混乱的校园

Apr 18

混乱的校园

来源：《财经文摘》
原文:经济学家08.10.2006

中国的教育由国家垄断，教育政策在市场与政府间徘徊不前。
河南中部龙湖镇的郑州大学升达经贸管理学院里，学生们正成为新时代中国的“佼佼”者。是什么使他们盛夏里如此狂躁？今年6月，数千学生从学校涌出，炸碎玻璃。这是自20世纪80年代以来出现在中国大陆校园里最大一起令人棘手的事件。
乍一看，事情的起因十分简单。长期以来，升达的学生们对学校规章制度不满，比如早上6点半的早操、禁止喝酒抽烟、周末不经许可不得离开校园。还有一个不可忽视的问题，就是学校准备在学生毕业证上增加“升达”两字。这起事件也从一个方面表现了中国教育系统改革的问题。

私立不“私”
20世纪90年代以来，中国市场化进程的快速推进改变了公共品供应格局。几乎所有政府投资的学校都采用商业化运作方式。学校赢利行为得到认可，以便他们改善教学设置，吸收更多的学生入学。至为重要的是，学校被允许提高收费——他们还通过各种方式逃避政府的限制。中国社会科学院研究人员说，甚至城镇地区只有一个孩子的家庭，他们对教育费用的支出压力也比任何项目都大。中国高等院校的教育收费为学校提供的收入比率由1991年的4.4%增加到2004年的18%。
在中国，公立高等院校要获得高额收入的一般途径，是转化为费用昂贵的私人学校，比如在原来学校（院）下设立一个学院，私人运作。该趋势其实在15年前在专科就已经开始，从而加剧了社会不平等。这种双元系统标志着一些“重点学校”能够在增加教育经费的借口下获得大量额外收入。
6月份，修订后的《义务教育法》禁止“将学校分为重点学校和非重点学校”，这是导致怨言的重要源头，将使那些吸引高收入人群的准私人学校数量大为减少。学校还可以向学生收取政府许可范围外的费用。这些费用被称为“学校选择收费”，每个学生的负担水平加起来可能高达数千美元。一些级别低的公立学校也可以在分流学生档次上取得成功，比如通过配备更好的教师和教学设施设置重点班获得更高的回报。
在初中级学校的带头下，中国公立大学在20世纪90年代也开始与私人资本结合，寻找赚钱的门道。升达学院投资始于1994年，是这类学校中较早成立的一个。10年后，中国已有249所准私人学院，学生达68万人，还有50多万学生在学校学习，但不能获得毕业证书。
现在，中国的富人比穷人有更多机会获得良好的教育机会。同时，由于中国私有化进程不透明，妨碍了收费单位的自由竞争。国家投资的学校，特别是那些过去被制定为重点学校的单位在市场中居统治地位，阻碍了真正由私人投资的学校进入市场。
在过去的两年里，中国的地方政府还开始在私人学校增加税收，使许多学校处境艰难。中国最大的私人学校之一——拥有1万名学生和400名教师的南洋学校去年因被地方官员指责非法集资而倒闭。中国的官方媒体甚至也暗示学校的倒闭与国有银行不愿给私人学校贷款有很大关系。
作为一所半私人院校，升达已经从台商那得到了2亿元投资，足以使它有能力建成一座美丽的湖滨学校，但该学院最吸引学生的地方，是学院所属的总部——郑州大学，这是华中地区享有盛名的高等学府。
升达学院的学生要交付两倍于郑州大学本部学生交纳的学费才能获得印有“郑州大学”字样的毕业证书。6月份，学院决定将毕业证书上增加“升达”两个字，这使学生感觉毕业证书“含金量”减少，于是群情激愤。目前，中国人力资本市场竞争残酷（尽管经济高速增长，大学毕业生失业人数不断攀升），毕业证上的一个词就可能造成学生前途大不一样。雇主也将私人和半私人学校看得比公立学校低等。

