealth. China has no intention to
  promote their own development path and experience
  to other countries. Similarly, we believe that
  any country should go for their own path of
  development. Development paths of different
  countries can respect each other and learn from
  each other.
• Thank You!
• April 28, 2011