缩小差距--中国教育政策的重大命题

教育差距的存在和持续拉大是我国当前教育发展的严峻现实,这种差距表现在城乡、地区、阶层、类别四个方面。如果从居民人均消费水平和人均教育支出、人均财政支出和生均预算内教育经费支出两组经济发展指标和教育投入指标来考察东部和西部地区的城乡经济和教育发展,就会发现教育差距比经济差距拉得更大更快。由于教育是经济和社会发展的基础,这种差距将会影响到建设小康社会和贯彻科学发展观、促进社会和谐发展的现实需要。导致差距的原因固然很多,但公共政策是最主要的。因此,消除教育贫困,缩小教育差距的责任主要在政府,政府应该通过调整和制定公共政策确保所有人都能公平地享受公共教育资源,这就要求公共教育政策领域必须逐步实现从精英教育向大众教育的转型。

To Narrow down the Gap: A Momentous Issue in Chinese Education Policy

Huge gaps in Chinese education as an ever-persistent growing phenomenon have become a severe reality that hinders the development. These gaps can be generally grouped into four categories: urban-rural areas, regions, social classes and types of schools. A examination of the urban-rural economic and educational development in eastern and western regions would, with two groups of indicators, i.e. per capita household consumption and educational expenditure, government expenditure and budgetary educational funds, apparently reveal that the educational gaps are much larger and faster than the economic one. Education is foundation of economic and social development, so educational gaps will have severe impact on building up a well-off society, implementing a science-based development outlook and promoting harmonious social advancement. There are various reasons for these gaps, but public policies are of priority. In fact, the government is responsible for the educational poverty, and hence for narrowing down the gaps. That is, it should adjust and make public policies to guarantee educational resources fairly for all people, which requires a progressive transformation of the public education policy from focusing on the elite to the mass.