A Brief Account of the First Symposium on the Theory of Privately Run Schools

The first symposium on the theory of privately run schools was held from September 23 to September 25, 1992, at Tianjin's Educational Science Institute. It was attended by more than fifty educational theorists and practitioners as well as representatives of a number of private schools from eleven areas of nine provinces and municipalities, namely, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong, Shanxi, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong. The State Education Commission's Division of Policy and Law, Division of Basic Education, and the Central Educational Science Institute also participated. Participants discussed the following topics: definition of the concepts of privately run schools and private schools in the course of private school development; the position and role of private schools in the socialist educational system; the social background and inherent basis for the development of private schools; private schools' internal management; how private schools can improve quality and establish their own characteristics; supervision and evaluation of private schools; the history of reform of private schools and comparative studies of Chinese and foreign private schools; how educational administrations can reinforce management over private schools and the study of related policies and regulations; and the feasibility of people from foreign countries, overseas Chinese, compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan opening schools in China. Information about the development of nongovernmental and private schools everywhere was exchanged, problems in establishment and development were given priority in discussion. The Tianjin Educational Science Institutes group researching privately run schools and private schools made a special presentation on Chinassovereign right of education vis-à-vis the right to conduct educatio—question facing people from other countries in opening schools in China.