Enhancing China's Competitiveness Through Lifelong Learning ...

Developing a System of Lifelong Learning for China and the New Role for Government 25
The new role will involve coordination across line ministries at the state level;
coordination between the central, provincial, and local levels; and coordination
between the government system and nongovernment partners. Effective coordination
will be critical to develop a flexible system that increases education and training
and responds flexibly and efficiently to China’s rapidly changing economic
structure and skills needs.
The government need not withdraw from education and training. It will continue
to have a very important role even in the provision of higher education. But
because an effective system of lifelong learning involves many providers and many
pathways, the system is much more complex. So the role of government needs to
change from that of the main provider in areas other than compulsory education, to
one of the architect and manager of a much larger and complex system (table 2.2).
In addition to providing public goods and services, the government also has a
very important task of ensuring equity of education. Because of unbalanced economic
development among different regions and between rural and urban areas,
the coastal regions and most urban families have higher incomes than the middle
and western regions and most rural families. While more and more private provision
is allowed and even public schools (mainly tertiary level) start to charge
tuition, and the fiscal responsibility of education is further decentralized, educational
inequality is getting worse (figure 2.2).
While some eastern provinces are discussing a 12-year compulsory education
system, the western region is still struggling to provide a 9-year basic education system.
Individually, both rural and urban residents are increasingly relying on themselves
to pay for education. The government’s share of total education expenditure
declined from 84.5 percent in 1991 to 62.0 percent in 2003, while the share of tuition
and incidental fees rose from 4.4 percent to 18.1 percent in the same period (China
Educational Statistics Yearbook 2000, 2004). With the rising out-of-pocket expenses
for education, children in many poor families may have difficulties in attending
postcompulsory education, or even finishing the basic nine years of schooling,
leading to more uneven access to education.
The government needs to strengthen its financial aid instruments to poor
regions, families, and students. Such instruments could include revenue transfers
for education purposes, grants, fellowships, scholarships, work-study programs,
education vouchers, tuition reduction and waivers, and special loans. Although
many of these instruments have been put in place in some areas, due to poor design
or implementation, their effectiveness is quite limited. So, setting up such systems is
not enough. It is equally important to make sure they are adequately implemented,
monitored, and adjusted.
The government recently recognized that it had been failing in public rural education.
On December 24, 2005, the State Council issued a new policy document on
reforming the rural education financing system, emphasizing the importance of
rural compulsory education, acknowledging the achievements, identifying problems,
and setting new goals. The problems included the following:
• Unclear responsibilities for education investment among government at different
levels
• Mismatch between financial needs and actual provision
• Too few resources and poor allocation of resources to compulsory rural
education
• Heavy financial burden on farmers for their children’s education.