政府投入不足
政府迅速平息了6月15日发生在升达学院的事件。随后，静坐持续了几天，但炎热的夏季也使学生们精力疲惫，目的难以达到。尽管该学院主要负责人被解职，但郑州大学仍然坚持将“升达”印在毕业证上。
事情没有选择的余地。数年来，中国教育部在对改革中迅速成长起来的混合型公立学校的管理没有明确规定，现在，教育部正试图将母子学校区分开来。尽管管理办法三年前就被通过，但学校在执行中却缺乏热情——比如像升达学院那样将子校名字印在毕业证上。由于升达学院毕业生的毕业证上的学校名称与郑州大学完全一样，这令郑州大学的学生十分不满，因为他们为了表现得比升达的学生更优秀，他们必须在考试中取得更好的成绩。由于这两套机构含混不清，从升达毕业的学生现在几近占了郑州大学毕业生的一半。
最近几个月，中国其他院校也发生了类似事件。一位教育部门的官员说，因为教育部门现在正努力将子校从母校中分离出来，这些事件将会平息下来，得到很好的处理。压力也来自家境不算丰裕的学生的父母们，在选择学校的过程中，他们常常被这些关系复杂的学校弄得不知所措。7月份，一位官员透露，中国超过四分之一的贫困学生助学金申请被拒绝。2003年有5500名教师和家长拜访了中国教育部门，向政府要求对因腐败和和拖欠教师工资造成的高收费给他们造成的损失进行补偿。
问题的主要症结在于中央政府不愿在问题的解决上投入更多资金，政府花在教育上的投资与经济增长速度难以匹配。1986年的《义务教育法》要求地方政府为9年制义务教育提供保障，但实际情况并不理想，他们没有足够资金。学校和大学不得不向银行求助，为了偿付利息费用，提高收费成为现实的选择。现在，中国许多大学承担着巨额的债务负担，而这些债务很有可能成为坏账。
20世纪90年代，中国政府花费在教育上的投资占GDP比重几乎没有变化。1993年通过的《中国教育改革和发展纲要》明确提出，逐步提高国家财政性教育经费占国民生产总值的比例，到2000年达到4%。这个目标实际上没有达到，估计到2010年才能实现。（编者：据全国政协委员、中国科学院院士殷鸿福在2006年两会期间透露，2005年，全国教育支出3951.59亿元，占GDP的比例是2.16%。这个数据低于2004年的2.79%，也低于2002年的3.41%。也就是说，从2002年至今，财政性教育支出占GDP的比重，一直在下降。）据经济合作与发展组织（OECD）研究，包括政府和私人投资在内，中国花费在教育上的总投资只在2001年领先于印度，而与其他结构相似的亚洲国家和地区，比如菲律宾和台湾相比要低很多。现在，印度政府投资在教育上的支出占GDP比重已经超过中国。
复杂的支出问题已经沉重地压在了最低层级的政府身上。对乡村政府来说，向学校提供资金是财政预算中必须列入的项目，但许多事实证明，这笔投资远远不够。在更为贫困的地区，教师数月领不到工资，学校建筑也年久失修。最近，中央政府加大了减少农民税收负担的努力，使许多地方得到了即时的好处。政府今年已承诺，到2007年底，将全面取消辍学现象日益增加的农村地区的学杂费。但谁来补偿这笔费用还不清楚。
垄断症结未除
中国社会科学院的一项报告显示，教育“产业化”已经导致公信力严重崩溃。教育部也对区分公立和私立学校没有明确思路。最近通过的《义务教育法》修正案将在今年9月实施，该法禁止地方政府“擅自改变学校国有的性质”，这也意味着过去一度存在的半私人性质的学校将在法律上被禁止。但怀疑者认为，这项法律规定将遭到公立学校和与公立学校密切联系的私人学校的强烈抵制。法律尽管对收费行为作了禁止，但对于谁应该在政策范围内弥补漏洞却没有明确说明。
今年3月份，教育部的一位官员将受教育比喻为穿衣服，这在社会引起不小的震动。这位官员说，“（上学）就好比逛市场买东西，如果有钱,可以去买1万元一套的衣服；如果没钱，就只能去小店，买100元一套的衣服穿。”当然，对于大多数消费者来说，中国的衣服市场还不像教育那样，由国家垄断。

