Teachers at a small village in Chongqing cut their children's nails on Sept. 1, 2020. On the topic of educational equity, the urban-rural gap is the most concerned. (Visual China/Photo)
"4% is a passing line, and above is better." On the afternoon of March 6, 2021, when deliberating the draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan, Zhou Hongyu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and professor of Central China Normal University, asked at the group discussion whether it was possible to add a sentence after "increasing investment in education" - "the proportion of state financial education expenditure to the gross national product is not less than 4%, or more than 4%).
Zhou Hongyu recalled to the Southern Weekend reporter that many representatives attending the meeting also agreed.
Deliberating the draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan is an important agenda for the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2021. When the thirteenth part of the draft talks about "improving the quality of the people and promoting the all-round development of the people", it is proposed to "put the improvement of the quality of the people in a prominent and important position, and build a high-quality education system and an all-round and full-cycle health system".
Specifically, the draft planning outline makes arrangements for the construction of a high-quality education system from five aspects: "promoting the equalization of basic public education", "enhancing the adaptability of vocational and technical education", "improving the quality of higher education", "building a high-quality professional teaching team" and "deepening education reform".
For several consecutive days, inside and outside the venue, the deputies and members discussed the practical problems of education and future solutions faced during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
The indexing of education funding is a new reflection of the deputies on the educational content in the 14th Five-Year Plan.
For eight consecutive years from 2012 to 2019, China's annual state expenditure on education accounted for no less than 4% of gdp.
"Even in 2020, because of the epidemic, the entire national economy is more difficult, but it has remained and mentioned 4%. This means that if this plan is made, it is fully certain that it can be achieved. Zhou Hongyu analyzed that the 4% target was first proposed in China in 1993, when the average of the national financial education expenditure as a proportion of GDP was more than 4%, and China's goal was to reach the average number of countries at the same level of development at that time.
"More than two decades later, we should have the confidence to stabilize at this level. Since the new goal of building an education power is now proposed, there should be new indicators for education investment in the 14th Five-Year Plan. Zhou Hongyu said.
In addition, the new thinking of the deputies and members also focuses on the issue of the "inner volume" of education.
The draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan clearly states that "give full play to the advantages of online education, improve the lifelong learning system, and build a learning society".
The deputies and members are worried that with the vigorous development of online education in the past two years, there have also been many new chaos. You Lizeng, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a teacher at Zhangjiakou No. 1 Middle School, found that some online education platforms have situations such as poor teacher quality, hidden online games, implicit vulgar information, and pushing advertisements, which are not conducive to the physical and mental health of minors.
He suggested that the Internet information and education departments should strengthen supervision, improve the certification and access system of the online education industry, and increase the punishment for the publication of false advertisements, deception and misleading consumers, and infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of the educated. The platform should strengthen industry self-discipline and do a good job in training positioning, curriculum research and development, teacher management, platform maintenance, brand expansion and other aspects.
Many deputies and members also believe that since 2018, the Ministry of Education's efforts to rectify off-campus training institutions have achieved considerable results, and now it is impossible to relax the supervision and rectification of online training institutions inside and outside the school.
In terms of "deepening education reform", the draft outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan" proposes to deepen the reform of education evaluation in the new era, establish and improve the education evaluation system and mechanism, develop quality education, and pay more attention to students' innovative ability and healthy personality training.
An old problem in quality education has intensified new educational contradictions in the past two years, and the home-school dispute brought about by the problem of "reducing burden" has become more and more intense. How to achieve home-school "collaborative education" is imminent.
"Homework" has become the most intuitive reflection of this problem. What homework is assigned, who corrects who checks, and whether parents participate are repeatedly put out for discussion, but they still have their own statements and reasons.
Deng Jian, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and deputy director of the Jilin Provincial Department of Justice, believes that students' "burden reduction" requires the coordination of home and school. He suggested that the boundaries of rights and responsibilities in home-school education should be clarified with the goal of coordinated "resonance". Guide parents to change their concepts, urge schools to fulfill their duties, strictly investigate and deal with behaviors such as arbitrarily increasing the difficulty of teaching and "non-zero starting point teaching", establish systems such as publicity of curriculum arrangements and comprehensive quality evaluation of students, and form a joint force for home-school education.
