Minister of Education Chen Baosheng said that ＂the countryside is weak＂ and ＂crowded t

“The gap between urban and rural education is still obvious."Minister of Education Chen Baosheng said.

Chen Baosheng made the above statement at the recent Fifth Session of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People's Congress (hereinafter referred to as the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress).In his report, he pointed out that in recent years, although remarkable achievements have been made in the balanced development of compulsory education in counties, and the conditions of school buildings for compulsory education in rural areas have been greatly improved, the foundation is still weak, and the allocation of compulsory education resources in urban and rural areas is still unbalanced and insufficient.The problem, the contradiction between "weak villages" and "crowded towns" has not been completely resolved.

In order to make up for the shortcomings of rural education, the state has increased its investment in rural education.According to the report of the State Council on Promoting the Integrated Development of Urban and Rural Compulsory Education and Improving the Level of Rural Compulsory Education (hereinafter referred to as the Report) announced by Chen Baosheng at the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the per capita education expenditure of rural ordinary primary schools and junior high schools in 2017 compared with 2012An annual increase of about 60%.

The work report also disclosed that the transfer payment for education from the central government increased from 281.7 billion yuan in 2016 to 306.7 billion yuan in 2018.Among them, 80% of the central government's education transfer payment in 2018 was used in rural areas and poor areas in the central and western regions.

However, the gap between urban and rural education is still difficult to bridge.There are even concerns that the new reform of the college entrance examination that is being promoted in various places will make the inequality of educational opportunities for students in rural areas worse.

According to the deployment of the Ministry of Education, a new college entrance examination reform system may be fully established in 2020, changing the long-standing one-test-fixed life-long university admissions method, and will establish a two-based-one-reference model, that is, regardless of arts and sciences, based on college entrance examination scores plus high school studiesThe proficiency test results are based on the comprehensive quality evaluation of students, and the admission is based on merit.The "new college entrance examination" has given colleges and universities the right to enroll students independently to a certain extent. Some universities in the Zhejiang and Shanghai pilot areas will draw a certain proportion when recruiting, and the interview scores of candidates will be included in the reference indicators for admission.

At this stage, China is still unable to resolve the educational gap between urban and rural areas in a short period of time.The dean of Xiamen University’s Institute of Education told Caixin reporters that the new college entrance examination is an insurmountable threshold for families with relatively weak cultural and social capital.How can students who have never been out of the county speak extraordinary words and be well-informed?

The barriers of the urban-rural dual structure have become stronger, and the inequality in education has widened the gap between classes, making it difficult for poor families to produce noble children.The problems of rural school dropouts, left-behind children, and urban migrant children have become increasingly prominent. The combined number of the latter two exceeds 23 million. The shortcomings of weak basic education in rural areas and difficulties in schooling for floating population need to be filled urgently.

The school at the door continues to decline

According to the report, compulsory education implements a management system of "provincial overall planning and county-based".But on the one hand, there are some provincial governments that lack overall planning and guarantees in terms of regional coordination, school-running standards, funding, and teacher staffing, and do not give enough support to counties with financial difficulties.On the other hand, due to insufficient financial resources, some county-level governments have the idea of "waiting and relying" and lack of overall planning for county-level urban and rural schools.

In the game of grass-roots education finances being stretched and resources concentrated in central schools in cities and towns, large-scale schools with large classes in counties, boarding schools in townships, and small-scale rural schools (referring to village primary schools and teaching centers with less than 100 students) have formed in rural areas of China.) basic pattern.

Although the popularity of education continues to increase, with the continuous advancement of urbanization, a large number of rural population flocks to cities, and the number of school-age children in the compulsory education stage in rural areas continues to decrease.

At the same time, the policy of merging schools in rural areas has been implemented for more than ten years, and problems have arisen: schooling is difficult, schooling is far away, schooling is expensive, school bus accidents are frequent, and the dropout rate is increasing.

