The Concept Of State, The Logic Of The Market And Public Education

The public educational system came into being and developed at a time of industrial economy. It was given a connotation of commonweal and monopolization for the industrial society's pursuit of democracy of political life and the industrialization of economic life. After the 1980s, as industrial economy gradually transformed into knowledge economy, human beings were faced with a deep reform from industrial society to post-industrial society. The impact of social transformation forces education to keep its independent development; at the same time, it calls for reflection and reform. During the transformation period, an important direction in the reform of the western public schools is: the educational system becomes market-oriented, and the political-administrative mode changes into the economy-market mode.The political-administrative educational system sticks to the principle of fairness and equality and attaches great importance to the interest of the community and the identity of culture; while the market-oriented reform of the public schools calls for rights of the individual to choose education, laying great emphasis on the free transaction and minimum economic results. The market-oriented reform, to some extent, reflects the re-structure of the relation structure of education; thus causes the relation of a country and education to transform into the triangle relation of country, market and education.The reform aims to re-collocate and balance the public educational rights. It involves the re-recognition of commonweal and marketisation, efficiency and fairness of the of public schools, as well as the re-evaluation of the educational function of the country. This manifests in the contradiction between the national notion of public education and the market logic. However, the analysis for the process of the nationalism of education since the 20th century indicates the high unity of this seeming contradiction. Market does not weaken the educational function of the country. As a new interfering strategy, it strengthens the trend of the nationalism of education. But the connotation of public education is defined in a new way: it is not complete public goods, but puasi-public goods in property; in form, it is not only the educational rights of the country, but the rights group combined together by the power and rights of all the behavior subjects including schools, teachers, parents, children and social communities.Public schools in China are involved in the marketisation under the influence and the promotion of economic and political reform. What should be pointed out is that, when we reflect the reform of public schools in western countries we should consider the differences of educational background between china and these countries. Different educational background indicates different "flavour, colour and form"; and this difference, which constitutes the cultural vitality of a people, is what the developing countries should take into account when they learn from the developed western countries. At the time of planned economy, the operating mechanismand management mode of the educational system of China conforms to the mode of the planned economy. This educational system, shrouded in a nationalistic mythology, is one with the high unity of country and education. Education, lacking of the independence, stays in a state of extensive politicization.Based on the comparison between the marketisation of public schools in China and those in the western countries and the reflection of the public schools in China, this dissertation proposes that the challenge for the public educational system of China during the transformation period is: with the involvement of market, the country can no longer monopolize education; and with the transformation of the function of the government, the all-round administration of education may no longer exist. The re-evaluation of the relations of country, market and public education enables the new public educational system to have clear property rights and multi-subjectives. Led by the...