Many deputies and members of the CPPCC National Committee held that the "baton" of the educational evaluation mechanism is the fundamental.
Dai Liyi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice president of East China Normal University, brought the proposal of "on deepening the reform of teacher evaluation in primary and secondary schools".
At present, primary and secondary school teachers are mainly evaluated by student scores and further education. "If the evaluation pattern of the teacher remains the same, how do you let the teachers not try?" How to really reduce the burden on students? Dai Liyi suggested that the evaluation of teachers should shift from simple accountability to promoting development, and there should be "different evaluation methods of multi-subject teachers", comprehensively examining the elements of teacher teaching management, and introducing supporting measures.
Top-level design is even more important. Liu Xiya, a deputy to the National People's Congress and principal of Xiejiawan Primary School in Jiulongpo District, Chongqing, found in the actual investigation that some local governments still have a series of behaviors that violate the fairness of education, stimulate vicious competition in schools, and increase the burden of primary and secondary school students.
Liu Xiya believes that local government education performance appraisal measures should be introduced as soon as possible and a sound education accountability mechanism should be established. Specifically, the weight of education indicators in the comprehensive performance appraisal index system of local governments should be increased, and indicators such as the current blind pursuit of college entrance examination promotion rate should be weakened. In the accountability mechanism, the higher-level party committee and government should increase the supervision of the lower-level party committee and government, and listen to a special report on education work at least once a year.
Dai Liyi's other proposal on strengthening education supervision to promote the physical and mental health of primary and secondary school students has a similar proposal, and he hopes to fundamentally solve the problem of too much homework in primary and secondary schools through "effective teaching supervision". For example, strengthen the supervision of full-time and part-time supervisors of county-level governments over the implementation of relevant regulations on student burden reduction in primary and secondary schools, clarify the responsible persons for rectification, rectification measures and time nodes for schools that violate regulations, and conduct secondary inspections of the rectification effect when necessary.
When it comes to the biggest problem facing China's education in the next five years, many deputies and members have circled the same focus: educational equity. The biggest gap affecting educational equity is the imbalance between urban and rural education.
Preschool education, rural education in remote areas and vocational education are often regarded as the three major shortcomings of Chinese education. In the eyes of many people in the education sector, the shortcomings of preschool education are relatively easy to make up. Whether in the countryside or in the city, it is necessary to run more kindergartens and train more teachers, and you must be willing to spend money. The continuous expansion of higher vocational education has undoubtedly given a policy dividend period for the development of vocational education.
However, the educational foundation in remote and poor areas such as rural areas, mountainous areas, and ethnic minorities has been weak for a long time, and it is not a day's work to solve the huge educational differences and gaps between urban and rural areas.
Generally speaking, there are four major gaps in Education in China, first, the education gap between urban and rural areas; second, the gap in education between different regions, that is, in the east, central and western regions; third, the gap between different schools, that is, the same region, the same city, there are famous schools and key schools, and there are also schools with weak education; fourth, the gap between different educational groups, such as special groups.
"The latter three major gaps are reflected in the first urban-rural gap in the front." Zhou Hongyu said, "All education problems are fully reflected in remote and poor areas, from preschool education to basic education, throughout all stages. ”
Southern Weekend reporters combed and found that in response to this problem, the draft outline of the "14th Five-Year Plan" was repeatedly emphasized and proposed a variety of solutions.
In terms of "promoting the equalization of basic public education", the draft planning outline proposes to consolidate the results of the basic balance of compulsory education, improve the standards for running schools, and promote the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education and the integration of urban and rural areas. Accelerate the expansion of urban schools, and ensure that the children of the agricultural migrant population have equal access to basic public education services. Improve the conditions of small-scale rural schools and township boarding schools, strengthen the construction of rural teachers, improve the quality and ability of rural teachers, improve the care system for left-behind children, and consolidate the results of compulsory education in controlling dropouts and guaranteeing schooling.