According to the Ministry of Education's data over the years, the number of compulsory education schools nationwide has dropped from 557,900 in 2001 to 218,900 in 2017.Among them, from 2000 to 2009, the number of primary schools nationwide decreased by 273,400, of which about 85% were rural primary schools.In 2012, the withdrawal of sites and merging schools was stopped by the government, and the follow-up impact is still continuing.

No matter how vigorously the urbanization of education is going on, there are still a certain number of children in remote rural areas, mountainous areas, and pastoral areas in China who cannot enter the city, and a large number of village primary schools and education centers have been closed, and the quality of those who remain is worrying.

At the meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Chen Baosheng emphasized that the basic conditions of some small rural schools need to be improved urgently.

Efforts should be made to run good schools at the doorstep of farmers.According to the report, it is necessary to promote the revision and improvement of the special plan for the distribution of compulsory education schools in all provinces in accordance with the requirements of not only being conducive to providing students with fair and high-quality education, but also conforming to the laws of the physical and mental development of minors, and making it convenient for students to enroll nearby..

In addition, the low salary of rural teachers is the key to the decline of rural education in China.According to public data, from 2010 to 2013, the number of rural teachers nationwide dropped from 4.7295 million to 3.3045 million.Within three years, the loss rate of rural teachers reached 30%.

In this regard, the report stated that efforts should be made to solve the problems of rural teacher team construction, including strengthening training, innovating supplementary mechanisms, and improving remuneration.For example, the construction of turnover dormitories for rural teachers has been strengthened. From 2016 to 2017, 74,000 sets of turnover dormitories were built in various places, and qualified teachers were included in the scope of housing guarantee.

Lack of family affection, boarding schools are common

As educational resources are concentrated in central schools in counties and townships, and most central schools are far away from villages, boarding schools are becoming more and more common.

When parents leave their children behind, grandparents also send their children to boarding schools, and the lack of family affection is even greater.Earlier, Zheng Xinrong, chairman of the Sunshine Rural Development Foundation in Western Beijing, said at a public seminar.According to the statistics of the report, 9.02 million left-behind children in rural areas were identified in the national survey, including 5.89 million left-behind children in compulsory education.

More and more rural children are concentrated in township boarding schools to study and live.Several studies have shown that the isolation of children from their families can cause mental developmental disorders, which makes boarding schools a hotbed for breeding and inducing children's mental health problems.

The survey report on China’s rural boarding students released by the non-profit organization Songluying in 2015 pointed out that boarding schools should not only undertake the educational function, but also undertake the functions of student life care, emotional care, social interaction, and after-school entertainment.

Chen Baosheng pointed out that "some township boarding schools have poor boarding living conditions, poor campus cultural life, and inconvenient transportation for students to go to and from school."quot;

Geluying's survey found that the mental health of rural school boarding students needs urgent attention, and the adaptation problem of young school boarding students is particularly prominent.47.3% of children often have negative emotional distress, 63.8% of children have a sense of loneliness, 17.6% of adolescents have depression problems, and 8.4% of adolescents have thought about suicide.

Many experts believe that in the current management system of township boarding schools, the allocation of psychological and life teachers is quite scarce, and there are no standardized and professional functional standards and related training.The state stipulates that every 50 students in primary schools and every 100 students in junior high schools should be equipped with one life teacher.Geluying visited many places across the country and found that in elementary school, the ratio of living teachers to boarding students is about 1:100.

"It is difficult for township boarding schools to recruit life teachers, because the education department does not have enough places to provide staffing.The treatment is not as good as in the city, and there is no incentive mechanism to attract professionals.“A staff member of the county-level education bureau complained to the Caixin reporter.

The report pointed out that the state requires that the staffing standards of rural primary and middle schools be uniformly raised to urban standards, and that the teacher-student ratio of 1:19 for primary schools and 1:13.5 for junior high schools be used for staffing.It is an appropriate increase in the establishment of boarding schools.

