Urban Community Development and Private Education Dilemma: Based on a Field Study of a City in East China

Li Qian,Jing Anlei

doi:10.13189/ujer.2014.020601

Li Qian, Jing Anlei

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2014.020601

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Abstract

Urbanization is an issue of universal concern today distinctly affecting the supply, content, and orientation of education. Based on a field study in a city in East China, the article argues that rural-urban migration in the process of urbanization created private sectors in education enterprises that were in sync with the urban community expansion. During the rapid development to escape the curse of underdevelopment, the local government unveiled substantive policies and regulations to welcome private capital to engage in education, and to encourage teachers to mobilize from public schools to private schools. With the excess demand for education, the preferential policies and a large number of teachers gave up tenure at public schools, and local private education developed rapidly in terms of number, size and quality. However, the non-elite characteristic of both urban and rural private schools was doomed to face dilemma when the ever-changing rural population composition and the differential treatment to public schools and private schools in public policies caused a decline in the number of rural schools and an increase in teachers' turnover rate. For a sustainable development of local private education, education quality enhancement and policy adjustment shall be a must.

Highlights

China’s huge population base created an extensive education demand and a mammoth public school system
This paper presents a discussion of local private education in the historical process of urbanization, based on a field research in a prefecture-level city in east China
Rural-urban migration would create private sectors in education enterprises that were in sync with the urban community expansion

Summary

Introduction

China’s huge population base created an extensive education demand and a mammoth public school system. To meet the huge demand and to improve education service, the Chinese government issued the Decision of the Reform of Education System in 1985, decentralizing and diversifying the providing and financing of education. In June, the State Council, or China’s Cabinet, published the Decision of Accelerating Tertiary Industry Development, in which education was ranked as the basic industry of nationwide significance. [1]The 14th National People’s Congress in October established the market economic system of socialism in China, and brought two historical phenomena in education field. [2]Since private schools went into a phase of explosive growth, and helped invigorate Chinese education by providing decentralization and competition. Private education had been exceptionally prosperous by 2003, with the number of students increased from 2.3 million in 1996 to 14.2 million (Table 1)

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