Chaos in the classrooms
Aug 10th 2006 | BEIJING AND LONGHU
From The Economist print edition

An education policy torn between the market and the state
THE students at Shengda Economics, Trade and Management College, in the quiet rural town of Longhu, in the central province of Henan, are among the most privileged in China. So why did they go on a rampage at the beginning of summer? In June thousands of them stormed through the grounds of their college, smashing windows and throwing stones at police cars. It was one of the biggest and most unruly protests on a university campus reported in China since the 1980s.
At first glance, the cause of the riot might look unremarkable. Shengda students have long been unhappy with the college’s strict regime. This includes compulsory physical exercise at 6.30am, a ban on alcohol and smoking, and confinement to campus at weekends except for those with written permission to venture out. What self-respecting student wouldn’t protest? But the trigger for the violence was in fact quite different. It was the college’s decision to add the word “Shengda” to its students’ graduation certificates. The fact that this apparently trivial change provoked a riot illustrates the parlous state of China’s education system—and the difficulties of reforming it.

Since the early 1990s, China’s embrace of market forces has upturned the provision of public services. Although most schools and colleges are still funded by the government, they now operate much more like businesses. They are allowed to generate extra revenue and so improve their facilities and attract more students. And, crucially, they have been permitted to raise fees—often in a disguised form to evade nominal government-imposed limits. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says that households now spend more on education than anything else, even though town- and city-dwellers are allowed to have only one child. In 2004 fees provided 18% of the revenues of schools and colleges, up from 4.4% in 1991.
A common way for state schools and universities to earn extra cash is to start schools of their own, which they then run, in effect, as expensive private schools. The trend began some 15 years ago among primary and junior schools, and has reinforced an existing inequality. For most of the communist era, a two-tier system identified a few “key schools” that receive extra money and other favours in order to nurture pockets of academic excellence.
In June, a revision to the education law abolished the key-school system, which had caused much resentment. This left these pampered establishments in an excellent position to attract the highest fee-payers to their new quasi-private facilities. They can also charge high fees from students from outside their official catchment areas. This levy, which is known as a “school selection charge”, can amount to thousands of dollars. Many less privileged state schools are also prospering: after dividing their intake into separate streams, for example, they charge more for the classes with better teachers and facilities.
Following the schools’ lead, state universities had by the end of the 1990s also increased their incomes, often in partnership with private capital. Shengda, which was founded in 1994, was an early pioneer. A decade later, China had 249 such quasi-private colleges with a total of 680,000 students, more than half a million of them studying for undergraduate degrees.
At every level, the rich now have much better access to good education than the less well-off. At the same time, the opacity of the privatisation process stops fair competition between fee-charging institutions. State-funded institutions, especially those formerly designated key schools, dominate the market and deter genuine private investment.
In the past two years, local governments have begun imposing business taxes on (genuine) private schools. Unable to make ends meet, some are now going bust. One of the biggest private education companies, South Ocean Education Group, which ran ten schools with some 10,000 pupils and 400 teachers, collapsed last year after officials in one province accused it of raising funds illegally. Even the official media suggested that its fate was more related to the reluctance of state-owned banks to lend to private schools.
ReutersDistinguished by degreesShengda, a quasi-private college, has been blessed with more than 200m yuan ($25m) from a Taiwanese entrepreneur. This has enabled it to build an attractive lakeside campus. But what matters more to the students is the name of its parent institution, Zhengzhou University, one of the most prestigious in central China.
Shengda students pay more than twice the fees of a Zhengzhou University student in exchange for a degree certificate with the words “Zhengzhou University” on it. The decision in June to add the word “Shengda”, they felt, drew unwanted attention to the fact that this was not quite the real thing. In a fiercely competitive job market (despite rapid economic growth, graduate unemployment has been rising), one word could make a grave difference. Employers often regard graduates from private or quasi-private universities as inferior to those from state institutions.