High-quality balance requires the elimination of large class sizes

The gap in education between urban and rural areas is widening, rural students choose schools in cities, and structural contradictions in the supply of educational resources are prominent, reflecting the plight of shortages of school construction land, academic degrees, and teachers in urban areas.The large class size is a typical feature of rural schools reflecting this contradiction.The so-called "large class size" refers to a class size of 45 students for elementary schools and a class size of 50 students for middle schools that exceed the stipulations of the Ministry of Education.The spread of the overloaded "large class size" puts the school's teaching quality at risk of declining, and at the same time, safety issues also bury hidden dangers.

A survey conducted by Wu Zhihui of the China Rural Education Development Research Institute of Northeast Normal University found that in 2014, classes with more than 56 students in the national urban compulsory education stage accounted for 21.7% of all classes; in the urban areas of Guangxi, Henan, Hunan and other provinces, the proportion of large classes is as high as more than 45%, and that of large classes with more than 50 people reaches 40%, which is close to half.

Previously, Yang Dongping, director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, also revealed in an interview with a Caixin reporter that the maximum class size in some urban areas of Henan is as high as 150 students, and some students can only stand in class.

The report proposes to ensure the basic elimination of super-large classes with more than 66 students (within 2%) by the end of 2018, and the basic elimination of large-scale classes with more than 56 students by the end of 2020 (within 5%).

The report also revealed that in 2017, the proportion of large classes in compulsory education dropped to 10.1%, and the proportion of very large classes dropped to 2.4%.Compared with 2015, the number of large classes nationwide has decreased by 25%, and the number of super-large classes has decreased by 50%, which is the largest decline in the past 10 years.

The schooling policy for children of migrant workers needs to be improved

The intensification of urban-rural migration has not only caused the phenomenon of left-behind children, but also a large number of rural children who have moved to cities with their parents and become migrant children.

In recent years, the number of accompanying children has shown an increasing trend.According to the report data, in 2017, there were 14.066 million children who moved with them during the compulsory education stage nationwide, an increase of 119,000 over the previous year.Among them, 80% are enrolled in public schools, and another 7.5% enjoy the government's purchase of degree services from private schools, and all of them are included in the per-student public funds and the scope of two exemptions and one subsidy.

Earlier in the press conference of the State Council Information Office in July 2016, Liu Limin, Vice Minister of Education, said that migrant children are a phased phenomenon in China's economic and social development, especially with the deepening of urbanization, this group will continue to grow for a long time.exist.

The report proposes to promote the establishment of enrollment policies for accompanying children based on residence permits in all localities, and to clarify that residence permit holders have the equal right to receive compulsory education in their place of residence according to law.On this basis, a unified national student status system for primary and secondary schools will be established, and the entire process of transferring children from other provinces to other provinces will be handled online.

In July 2016, the State Council issued a number of opinions and requirements on promoting the integrated reform and development of urban and rural compulsory education, insisting that public schools should be the main arrangement for accompanying children to attend school.Attending private schools of benefit.

At the aforementioned press conference, Liu Limin also emphasized that "public and private schools are required not to charge any fees that are different from those of local registered students from accompanying children."quot;

However, even though public primary and secondary schools in big cities have been gradually opened to non-local household registration migrant children, the barriers to higher education caused by the household registration system are still stubborn.The children who moved with them had to return to the place of household registration to prepare for the middle school entrance examination and college entrance examination in the middle school stage, or even in the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school.

Take Beijing’s remote high school entrance examination policy as an example, even if the relevant certificates are complete after review, and non-Beijing candidates whose parents have paid social security in Beijing for many years, after graduating from junior high school, if they want to continue their studies in Beijing, they will not have the opportunity to go to ordinary high school.

As for the off-site college entrance examination after the compulsory education period, the policy is even stricter.Before 2012, the children of migrants from all over the country could not take the college entrance examination in the permanent place.In response to public voices, the State Council requires all provinces to issue plans by the end of 2012. Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai have the largest population of local household registrations and the richest educational resources, and the voice for freeing up the college entrance examination in other places is also the highest, but the plan is still set for foreigners.many thresholds.■