In terms of "basic education" quality improvement and expansion, the draft planning outline also proposes that 4,000 primary and secondary schools be newly built, renovated and expanded, focusing on counties with weak educational foundations and population inflow areas. Construction of 100 "national gate schools" in border counties (tuanchang).
In the next five years, after the comprehensive poverty alleviation, the deputies and members also put forward new methods to keep up with the changes of the times. Zhou Hongyu suggested that we must find ways to use education informatization to promote the modernization of education.
He believes that increasing the informatization investment in weak schools in rural areas can effectively solve the shortage of high-quality education resources in rural areas, which can also improve the problem of small-scale schools and teaching points in rural areas that cannot open enough and complete the curriculum.
Yu Lizeng also suggested that distance education should be used for teacher training, change the teaching methods of teachers, and improve the comprehensive ability of rural teachers to apply information resources.
In the past year, Zhou Hongyu has conducted a special survey on the problems exposed by urban and rural online education. He found that the gap between urban and rural education is in basic education, and the gap in basic education is mainly in teachers. Even with advanced information-based teaching resources, teachers cannot master them skillfully, and students cannot effectively acquire them.
Zhu Xiaojin, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice president of Nanjing Normal University, believes that the overall level of modernization ability and literacy of farmers will determine the quality of rural revitalization after poverty alleviation. He told Southern Weekend: "The most important issue is still educating farmers. ”
Among them, the most fundamental solution is to improve the quality of rural basic education, so that fair education gives rural children an equal opportunity to achieve their dreams in life. Only by fundamentally blocking the intergenerational transmission of rural poverty can we lay the foundation for improving the scientific and cultural quality of farmers as a whole.
In recent years, at the two sessions of the National People's Congress, almost every year there have been voices calling for the extension of the compulsory education period, of which the call to extend forward to the preschool education stage is particularly high.
Lin Yong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a professor at South China Normal University, suggested that kindergarten education should be fully included in the scope of national compulsory education before the completion of the "14th Five-Year Plan", and urban and rural areas should be implemented in stages. Alleviate the worries of family education and raising children by solving the just need.
However, some representatives dedicated to education policy research were opposed.
Liu Yan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a professor at the Faculty of Education of Beijing Normal University, analyzed the Southern Weekend reporter that many ordinary people look forward to the inclusion of preschool education in compulsory education, mainly because of the high cost of entering kindergartens. Behind the high price of entering the kindergarten, in fact, there is no financial guarantee system for inclusive preschool education public services.
Therefore, she suggested that the 14th Five-Year Plan should consider including inclusive preschool education in basic public services, which can provide financial guarantees for inclusive preschool education public services.
Compulsory education is characterized not only by being free, but also by public welfare, universality and compulsion. "The inclusion of preschool education in compulsory education is not suitable for the physical and mental development of young children." Liu Yan asked rhetorically, "Imagine forcing a 3-year-old child who doesn't want to go to kindergarten to go to kindergarten?" ”
From the perspective of universality, according to the convention, the enrollment rate of education in the basic stage must cross the threshold of 95% to truly be called universalization. The gross enrollment rate of preschool education in China in 2020 is 85.2%, and there is still a 10 percentage point gap between 95% and 95%. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the target line set for this goal is more than 90%.
According to this, Zhou Hongyu analyzed that at least until 2025, three years of preschool education will not be included in the conditions for compulsory education. However, it is not excluded that the gross enrollment rate in the last year of preschool education, the year closest to primary school, can exceed 95%, which may have the opportunity to be included in one year.
Many deputies and members of the CPPCC National Committee believe that it is unrealistic to extend the compulsory education period for at least three or four years. The fundamental reason is that from the perspective of freeness, whether it is extended to the preschool education stage or the high school stage, it will bring great pressure to the national finances. Even if investment in education is increased in the short term, schools, kindergartens and their respective teachers are unlikely to fill the gap in these years.
The Ministry of Education, last time in November 2020, has clearly replied that the conditions for the inclusion of general upper secondary education in compulsory education are not yet ripe.
Southern Weekend reporter He Jiawen Southern Weekend intern Wang Pengkai