For children from poor families, the annual or even one semester tuition fee has become the main obstacle to their enrollment. This problem exists even in developed areas like Guangdong. A survey of public opinion on education fees in Guangdong Province organized by Guangdong Price Monitoring Center shows that the high education fees are the psychology of most interviewees, especially the low-income families whose annual household income is less than 6.5438+0.5 million yuan. When expressing their views on the level of rural education fees, most farmers said it was "difficult" or "very difficult". According to the survey in Heishan County, Zhangwu County, Liaoning Province and Hure Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the average annual net income of farmers in the three places is about 5,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan, which should be at the middle level from the national perspective. Almost all children have the financial conditions to receive nine-year compulsory education, but the proportion of students who actually complete the third grade education of junior high school is very small, generally not more than 30%. The survey found that so many children give up primary education, not only because of economic reasons, but also because children drop out of school voluntarily. The children choose to go home for the following reasons:
1. The rural population is scattered. The layout of middle schools is generally to set up a township and a school according to the existing students. As a result, most students can't go to the village primary school at home as they did in primary school, and many children give up their studies because of inconvenient transportation. The level of primary education in rural areas is very low. Poor learning conditions make it difficult for most primary school graduates to adapt to systematic study after middle school, lose interest in learning and lose motivation after suffering. 3. China is still dominated by the exam-oriented education system. After a child is literate after graduating from primary school, the only purpose of receiving junior high school education is to be admitted to a high school and finally to a university? The courses in junior high school and senior high school are of little use to those children who can only farm without going to college. Only those who join the army and work in cities need a junior high school diploma, but it is easy to get it as long as they spend money. Due to poor foundation, many students lose interest in learning. In addition, the school unilaterally emphasizes the enrollment rate and implements quantitative management for teachers. In this way, the teacher rejected the poor students, making them unable to lift their heads in class and had to drop out of school. China's current education funding burden model is that urban education is undertaken by the state, and rural areas are mainly coordinated at the county level. Because most counties in our country belong to the "meal" finance, the funds available for education are very limited, which leads to many rural schools being unsustainable.
First of all, the school buildings are inadequate and crude. According to statistics, at the end of the 20th century, there were about130,000 square meters of dilapidated buildings in primary and secondary schools nationwide, which were concentrated in rural areas in the central and western regions. Although the proportion of dangerous buildings in the total number of primary and secondary schools in China is less than 1%, it is higher in rural areas in underdeveloped areas in the central and western regions. The area of dangerous buildings in Ningxia middle schools is 5.32%, and that in primary schools is 4.6%. In Xinjiang, 4.05% of middle schools are dangerous buildings and 3% of primary schools are dangerous buildings. Qinghai middle school accounts for 3. 16%, and primary school accounts for 4.33%.
Second, the debt is serious. In the 50 counties audited by the National Audit Office in 2003, the debt of basic education at the end of 2000/kloc-0 was 2.384 billion yuan, which rose to 3/kloc-0 billion yuan at the end of 2002, an increase of 30%; By the end of June 2003, it had increased by 25.7% in only half a year, reaching 3.898 billion yuan. The total debt is equivalent to 80% of the annual fiscal revenue of these places. Education debt is related to the ninth year of general education in 2000. 1986 "Compulsory Education Law" proposed for the first time that the year 2000 was the year of nine-year universal education, and required schools to build corresponding hardware facilities such as libraries, teaching buildings and sports fields. Later, it became a hard task for many local education departments. The provincial education departments signed a two-way target responsibility letter with the municipal (prefectural) government (administrative office) education commission, and also signed a responsibility letter with local governments at higher and lower levels, governments and relevant departments, which included the Ninth Five-Year Plan in the performance evaluation of party and government cadres, and the Ninth Five-Year Plan was fully rolled out. However, in order to achieve the goal of "nine-year popularization", the already difficult grass-roots governments and education departments have to borrow money from abroad or be funded by construction teams, and they are burdened with huge debts. According to the survey, as of the eve of the acceptance of the Ninth Five-Year Plan in 2000, the total educational debt of counties that have completed and are implementing the Ninth Five-Year Plan in Sichuan Province reached 3.9 billion yuan. At the same time, the local finance below the provincial level is gradually shrinking, and it is gradually difficult for local finance to undertake education investment, which further aggravates the education debt of various places.
The third is the arrears of teachers' wages. According to a survey conducted by China Education Union/KLOC-0 in the first half of 1999, two thirds of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government are in arrears with teachers' salaries, with the total arrears exceeding 654.38 billion yuan. Even in Guangdong Province, where the economy is relatively developed, from 1996 to 1999, teachers' salaries have been in arrears for 640 million. According to the investigation of the research group, although the situation is good now, most counties can guarantee the timely payment of basic wages, but it is a common phenomenon that they cannot be paid in full. The main difficulty faced by rural education in China is the unfair educational burden. Nine-year compulsory education is implemented in cities, and the education expenses are basically borne by the government, while most of the expenses of nine-year compulsory education in rural areas are borne by farmers themselves. According to the investigation results of the research group of "County and Township Finance and Farmers' Burden" of the State Council Development Research Center, the investment in rural compulsory education in China is actually mainly borne by farmers themselves. Of all the inputs, the burden at the township level is as high as 78%, the financial burden at the county level is about 9%, the provincial level is about 1 1%, and the central government only bears 2%.
