An Integrated Model that Unifies Urban and Rural Compulsory Education—A Case Study of the YZ County

Abstract

For a long time, the binary distinction between cities and the countryside has been the key driver of the difference in urban and rural education. Urban education is superior in terms of fiscal investment, hardware facilities, the pay of teachers, as well as the quality of teaching, a superiority that inevitably tempers with the justice of education. Undoubtedly, as the basic bottom line, compulsory education has attracted widespread attention from both the state and society. The state’s “Medium and Long-Term Plan for Education Reform in 2010–2020” published in July 2010 stipulates that “The government will establish an education system that integrates urban and rural education, with a preferential policy towards rural schools in terms of fiscal investment, the construction of schools, and the staffing of teachers. The policy will begin with a balanced development of urban and rural education in county schools, and then expand the model to other areas. The key is to reform the education system, encouraging the local governments and schools to explore and experiment with feasible models and accelerate the reform in some major fields [120].” In November 2013, the Party’s 13th Plenary Session requires “perfecting the integrative mechanism concerning urban and rural education and planning a balanced allocation of resources [121].”