Blacking out the news
The authorities moved quickly to contain the violence at Shengda, which erupted on June 15th. Hundreds of riot police were sent in. Their mere presence was enough to quell the riot. Sit-ins continued on the following day, but with the summer break looming they quickly fizzled. Even so, the authorities were worried enough to order a complete news blackout. To appease the students, the college principal was fired. But Zhengzhou University is still insisting on putting the word Shengda on the graduation certificates.
It has no choice in the matter. The Ministry of Education, after years of indecisiveness over how to manage the rapid growth of hybrid state-private facilities, is now trying to draw a clearer distinction between them and their parent bodies. Regulations issued three years ago—but implemented by parent universities with little enthusiasm—require the full name of quasi-private colleges such as Shengda to be spelled out on graduation certificates. It has been galling for Zhengzhou University graduates to end up with roughly the same certificate as their Shengda counterparts, who they will have had to outperform in exams in order to win their university place. Encouraging further confusion between the two institutions, Shengda has nearly half as many undergraduates as Zhengzhou University, which has 32,000.
In recent months a handful of other campuses have seen protests similar to Shengda’s. An education-ministry official says concerns about possible unrest are slowing efforts to separate the hybrid universities from their parent bodies. And pressures are growing from the less affluent parents who often cannot even think of sending a gifted child to university at all. An official revealed in July that more than a quarter of bursary applications from impoverished students are turned down. In 2003, some 5,500 people, including teachers and parents, visited the education ministry in Beijing to seek redress over issues ranging from high fees to corruption and unpaid wages for teachers. In 2004, the number rose to 7,000.
A big part of the problem is the central government’s disinclination to spend money on solving it. Government spending on education has failed to match the pace of economic growth. It has not come close to meeting the demands of a compulsory education law introduced in 1986 that required local governments to ensure that all children receive nine years of free education. Nor has there been enough money to cope with the more than threefold increase in the number of tertiary students since 1999, to some 15m today. By 2010, this is expected to rise to 25m. Schools and universities have been turning to banks for help, which has encouraged them to raise fees and other charges even higher in order to meet interest payments. Many universities are now saddled with large debts that are likely to turn into bad loans.
As a proportion of GDP, government spending on education hardly changed at all in the 1990s. A target set in 1993 of raising this to 4% of GDP by 2000 has yet to be achieved. The aim now is to reach this level by 2010. According to a recent OECD study, China’s total spending on education, including both government and private as a proportion of GDP, was just ahead of India’s in 2001. But it was lower than in several other Asian developing countries with a similar age structure, such as Thailand and the Philippines. Government spending in India was higher as a proportion of GDP than in China.
Compounding the problem has been the huge share of the spending burden that is borne by the lowest levels of government. For rural governments, the obligation to provide schooling for all has meant devoting the lion’s share of their budgets to the task. In many cases it has still been insufficient. In poorer areas teachers often go unpaid for months, and school buildings unrepaired. Recent central-government efforts to reduce the tax burden on rural folk have left many local administrations even shorter of cash. This year the government announced that, by the end of 2007, fees would be entirely abolished at rural schools, given rising dropout rates in poorer areas. But it is unclear who will pay for this. Local governments fear that they will again be left with the tab.

But who will pay?
A recent report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found that the “commercialisation” of education had led to “a serious collapse of its public reputation”. The education ministry appears to have no clear idea of how to separate state-funded schools and universities from their new private add-ons. The recent revision of the education law will—when it takes effect in September—ban local governments from “changing the nature of state schools”. This has been interpreted as meaning that setting up quasi-private schools will be prohibited. But the official media have expressed some scepticism, suggesting there would be strong resistance from state schools as well as from private ones affiliated with state institutions. The revised law also says that fees will be scrapped, but does not suggest who will pay for the policy.
A ministry spokesman caused an uproar in March when he clumsily compared education to shopping for clothes, saying it was natural that “a well-off man can go to a brand-name store to buy a 10,000 yuan suit, while a poor person can buy a 100 yuan suit from a vendor.” At least China’s clothing market, unlike the education sector, is not dominated by a state monopoly with little concern for the majority of its customers.

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