The shortage of national education funds is a well-known reality. "The problem is that most of these limited education investments have been icing on the cake by well-established urban schools, especially key primary and secondary schools. How unfair this is to the rural areas that urgently need to send charcoal in the snow. " In view of this, it is necessary to gradually abolish the education investment mechanism of urban-rural division, and the central and provincial governments should increase the transfer payment to the county level, especially the poverty-stricken areas, gradually reduce the proportion of higher education funds, and gradually tilt the education investment to compulsory education.
At the same time, the proportion of compulsory education burden should be gradually adjusted, from county-level planning to provincial and central planning. According to the investigation of the research group, it may be difficult for county-level finance to bear the burden of rural compulsory education. First of all, the county-level "financial power" is far less than its "administrative power". The central government accounts for 5 1% of the total national fiscal revenue, and the share at the county and township levels is only about 20%, while rural students account for 57.2% and 13547 of the 572 15700 junior high school students in China in 1999. Secondly, the transfer payment from the central government is not enough to solve the practical problems of compulsory education in backward areas. Obviously, the more backward areas are, the less investment they have in education. Although the central government started the "Compulsory Education Project in Poverty-stricken Areas" and the "Reconstruction Project of Dangerous Buildings in Compulsory Education" from 1995, these two inputs only account for 1% of the total expenditure of compulsory education in China. Finally, there is still a huge funding gap in compulsory education in China. According to the survey of the Ministry of Finance 1999, at least 35.4 billion yuan should be invested in 1053 counties to fully meet the ninth five-year plan standard; As of April 2000, the country owed 7.668 billion yuan to teachers. In addition, after the reform of rural taxes and fees, the surcharge for rural education will be abolished. The research group estimates that the funding gap to be filled is about 20 billion yuan, and the three total funding gaps are 63.068 billion yuan. This is obviously a difficult problem to solve.
They believe that the wage part of compulsory education funds should be co-ordinated by the central government. Rough estimation: the main expenditure of rural compulsory education is teachers' salary. There are 3.8 million rural primary school teachers in China. If the central government can guarantee their monthly income in 500 yuan, it will need 23.2 billion RMB. There are 2.23 million middle school teachers in rural areas of China. If their monthly income in 800 yuan is guaranteed, the total cost will be 265.438+0.4 billion RMB. The two items totaled 44.6 billion yuan, accounting for 2.3% of the total national fiscal revenue in 2002. It is completely feasible to use the central government to pay the largest teacher fee in compulsory education. Eight million rural teachers in China undertake the education of 66 million rural primary and secondary school students, and shoulder the sacred mission of popularizing nine-year compulsory education and transforming China's heavy population burden into high-quality human resources. Paying attention to the survival and life of 8 million rural teachers is the key to ensure the development of rural education.
The overall quality of rural teachers still needs to be improved. A considerable number of rural teachers have outdated educational concepts, outdated knowledge and backward methods, which are difficult to meet the needs of educational reform and development; There is a big gap between academic qualifications and ability, so it is still an arduous task to further improve the actual teaching ability of rural teachers. Among rural teachers, there are many teachers who have changed from civilian to public, and there are also many substitute teachers. It is difficult to ensure the overall level of teachers by using them at different levels. In addition, due to many reasons, such as low wages, unpaid wages, low level of professional education, complex sources of teachers, loose management and so on, some rural teachers are indifferent to their sense of responsibility and professional awareness. In terms of education system, rural basic education, vocational education and adult education are integrated, systematically managed and mutually strengthened. Instead of making full use of the existing educational facilities and relatively strong teachers in rural primary and secondary schools to run vocational education and adult education well, they started a new stove, occupying limited rural educational resources and restricting the development of rural primary and secondary education. Because the facilities, funds and personnel of rural vocational education and adult education are difficult to reach the designated position in one step, rural vocational education and adult education become a mere formality with little effect. In the form of running a school, firstly, the township government is fully responsible for running a school, lacking the active participation of social groups, other social organizations and individual citizens, which blocks the source of resources for running a school in rural basic education; Second, take the road of further studies and form a model of "primary school-junior high school-senior high school-university". The content of professional and technical education and rural vocational and technical education is too low, resulting in a large number of unskilled junior and senior high school graduates unemployed. On the other hand, township enterprises lack a large number of junior and intermediate technicians, managers and workers with a certain technical foundation. In the form of education investment, government investment is the main form, supplemented by other forms, but the fact is that government investment is not in place. Township leaders directly or indirectly encourage schools to supplement the shortage of education funds through various forms of arbitrary charges, so that school principals can survive in the cracks-on the one hand, they should raise funds for the normal operation and development of schools, on the other hand, they should be ready to take responsibility for arbitrary charges at any time.
There is a crisis of survival in secondary vocational schools, especially in agricultural and forestry secondary schools. The reason for this situation is that these schools cannot bring good employment opportunities to rural students. Therefore, the focus of rural education should be to improve the quality of rural population and cultivate talents to meet the diversified needs of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, rather than just taking the university entrance examination. Nine-year compulsory education in rural areas must be thoroughly reformed in terms of objectives, contents, forms, structure and layout, especially the establishment of rural higher education system. The development of higher education in rural areas is not to imprison farmers in rural areas, but the flow between different classes and between urban and rural areas will continue as usual. Only under this premise, rural areas and cities will develop together and seek their own development models, instead of letting rural areas "urbanize" with cities naturally.